Romantic ideals notwithstanding, many people doubt the staying power of passionate love. Does the fire within a relationship burn hot and bright over time, or is it just a passing infatuation? Comparisons of couples at different stages of their relationships and longitudinal studies that measure changes in the same couples over time have suggested that intense, sexual, passionate love does tend to diminish somewhat over time. Yet this decline is not clearly defined or inevitable. Bianca Acevedo and Arthur Aron (2009) meta- analyzed past survey research and asked couples who had been together for vary- ing lengths of time questions about passionate love. They found that although the initial “obsessional” aspect of passionate love clearly diminishes in long- term relationships (“I sometimes find it difficult to concentrate on work because thoughts of my partner occupy my mind”), there is a “romantic” aspect that often endures (“I would rather be with my partner than anyone else”).