HOW WE FALL IN LOVE
THE SCIENCE & ANCIENT WISDOM BEHIND THE FIVE SENSES OF LOVE™
Is this just a beautiful idea—or is there research behind it?
The Five Senses of Love™ is a Merkl Marriage educational framework and professional synthesis.
It is not a scientific theory, and it does not claim that five specific behaviours can make someone fall in love, become attracted to you, or save a relationship.
That distinction matters.
The framework brings together ideas from relationship research, intimacy research, sensory science, attachment research and longstanding human expressions of love—and translates them into something couples can notice, explore and practise.
Because there is something easy to forget when relationships become difficult:
Connection isn't experienced only through words.
We experience the people we love through sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell.
We notice a face.
We recognize a voice.
We remember a touch.
We experience a kiss.
We recognize a familiar scent.
These sensory experiences don't operate independently of the relationship around them. They become part of how we experience attention, safety, affection, desire, familiarity and closeness.
Modern research is helping us investigate pieces of this.
Human beings have been expressing and reflecting on it for thousands of years.
And this is where the Five Senses of Love™ begins.
THE RESEARCH BEHIND THE FIVE SENSES
HEARING
Feeling understood can matter to desire
Imagine telling your partner something vulnerable.
You don't necessarily need advice.
You don't need them to prove you wrong.
You may simply want to know:
“Do you understand me?”
That experience has a name in relationship research:
Partner responsiveness.
Researchers have studied what happens when people perceive a romantic partner as understanding, validating and caring.
The findings are particularly interesting when it comes to desire.
A 2016 study involving three studies found that greater perceived partner responsiveness was associated with greater sexual desire. The researchers proposed that feeling understood, validated and cared for may contribute to feeling special and valued within the relationship.
Other research has also examined how perceived partner responsiveness relates to sexual and relationship well-being.
This does not mean:
“Listen to your partner and they will become sexually attracted to you.”
Relationships are far more complicated than that.
But it does suggest something worth paying attention to:
Sometimes the road back to desire begins with feeling understood.
Hearing asks:
Am I listening to understand—or listening to defend?
Because sometimes the most intimate thing you can say is:
“Tell me more.”
TOUCH
Affection is more than foreplay
Touch can become so ordinary that couples stop noticing it.
A hand reaching across the bed.
A hug in the kitchen.
Holding hands while walking.
Sitting close on the couch.
A hand on a shoulder.
A kiss goodbye.
None of these necessarily mean sex.
Sometimes touch simply communicates:
“I'm here.”
Research involving 7,880 participants across 37 countries found a positive association between affectionate touch and reported love in romantic relationships. The finding was observed across two studies and remained after accounting for potentially relevant factors.
That is interesting because affectionate touch isn't simply a sexual behaviour.
It can be part of the ordinary language of romantic connection.
But there is an equally important part of the conversation:
Touch must remain welcome.
Affection isn't something one partner is entitled to receive.
LOVE NEVER OVERRIDES CONSENT.
Research on intimacy and sexual responsiveness also emphasizes responsiveness to each partner's needs, preferences and boundaries.
So the Five Senses of Love™ isn't asking:
“How can I touch my partner enough to make them attracted to me?”
It asks:
“How can we create more opportunities for safe, welcome affection?”
Those are very different questions.
SIGHT
Looking can be a form of connection
There is a difference between looking at someone and seeing them.
Couples can live together for years and become visually familiar with one another.
The face is familiar.
The body is familiar.
The routine is familiar.
And yet something can happen:
attention disappears.
Phones become more interesting.
Television becomes more interesting.
The day's problems become more interesting.
The person sitting beside us can become almost invisible.
Research in romantic contexts offers an intriguing clue.
A 2024 speed-dating study used mobile eye-tracking during brief romantic encounters involving 60 participants across multiple speed-dates. Greater shared eye contact was associated with subsequent partner choice.
But there is an important limitation:
This research examined early romantic encounters—not established marriages.
So we should not turn it into:
“Eye contact will bring back your attraction.”
It doesn't establish that.
What it does offer is an interesting reminder:
Attention is communicated through the eyes.
So perhaps the relationship question is:
When was the last time you really looked at your partner?
Not to evaluate them.
Not to check whether they're changing.
Not to search for flaws.
Just:
“There you are.”
TASTE
Kissing can tell us something
Kissing is easy to underestimate.
For some couples, it gradually becomes shorter.
Then less frequent.
Then occasional.
And sometimes it disappears almost entirely.
A couple may still function perfectly well as a household while quietly losing some of the experiences that remind them:
We are lovers—not only partners in life administration.
Research has found associations between kissing and relationship and sexual experiences.
One study of 878 people who had been in romantic relationships for at least two years examined kissing in relation to sexual and overall relationship satisfaction and dissatisfaction. Kissing measures were associated with relationship and sexual outcomes, although the study does not establish that kissing itself causes greater satisfaction.
That distinction matters.
So this isn't:
“Kiss more and your marriage will improve.”
It is a more interesting question:
“Have we stopped being affectionate because we've become disconnected—or have we become disconnected partly because affection has disappeared?”
Research cannot give us a simple answer to that question.
But it gives us a reason to ask it.
Perhaps the first question isn't:
“Are we having enough sex?”
Perhaps sometimes it is:
“Are we still affectionate?”
SMELL
Your partner has a sensory signature
This may be the most surprising—and one of the most fascinating—areas of the Five Senses of Love™.
Think about how recognizable your partner can become.
Their perfume.
Their shampoo.
Their skin.
Their clothing.
Their pillow.
Their natural scent.
Sometimes you can recognize someone before you see them.
Research suggests that human scent can carry meaningful social and emotional information.
In a 2018 experiment involving 96 women, exposure to a romantic partner's scent was associated with lower perceived stress during anticipation and recovery from an acute stressor.
Another study found that romantic-partner body odour reduced subjective discomfort during a stressful task, with some physiological effects depending on attachment security.
But this is exactly where scientific humility matters.
A newer 2026 study involving 179 people found different results, with partner scent increasing subjective stress and heart rate under that study's experimental conditions, while cortisol was unaffected.
So the honest conclusion isn't:
“Your partner's smell reduces stress.”
The evidence is more interesting than that.
Our sensory experience of a romantic partner may carry emotional and relational information—but the effects are complex, individual and still being studied.
And perhaps that is enough to make us curious.
Your partner isn't only someone you know intellectually.
Your brain also encounters them through:
their face.
their voice.
their touch.
their kiss.
their scent.
their presence.
WHAT THE RESEARCH ACTUALLY TELLS US
This is where we need to slow down.
The Five Senses of Love™ is informed by research.
But research has limits.
The evidence supporting the individual components of the framework varies considerably in strength, study design, population and context.
The research does NOT prove that:
practising all five senses will make your partner fall in love again
using touch will automatically restore attraction
eye contact will restore desire in a long-term marriage
kissing causes relationship satisfaction
your partner's scent will reduce your stress
sensory connection can repair every relationship problem
the Five Senses of Love™ itself is a scientifically validated treatment model
And it doesn't need to.
The value of the research is elsewhere.
It gives us evidence that some of the experiences represented within the framework are meaningfully associated with human intimacy, affection, responsiveness, desire or relationship experience.
The evidence is stronger in some areas and more preliminary in others.
That distinction matters.
We don't need to turn interesting research into exaggerated promises.
We can simply let the research make us more curious.
HUMANS HAVE BEEN CURIOUS ABOUT LOVE FOR THOUSANDS OF YEARS
Modern relationship science is relatively young.
Human intimacy isn't.
Thousands of years before attachment theory, neuroscience or relationship therapy, people were writing about love.
Ancient Egyptian love poetry from the New Kingdom, particularly the Ramesside period around 1295–1070 BCE, explored love from deeply personal and often explicit perspectives. The poetry used imagery drawn from flowers, fruit, honey and the physical world to express attraction, longing and devotion. Some of these poems may have been intended for oral performance or song.
They weren't conducting randomized controlled trials.
They didn't have modern neuroscience.
They didn't have the language of partner responsiveness.
They weren't proving a five-part model.
But they were expressing something profoundly human:
Love is not only an idea in the mind.
It is experienced through the senses, emotions, memories and body.
And ancient Egyptian love poetry wasn't alone in treating intimacy as embodied and sensory.
Ancient Indian traditions of love and intimacy also devoted substantial attention to kissing, embracing, touch and sensual experience.
These traditions should not be presented as scientific evidence.
They are something different:
Historical evidence of how human beings have long understood and expressed intimacy.
FROM ANCIENT OBSERVATION TO MODERN RESEARCH
This is where the Five Senses of Love™ becomes interesting.
We have two very different bodies of knowledge.
Ancient human expression:
“This is what love feels like.”
And modern research:
“Let's investigate why these experiences might matter.”
Neither replaces the other.
Ancient poetry isn't a scientific experiment.
A scientific study isn't a love poem.
But together they remind us of something easy to lose in modern relationships:
Human connection is embodied.
We don't only communicate through sentences.
We communicate through:
where we look.
whether we turn toward each other.
whether we listen.
whether we reach.
whether affection feels welcome.
whether we kiss.
whether we create sensory memories together.
THIS IS WHERE THE MERKL FRAMEWORK BEGINS
The Five Senses of Love™ does not claim to have discovered five magical ingredients for attraction.
It is a Merkl Marriage synthesis.
It brings together:
Relationship research
What researchers are learning about responsiveness, intimacy, desire and relationship functioning.
Sensory science
What research can tell us about how sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell contribute to human experience.
Attachment and intimacy research
What research suggests about responsiveness, emotional connection and felt security within relationships.
Ancient human observations
How people across history have described love through the senses.
And then comes the most important step:
We make it practical.
Because knowledge is useful.
But knowledge that couples can actually use is more useful.
FROM KNOWING TO PRACTISING
The Five Senses of Love™ is not a checklist where you receive five gold stars for being a good partner.
It isn't:
“I hugged you today, so why aren't you attracted to me?”
It isn't:
“I listened to you, so now you owe me affection.”
It isn't:
“I've done all five. Fix your feelings.”
That would turn connection into a transaction.
Instead, the framework asks:
“What am I choosing to bring into this relationship?”
That question is deeply connected to the Merkl Relationship Map™.
FROM PROTECTION TO LOVE
When relationships become painful, people often move into protection.
The Protection Wolf™ asks:
“How do I protect myself?”
We may criticize.
Defend.
Blame.
Control.
Pursue.
Withdraw.
Interrogate.
Keep score.
Shut down.
Sometimes these behaviours are attempts to get something we deeply want:
love.
reassurance.
respect.
closeness.
security.
And this creates what Merkl Marriage calls the:
PROTECTION PARADOX™
The very strategies we use to protect ourselves can sometimes create the disconnection we are trying to prevent.
You want closeness.
You criticize.
You want reassurance.
You interrogate.
You want your partner to care.
You withdraw to see whether they'll chase you.
You want affection.
You demand it.
And suddenly:
the relationship becomes the battlefield.
The Five Senses of Love™ offers another possibility.
Not:
“How do I make my partner change?”
But:
“What can I choose?”
THE FIVE SENSES THROUGH THE MERKL RELATIONSHIP MAP™
PROTECTION
I need to protect myself.
↓
AWARENESS
Something is happening between us.
↓
RESPONSIBILITY
What is mine to own?
↓
CONNECTION
Can I turn toward you?
↓
INTIMACY
Can I let you closer?
↓
LOVE
How can I protect what matters?
The Five Senses become practical expressions of that movement.
SIGHT
I see you.
HEARING
I want to understand you.
TOUCH
I reach for you—with consent.
TASTE
I remember our affectionate connection.
SMELL
I notice the familiar world we've created together.
These aren't promises.
They're invitations.
THE DEEPER QUESTION ISN'T “HOW DO I GET THE SPARK BACK?”
That question makes sense.
When you're lonely in a relationship, you want something back.
The excitement.
The desire.
The tenderness.
The feeling of being chosen.
The feeling of being wanted.
But there is a deeper question underneath it:
“What kind of relationship are we creating through the choices we make every day?”
You cannot control your partner's feelings.
You cannot manufacture desire.
You cannot force intimacy.
You cannot make someone choose you.
But you can choose:
whether you turn toward them.
whether you listen.
whether you remain curious.
whether you offer welcome affection.
whether you create room for romance.
whether you repair after disconnection.
whether you stop treating your partner as the enemy.
And sometimes that is where your agency begins.
THE LOVE WOLF™ VS. THE PROTECTION WOLF™
The Protection Wolf™ asks:
“How do I protect myself?”
The Love Wolf™ asks:
“How do I protect what matters?”
The Love Wolf™ is not blind trust.
It isn't pretending everything is fine.
It isn't tolerating mistreatment.
It isn't abandoning boundaries.
And it isn't giving endlessly while receiving nothing.
Love can include:
boundaries.
honesty.
accountability.
vulnerability.
compassion.
responsibility.
connection.
Sometimes protecting what matters means moving closer.
Sometimes it means having a difficult conversation.
Sometimes it means setting a boundary.
Sometimes it means seeking professional help.
And sometimes it means recognizing that safety has to come before intimacy.
WHAT IF MY PARTNER DOESN'T RESPOND?
This is where responsibility must never become blame.
You are not responsible for another person's feelings.
You are not responsible for another person's choices.
You are not responsible for emotional abuse directed toward you.
And changing your own behaviour does not guarantee that your partner will change.
The Five Senses of Love™ cannot promise that.
Instead, personal responsibility asks a smaller—and more useful—question:
“What is mine to choose?”
Maybe your partner responds.
Maybe they don't.
Maybe the relationship needs repair first.
Maybe there has been betrayal.
Maybe resentment has accumulated over years.
Maybe affection no longer feels emotionally safe.
Maybe there are sexual concerns that need individual attention.
Maybe one or both partners have become deeply disconnected.
Sometimes the senses aren't the beginning of the work.
Sometimes safety, accountability and repair have to come first.
That isn't failure.
It's information.
THE FIVE SENSES ARE NOT FIVE TRICKS
This may be the most important distinction of all.
The Five Senses of Love™ is not:
a manipulation strategy.
a seduction formula.
a guarantee of attraction.
a replacement for counselling.
a way to pressure your partner into affection.
a way to make yourself responsible for the entire relationship.
It is an educational framework for exploring intentional connection.
And there is a profound difference between:
“How can I make you feel something?”
and
“How can I become more intentional about what I bring?”
The first tries to control another person.
The second gives you something you can actually work with.
THE QUESTION THAT CHANGES EVERYTHING
Perhaps the most important question isn't:
“How do I get my partner to love me again?”
Perhaps it is:
“How can I intentionally create more opportunities for connection?”
That question doesn't promise an outcome.
It creates an opening.
And that is what the Five Senses of Love™ offers.
Not manufacture of love.
Not forced attraction.
Not a guarantee of a happy ending.
A way to become more intentional about opportunities for two people to experience one another again.
To look.
To listen.
To reach.
To kiss.
To notice.
To remember.
To become curious.
To reconnect.
THE MERKL PERSPECTIVE
At Merkl Marriage Counselling, the goal isn't to tell couples who is right or who is wrong.
It's to help them understand what is happening underneath the pattern.
Because:
You are not each other's enemy. The pattern is.
The Five Senses of Love™ is one part of that larger perspective.
The Merkl Relationship Map™ helps you understand where you are.
The Protection Wolf™ and Love Wolf™ help you notice what you are protecting.
Responsibility helps you examine what is yours to own.
And The Five Senses of Love™ offers a practical way to begin exploring opportunities for connection.
ONE LAST THING
You don't have to become a different person.
You don't have to recreate the first year of your relationship.
You don't have to force yourself to feel something you don't feel.
You don't have to pretend everything is okay.
You don't have to ignore what hurts.
Sometimes the first step is simply becoming curious again.
Look at your partner.
Listen.
Notice.
Reach—when it is welcome.
Remember affection.
Create something new together.
And ask:
“What have we stopped experiencing with each other?”
Because sometimes love hasn't disappeared.
Sometimes the relationship has simply become so crowded by protection, stress, resentment and routine that connection has become difficult to feel.
And sometimes the way back doesn't begin with a grand romantic gesture.
Sometimes it begins with turning toward each other.
THE SCIENCE DOESN'T GIVE US A MAGIC FORMULA
And perhaps that's the most important conclusion.
There is no study that can promise:
“Do these five things and your partner will fall in love with you again.”
Real relationships are more complex than that.
But research can give us clues.
Ancient human expression can give us perspective.
And an educational framework can help us turn knowledge into reflection and practice.
So the Five Senses of Love™ doesn't ask you to believe in magic.
It asks you to become curious about something much more human:
How do we experience love—and what happens when we intentionally create more opportunities to experience it together?
That is where the Merkl framework begins.
Protection → Awareness → Responsibility → Connection → Intimacy → Love
And sometimes:
The way back to each other begins with learning how to notice each other again.
SOURCES & FURTHER READING
The research supporting individual components of the Five Senses of Love™ includes work on partner responsiveness and sexual desire, affectionate touch and love, eye contact and mate choice, kissing and relationship satisfaction, and romantic-partner scent and stress responses.
The evidence varies by topic, study design, population and context. Individual findings should therefore not be interpreted as scientific validation of the Five Senses of Love™ framework as a whole.
For historical context, research and museum scholarship on Ancient Egyptian love poetry provides examples of how love, longing and attraction were expressed through sensory imagery. Ancient Indian traditions of love and intimacy also contain extensive descriptions of kissing, embracing, touch and sensual experience.
These historical traditions provide cultural and historical context—not scientific evidence for the framework.
A note about evidence
The Five Senses of Love™ is a Merkl Marriage educational framework and synthesis. It is not a validated scientific treatment protocol, and it does not claim that the five senses cause romantic attraction or relationship satisfaction.
Its purpose is educational: to help couples think differently about the sensory, emotional and relational experiences that can be part of connection.
Love never overrides consent.
Where there is abuse, coercion, intimidation or an absence of emotional or physical safety, safety and appropriate professional support take priority over exercises intended to increase intimacy.
MERKL MARRIAGE COUNSELLING
Marriage & Relationship Counselling in Langley, BC & Online Across British Columbia
You don't have to understand everything about your relationship to know something isn't working.
Start where you are.
Explore the Merkl Relationship Guide™ or book a free 20-minute consultation to begin a conversation about what is happening in your relationship and what may be within your control to change.
MERKL PERSPECTIVE
You can't choose your feelings. But you can choose what you do with them.
And you cannot choose what another person feels.
But you can choose what you bring to the relationship.
That isn't a promise of an outcome.
It is an invitation to participate.
Simone Merkl, RTC, Merkl Marriage Counselling, Langley, BC & Online Across British Columbia
Free 20-minute consultation → contact/booking page
Merkl Relationship Map™ → Map page
Fall Attraction Reset™ → attraction resource
Protection Wolf™ vs Love Wolf™ → Wolf page
Responsibility Breakthrough™ → responsibility resource
If you want to read for yourself:
Research behind each sense
Sense | Research source | What it supports |
Hearing | Birnbaum et al. (2016), Journal of Personality and Social Psychology | Partner responsiveness was associated with sexual desire. PubMed — Intimately Connected |
Hearing | 2023 review on partner responsiveness | Reviews evidence connecting feeling understood, validated and cared for with the sexual/relational arena. PubMed — Partner Responsiveness Review |
Touch | 2023 cross-cultural study, 7,880 participants across 37 countries | Affectionate touch was positively associated with reported love toward romantic partners. PubMed — Love and Affectionate Touch |
Touch | 2022 experimental study | Examined affectionate touch and relational well-being/stress during conflict. PubMed — Affectionate Touch During Conflict |
Sight | 2024 eye-tracking speed-dating study | Shared eye contact predicted subsequent partner choice in brief romantic encounters. PubMed — Eye Contact & Mate Choice |
Taste | 2022 study of 878 people in relationships of at least two years | Kissing was associated with relationship and sexual satisfaction measures. This is correlational, not proof that kissing causes satisfaction. PubMed — Kissing & Relationship Satisfaction |
Smell | 2018 study of 96 women | Romantic partner scent was associated with lower perceived stress during an acute stressor. PubMed — Partner Scent & Stress |
Smell | 2018 attachment/scent study | Partner body odour was associated with reduced subjective discomfort, with some effects related to attachment security. PubMed — Scent of Security |
Smell | Review of body odour and romantic relationships | Reviews emerging evidence concerning smell, attraction, relationship maintenance and relationship breakdown. PubMed — Body Odours & Romantic Relationships |
Ancient wisdom sources
For the Egyptian section, I would link to the Metropolitan Museum of Art rather than relying on a general website. Their material on Egyptian love poetry provides strong historical context for the sensory imagery found in these poems. The Metropolitan Museum of Art — Egyptian Love Poetry
You can also use Fordham University's historical source collection for translations/context of Egyptian love poetry. Fordham University — Ancient Egyptian Love Poetry
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