Marcus Rashford is back with first love - why are we drawn to childhood sweethearts?

A decade on, first loves are often little more than rose-hued memories - or sources of regret. But for some, the appeal of the 'childhood sweetheart'- the first person ever to make your heart race - never fades.

If you're astonishingly famous, perhaps, it's even more likely that you'll turn to the person who knew you before celebrity struck. Just look at Wayne and Colleen Rooney, who met at school and have stuck it out despite certain indiscretions - or Michael J Fox and Tracey Pollen who met way back in the early '80s, before Back to the Future was a twinkle in a director's eye, and are still happily married.

Author Stephen King, 74, met wife Tabitha as a teenager at the University of Maine, and they've been together since.

Singer Bono met wife Ali Hewson aged 15, and they're still together forty years on, while Prince William met Kate at St Andrews University- and after a brief split, they've now celebrated their tenth wedding anniversary and have three children.

The younger generation of celebs are just as likely to return to their first love, too, it seems, as Marcus Rashford MBE, 24, has just confirmed that he is back with long-term girlfriend Lucia Loi.

After eight years together, the couple reportedly split in February 2021 due to lockdown pressures, and many assumed that first love had run its course.

At the time, a source said of the couple, who met at Ashton on Mersey school in Trafford, "after eight years together, Marcus and Lucia have made the mutual decision to part ways.

'There is a strong mutual love and respect for one another, having met at school, and there is a continued dialogue with the hope of a reconciliation in the future."

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This week, however, the football icon and campaigner uploaded a series of new snaps to Instagram, showing that things are very much back on.

Another friend told Mail Online, "They have a shared history. She is one of the people who knows him best. They got back together before Christmas and are taking things slowly."

Lucia, who works for a PR firm in Manchester, has often been seen supporting Rashford at England games.

He posted a series of sweet images of himself and Lucia cuddling, in a glamorous hotel lobby, and one of the couple posing together looking happy on holiday, Rashford in a bucket hat, Vuitton top and gold chain, and Loi in a white bikini top and shorts.

He captioned the images "Through thick and thin", with star, sun and heart emojis.

Fellow England player Kyle Walker commented with two heart emojis, while fans rushed to congratulate the couple on their rekindled romance.

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But it's not just celebs who find that second-time-around is possible with their first love.

"I ended up with my first boyfriend after not seeing each other since we were 16," says grief recovery specialist Lucy Herd. "We met again when we were 36.

"I believe he knew the good the bad and the ugly about me and he knew me through teenage mood swings, and the silliness of being a teenager."

After personal tragedy, she adds, "he came back into my life after my son died and my relationship had broken up, as had his, and we just reconnected as though no time had passed."

Her story isn't unusual- back in the Noughties, a website called Friends Reunited which put old schoolmates in touch, caused an epidemic of marriage break-ups as thirty and forty-somethings rediscovered their first loves and left their new partners to be with them. So why are we so compelled by our teenage romances?

"When I was researching the effects that adolescence has on teenagers brains, I learned that the new synapses created during these years become stamped more strongly in our memories than those which we create afterwards," explains Caroline Jacobs, Adolescent Wellbeing Coach for Teen Boys and Young Men.

"That's why our emotions feel more intense when we are teenagers and why we can still feel the rush of excited hormones when thinking about our first love, many years later."

But, she adds, "of course this doesn’t mean that our memories are necessarily correct or the your first love is the right one to rush back to when later relationships break down.

"Lots of people fall into this situation and get disappointed when that person doesn’t live up to the magic of their own memories. However there are times when it is truly ‘meant to be’ and the teen First Love sparks again!"

One set of studies, Changing Relationships, from leading sociologists, edited by Dr Malcolm Brynin, looked at the phenomenon, and Brynin warned, "If you had a very passionate first relationship and allow that feeling to become your benchmark for a relationship dynamic, then it becomes inevitable that future, more adult partnerships will seem boring and a disappointment."

He went on,"The problems start if you try not only to get everything you need for an adult relationship, but also strive for the heights of excitement and intensity you had in your first experience of love.

"The solution is clear: if you can protect yourself from intense passion in your first relationship, you will be happier in your later relationships."

Or do what Rashford and Lucia have done - and simply don't break up in the first place.

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