The honeymoon, in truth, has lasted longer than most do.

This is Steve Cohen’s third full year as the Mets’ owner. The team won 101 games last year, which was nice. Cohen has declared, from the jump, that the Mets were back in the big-market business, which was better, and he understands that not only means romancing big-ticket free agents (and, as important, retaining their own) but creating a state-of-the-art infrastructure, which is probably the most important thing.

So he’s gotten the big stuff right. But he’s also gotten the little stuff right. He brought Old-Timers’ Day back last summer, which was an unmitigated hit. He opened the previously vapor-sealed lid on honoring team history, as both Jerry Koosman’s 36 and Keith Hernandez’s 17 have gone on the roof, with others likely to follow. He’s hung out with the 7 Line.

He wanted to establish his dueling bona fides, deep professional pockets mixed with a deep personal affinity for the franchise. He’s done that, too.

But his baseball team is a mess right now. He sees it, because you see it, because it is impossible not to see it. The standings don’t lie: an inexplicable seven games under .500 entering Wednesday night’s game with the Brewers; an inexcusable 8 ½ games out in the wild card; an already insurmountable 16 ½ games south of the Braves.

It rankles him. Because it rankles you.

“I watch all the games,” he said, “so I know.”

What he also knows is that his grace period is quickly evaporating. In what amounted to the first official midseason state-of-the-Mets address of his tenure Wednesday afternoon, he laughed wearily when he was reminded of his bold opening-salvo proclamation that he expected a championship in three to five years.

And, well … this is Year 3.

“It’s hard to win the World Series,” he said, and that wasn’t meant to be either a wistful acknowledgment or a concession, just a statement of fact. Remember those dueling bona fides: as a fan, of course he sees the talent in the room, and of course he can close his eyes and hope for the 17-3 20-game stretch that can turn the season inside-out.

But the owner sees harsh realities: if that doesn’t happen (and it probably won’t happen), the Mets need to maximize the Aug. 1 trading deadline as much as possible. They need to get their operation fixed. Cohen will need to make calls, hard ones, about Billy Eppler and Buck Showalter, as well as whether he wants to throw another $400 million at a team that will be, at least in portion, in something of a reboot — if not a rebuild — next year.

Cohen said many things Wednesday that not only underlined he understands what is necessary, but also reaffirmed there’s a new sensibility. The Mets have already proven they’ll pay off as much of a contract as possible to ensure that the prospects they get in deals — such as the two pitchers they got for Eduardo Escobar — are as valuable as possible, a distinct break from the latter-day Wilpons.

“I already look at [those contracts] as spent money,” Cohen said with a shrug.

Unlike several recent example when the Mets talked themselves into foolishly being buyers rather than sellers — the Victor Zambrano for Scott Kazmir deal in 2004, for instance, or the Marcus Stroman deal in 2019, or the Javy Baez deal in 2021 — he assured that if he sees little hope for a genuine push in August and September, he’ll greenlight an exodus.

“All is not lost yet,” he said, “but it’s getting late.”

In addition to declaring Eppler and Showalter safe for the year, he brought up without prompting the hunt for a president of baseball operations is ongoing. With the Brewers in town, it’s a good moment to remember that ex-Brewers GM David Stearns has seemed a sound fit for a while now, and he’ll be free to be pursued come October. And that person will, at the least, oversee Eppler on the corporate flow chart, if not completely usurp him.

“I’m a patient man,” Cohen said, more than once. “It’s important to make the right hire, because the wrong one will set you back five years.”

It will be interesting to see how fans who’ve mostly embraced Cohen will react to his measured and reasonable insights. Nobody is pleased with where the Mets are right now, and that includes the Mets fans who buy tickets and the Met fan who pays the bills, and losing big money on the deal (he laughed when asked how much, and said, “More than a breadbasket,” with the kind of shrug only a man with his means could muster).

The honeymoon has lasted this far. Now comes the facts of baseball life after the plane lands from Niagara Falls. Cohen the owner is angry, and it seems Cohen the fan is even madder than that, because all Mets fans are mad. Can he fix it, as he promised?

Well, put it as plainly as Steve Cohen would: He’d better.