On the day the world celebrates the wonderful emotion of love, it is important to remind ourselves of what healthy love looks like. But first, we have to understand what goes into love in the first place.
Sternberg’s Theory of Love
Love comes in many forms and intensities. People love each other in different ways for different reasons. In Anastasia Belyh’s article,”The Psychology of Love: How to Love and Be Loved,” she examines different theories of love. According to Robert J. Sternberg’s triangular theory of love, there are three main components to love.
- “Intimacy, which refers to the caring, closeness, connectedness and emotional support within a loving relationship.
- Passion, or the states of physiological and emotional arousal that lead to romance and sexual consummation and satisfaction, and other related phenomena.
- Commitment or Decision, where these two are differentiated by the outlook. Commitment takes the long-term view, referring to the commitment to maintain the love in a relationship. Decision, on the other hand, is short-term oriented, since it involves the conscious choice and recognition of loving someone.”
There are many different combinations of Sternberg’s three components that make up different types of love.
- “Non-love – This type of love is low on all three components: there is very little intimacy, the amount of passion is very minimal, and there is neither a decision to love someone nor a commitment to sustain it. It is what one would see between two casual acquaintances.
- Liking – In this type of love, there is only one component at play, and that is intimacy. Both revel in their closeness and connectedness, and they greatly count on each other for emotional support. They share their pains and experiences, but that is all there is.
- Infatuation love – Passion is the only component at work here. This is something commonly seen in purely physical or sexual relationships, where there are no emotions involved and, therefore, no strings attached.
- Empty love – This involves commitment and nothing else. The partners are resigned to staying together even when they are not inclined to care for each other or get close enough to provide emotional support, and they don’t even feel any physical attraction toward each other. This is often seen in marriages entered into for purely business reasons.
- Romantic love – This is high on both intimacy and passion. Physical attraction is present, and their emotions are also involved. However, it does not necessarily mean they will readily admit and decide that they are in love, and that they will keep that love going.
- Companionate love – This is when both are emotionally involved with each other, and they are keen on keeping their love going for the long term. Best friends have this kind of love, especially when they openly express to make their friendship last forever.
- Fatuous love – The love they feel is mostly based on how they connect on a physical and sexual level, and they use that to commit to staying together in a relationship they can see lasting for a long time.
- Consummate love – This is the type of love that has all three ingredients, regardless of the ratio or proportion.”
What’s in a Healthy Relationship?
It’s one thing to be in love, but an incredibly important part of a relationship is making sure you and your partner love each other in a healthy way. According to Dr. Lisa Firestone’s article “What It Really Means to be in Love,” the elements of a healthy loving relationship include:
- “Expressions of affection, both physical and emotional.
- A wish to offer pleasure and satisfaction to another.
- Tenderness, compassion, and sensitivity to the needs of the other.
- A desire for shared activities and pursuits.
- An appropriate level of sharing of possessions.
- An ongoing, honest exchange of personal feelings.
- The process of offering concern, comfort, and outward assistance for the loved one’s aspirations.
She also warns against forming a “fantasy bond.” A fantasy bond is “an illusion of fusion in which real feelings of fondness and attraction are replaced by the form of being in a relationship. In other words, we come to see ourselves and our partner as a single unit.” When partners start to not recognize their significant others as separate from themselves, it is a slippery slope to the downfall of a relationship. If the two people in the relationship view the other as having the same wants and needs and not respecting their individuality, the other person will stop receiving the unique things they need from the other and “fall into roles.” Dr. Firestone explains that in a fantasy bond situation, “the behavioral operations of love are replaced with a fantasy of being in love, which does not nurture either partner.”
From A Mind Map Perspective
In the beginning of our lives, we fall in love with our primary caregivers. Through those attachments, if they are healthy, we form deep feelings of bonding and connection. If we are able to separate and individualize from our primary caregivers, these healthy connections allow us to bond with others later in life. Reactions to this calm childhood environment are soothing and blooming of our individual selves. If all goes well, we encode good messages about ourselves, the world, and how to love and be loved. If we are wounded by our parents inflicting one of the five childhood wounds on us (physical abuse, verbal abuse, sexual abuse, abandonment, and smothering), it will interfere with our blueprint for healthy love.
When we encode negative messages about love instead, we pick partners who are not good for us because they come from a bad blueprint. They will trigger our painful memories and negative beliefs stemming from our childhood wounds and lead to chaos and breakdowns. If we want to clean the slate and heal, we have to clear our minds of the poisonous negative beliefs. Only then will there be room in your life for healthy love. Reexamine the painful memories of your past and dismantle the negative beliefs that formed out of them. Let people into your life who will nurture you and help create a better blueprint for love than the one you got in Part 1 of your life.
