“It was a purposeful love.” A friend of mind recently made this statement to me as I described a personal experience on this topic. This phrase resonated with me because I had to take time and reflect on what that meant. What is love? What does it mean to love another person? What does it mean to love purposefully? The concept of love continues to excite, confuse, and frustrate many people today. I’m here to try and make sense of some of the information out there.
How do you recognize love when you are in its presence? I once thought being in love meant I would experience fireworks; like in the movies where you know instantly at first sight that this person was meant to be with you. I thought I would be filled with passion and excitement, that my every being would be consumed with thoughts of this person. If I didn’t experience that, I must not be in love. Through the years I’ve learned that all-consuming passion isn’t always a determining factor of love. Indeed, love is a powerful force, but it is also quiet, nurturing, and respectful. There is something to be said regarding that quiet fortitude of love, its unwavering strength in the face of challenges that every relationship experiences, the limitlessness of its capacity to give despite the hardships a couple will endure. By recognizing this strength that love has, experiencing it can sometimes be downright scary.
Robert Sternberg, a psychologist from Yale University, came up with what is described as a “triangular theory of love.” Based on this theory, love is made up of 3 components: intimacy, passion, and decision/commitment. Intimacy refers to the bond created within a relationship. Passion refers to the “drive that leads to romance, physical attraction, sexual consummation, and related phenomena”. Decision/commitment is in reference to the active decision to commit to the other person and to the relationship as well as concluding that the person loves the other. Without these three parts of the triangle, your love is sure to suffer and it takes a conscious effort to maintain all three parts of this triangle. Love is more than just an emotion that you experience, it is an actionable word.
Intimacy within a relationship is something that grows. As you and your partner continue to spend more time together, your attachment to each other grows stronger as you continue to share experiences, ideas about the world, and ideas about your future. You feel more comfortable with that person. In order to create and maintain intimacy within a loving relationship you must be mindful of how much of yourself you are investing into it. “Am I spending enough time with my parter?” “Am I sharing enough of myself with my partner?” “What are some barriers I have within myself that is preventing me from being closer to my partner?”
Passion can be more than just the physical and sexual attraction to a partner. People often think about passion as a fiery spark ignited when you are attracted to someone. Passion goes beyond that; when you believe in a concept or someone else, passion is what motivates you to take action. To put this concept in more concrete terms, I can tell you that I am passionate about climbing. I believe that I can be an amazing climber so I often read articles about it, I talk about it with other climbers, and I engage in the activity of climbing on a regular basis. I believe that climbing is more than just a sport; it’s an art, it’s a dance, it stimulates my mind to figure out problems. Translate that into relationships: when you believe that your relationship is worth fighting for, that this is more than just sexual attraction and your partner is someone who will add to your life, passion can motivate you to actively work on the relationship. If you believe in the relationship and your partner, passion will drive you to act above and beyond what you would normally do for others.
Commitment is about fulfilling promises on an ongoing basis. This can be through promising you will remain faithful to that person, promising you will change a certain behavior, or a promise to do something for that person. Commitment is a daily act for your partner and your relationship. How committed are you to make changes to improve on the relationship? This question involves regular honest reflection of how much you are investing into your loving relationship.
Being able to experience these parts of the triangle of love also starts with yourself. How can one maintain commitment to another person if he or she cannot commit to themselves? Commitment to oneself means to recognize personal worth, what you are deserving of and expecting nothing less. It’s easy to accept a situation and succumb to the idea that you can’t change it; this concept is “learned helplessness”, which is a belief that you are powerless to a situation. But you can change your circumstances; if you believe in yourself and expect to receive what you are worth you will find the passion to create that change for yourself. To simply accept circumstances for what they are will only continue to perpetuate your feelings of unhappiness, which in turn will affect your relationship and your commitment to your partner.
The ability to create intimacy within a relationship also begins with you. Allowing yourself to feel closeness leaves you vulnerable to being hurt. It’s never a guarantee that being vulnerable to another person will breed positive results; how scary is that? If you have experienced hurt in the past, it can actually prevent you from building an intimate relationship with another if you fear experiencing that hurt again. Allowing fear to determine your path and happiness in life will only prevent you from experiencing what true intimacy is. Having the courage to push past that fear and recognize the resilient human being you are who has risen above that hurt once before can allow you to begin taking steps to build intimacy within your relationships.
Having passion involves motivation and hope. How do you motivate yourself to do things within your own life? What gives you hope? This involves knowing that you are worth the things that you strive for; without this, how can you truly have passion within your relationship?
Understanding the concept of love starts from within. Realizing that you must be courageous, hopeful, and motivated to work at love are the foundation of building a strong and healthy relationship with someone, including yourself. Recognizing your personal worth, your ability to be compassionate towards yourself, and the courage to accept nothing less than what you know you deserve translates to a purposeful love for yourself and for the person you choose to share this love with.
Reference:
Sternberg, R.J. (1986). A triangular theory of love. Psychological Review, 93 (2). Retrieved from http://pzacad.pitzer.edu/~dmoore/1986_sternberg_trianglelove_psyrev.pdf
Love this!! ❤️ Well said Zoe!