When Love Ends

"The way to love anything is to realize that it might be lost." - G.K. Chesterton

*note:  This is the last part in my love series of: What Love Is; When Love Begins; What Love Does; When Love Ends. I’ve been reading these three books about love since last summer, and I’ll be sharing their insights for four weeks. In a brief overview, The 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman, a marriage counselor for over 40 years, is about the different ways we receive and show our love. Why We Love? by prominent anthropologist Helen Fisher, Ph.D examines love from a biological and chemical level, and focuses a lot on what’s happening in our brain. Lastly, The Art of Loving by Erich Fromm, renowned psychoanalyst and social philosopher, is a classic that explores the deep complexities of love.

            The story of Cinderella has been retold countless times throughout centuries and different cultures. There are constant adaptations to it, and yet it remains a timeless classic. I’ve always wondered why this particular fairy tale is still so popular and known. Regardless of whether you like this story or not, it portrays a truth about love that we all long for and anyone can relate to. The prince was in a crowded ballroom with many gorgeous women of high rank and status, all pining for his attention. Yet, out of everyone in the room, only one caught his eye. We live day to day meeting many people, some who would make ideal partners, some who wouldn’t, and yet we end up only wanting one person. Finding that one person is not easy. What if Cinderella never would’ve shown up? Would the prince have picked someone else to marry? Would he have fallen in love, or lived loveless?

            There are so many factors that go into finding the right person to fall in love with. Fisher explains that timing, proximity, and mystery are only a few of the ingredients. She says we all have a love map that is built up by our experiences, the way we were raised, our lifestyles, religious and political beliefs, etc. Commonly, we seek people who are like ourselves, but who are still mysterious to us. We generally seek “the same ethnic, social, religious, educational, and economic background, who have similar amount of physical attractiveness, a comparable intelligence, and similar attitudes, expectations, values, interests, and social and communication skills,” says Fisher (pg. 103). Those are a lot of ingredients, which is why love can be so hard to find, and why we hold on desperately when we find it.

            I’ve dated different people, and have had many crushes. I’m a very hopeful person, and every new prospect excites me. Despite my hopefulness, I’ve learned that it’s very hard to find someone who I can really like, and far more difficult to fall in love. There have been three guys in my life who I was inexplicably absolutely crazy for, yet I only had a relationship with one of them, which was my first relationship. When I had moved on from that relationship, I thought it’d be easy to find someone else amazing. It’s not. For the other two guys, other circumstances were at work. For one, he was emotionally not ready for a relationship. The other was not ready to commit and just wanted to have fun. It was bad timing. Throughout my experiences, I’ve learned a truth about love: it sucks, it’s not easy to find, but it’s still worth seeking.

            Love makes us so hopeful, and the widespread popularity of online dating can attest to the fervent search for love that many seek. Fromm wisely comments, “There is hardly any activity, any enterprise, which is started with such tremendous hopes and expectations, and yet, which fails so regularly, as love” (pg. 4). Fisher adds that there are two basic types of romantic love: “reciprocated love - associated with fulfillment and ecstasy; and unrequited love - associated with emptiness, anxiety, and sorrow" (pg. 25). There are also different types of rejected love – either your love was never returned, the other person stopped loving you, or obstacles kept you and your beloved apart. Fisher says, “Almost no one in the world escapes the feelings of emptiness, hopelessness, fear, and fury that rejection can create” (pg. 153). Almost every person has been on either end of rejected love, doing the rejecting or being rejected. Fisher cites that “Among college students at Case Western Reserve, 93 percent of both sexes reported that they had been spurred by someone they passionately loved. Ninety-five percent also said they had rejected someone who was deeply in love with them” (pg. 153).

            On the rare chance that we find love, it makes us blissfully happy and crazy. And, as I mentioned in previous posts, the in love experience is temporary and either fades into the end of the relationship or to a more committed one. When it fades, Fromm explains, “The two persons become well acquainted, their intimacy loses more and more its miraculous character, until their antagonism, their disappointments, their mutual boredom kill whatever is left of the initial excitement. Yet, in the beginning they do not know all this: in fact, they take their intensity of the infatuation, this being "crazy" about each other, for proof of the intensity of their love, while it may only prove the degree of their preceding loneliness” (pg. 4). Then the relationship ends, and the lovers have to part, which is possibly the saddest experience we can ever know. Fisher quotes Emily Dickinson about this experience, who said, “Parting is all we need to know of hell.”

            When I first fell in love, and then lost that love, I became certain that we as humans were only meant to stay with and love one person for our entire life. The emotional and physical attachment you feel when in love, combined with the complete agony of separation just led me to believe that we were not meant to experience such pain. Yet Fisher has found that humans are among only 3 percent of mammals who pair up to raise their offspring. Further, it’s common for parents (human or animal) to separate after the child is old enough to fend for his/herself. “Everywhere in the world where people are permitted to divorce (and economically can divorce), many do,” says Fisher (pg. 132).

            In studying the trends of separation, she found that “couples around the world who divorced, tended to part during and around the fourth year of marriage, in their middle twenties and/or with a single dependent child” (pg. 133). There were many exceptions to this, but this looked like a common pattern. From her data, and from the experiences of all the failed relationships that happen in or outside of marriage, it just seems like love is most often destined to fail rather than succeed. When that love fails, we go through two necessary stages: protest and resignation.

            Protest, the first stage of heartbreak, is when we are “overcome by longing and nostalgia.” After all that wasted time and energy finding and securing our partner, when it’s over, we’re willing to fight to get it back. Fisher says, “they devote almost all of their time, their energy, and their attention to their departing mate. Their obsession: reunion with their lover” (pg. 161). When your love has been rejected, all you desire is to be with your loved one again, which causes you to do some crazy and irrational things, searching for the smallest sign that things can work out again. Protesting is correlated with the first three stages of grief, which are denial, anger, and bargaining. The reason for this protest is that all the chemicals associated with romantic love – dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin – increase to potent levels, “intensifying ardent passion, fear, and anxiety, and impelling us to protest and try with all our strength to secure our reward: the departing loved one” (pg. 163). Similar to the way a glass of alcohol can make your feel at ease and happy, but too much can make you lose control and do irrational things you'll regret later.

            A lot of side effects are happening in this stage, which Fisher explains on a chemical and psychological level. You experience frustration attraction, which is when your romantic passion intensifies because there is an obstacle. When you feel your partner slipping from you, you get a renewed energy to keep them with you. This can also be applied to the beginning stage of love. When the one you love is out of reach, or you have to work really hard to get them, your passion is inflamed. Fisher explains that when an expected reward is delayed, the dopamine-producing neurons in your brain work for an extended period of time, which increases your levels of dopamine. “Very high levels of dopamine are associated with intense motivation and goal-directed behaviors, as well as with anxiety and fear,” says Fisher (pg. 162). Basically, when you can’t have the object of your love, your dopamine levels rise to increase your motivation to obtain this love.

            When a relationship has ended, you’ll also experience separation anxiety, which is “generated by the panic system in the brain - a complex brain network that makes one feel weak, short of breath, and panicky” (pg. 163). I remember once experiencing this anxiety very clearly the day after my first relationship ended. I was eighteen, and my mom went to work, taking the car with her. I woke up realizing how alone I was, and tried calling all of my friends. I was shaky and had trouble breathing. When only one answered, but was busy, I panicked even more. I dreaded the thought of staying home all day being left alone with my thoughts and my pain. I had to get out of my house. So, I walked 15-20 minutes to my uncle’s house, because I knew even if he wasn’t home, there’d be a lot of comforting animals there (plus I had a key to his house).

            Abandonment rage is the most interesting and complex thing that happens to us after our love has been rejected. Love and hate are intricately linked in our brains. The circuits for both follow pathways that run through similar regions in the brain. Rage is triggered in the prefrontal cortex and amygdala when an expected reward is in jeopardy or unattainable (pg. 164). Our brain functioning drives us to try to get something or someone we want. When we can’t have it, we get mad, like when a child can’t have a toy. Frustration-aggression is the “rage response to unfilled expectations” (pg. 164).

            What’s really interesting about this rage is that it serves a really important purpose. Many psychologists have theories about this purpose, but Fisher’s seems the most accurate. Its purpose is “to drive disappointed lovers to extricate themselves from dead-end matches, lick their wounds, and resume their quest for love in greener pastures” (pg. 166). Think about how mad you get after a relationship has ended, or someone has rejected you. Usually, you’re filled with thoughts like, “I never want to see him/her again;” “I want nothing to do with that person.” You need to get angry, so that you don’t go back to them, because the relationship probably ended for a reason, and should stay ended. Or that person doesn’t want to be with you anymore, so rage helps you to stop trying to go after someone who it’s never going to work out with. It’s nature’s “powerful purgative mechanism to help us release a rejecting mate and get on with living,” says Fisher (pg. 167).

            When all the fueled hectic emotions of the protest stage fade, you’ve come to the second stage, which is resignation and despair. In the five stages of grief, this would be depression, the fourth step. This is the stage where the disappointed lover gives up. Your energy to try to get your old love back is spent. You suffer from the despair response, which is the “deep sadness and depression triggered by loss of a loved one” (pg. 168). Fisher found that “in a study of 114 men and women who had been rejected by a partner within the past eight weeks, over 40 percent were experiencing "clinically measurable depression"; of these, some 12 percent displayed moderate to severe depression” (pg. 168). Chemically, your brain is responding to hopelessness. Fisher says, “As the abandoned partner gradually realizes that the reward will never come, the dopamine-making cells in the midbrain (that became so active during the protest phase) now decrease their activity. And diminishing levels of dopamine are associated with lethargy, despondency, and depression” (pg. 170).

            Just like rage has a purpose in our healing and moving on process, so does depression. Some scientists believe that the original intention of depression is shown in abandoned infant mammals. It was “to conserve stamina, discourage them from wandering until their mother returns, and keep them quiet and thus protected from predators” (pg. 170). Fisher believes that depression pushes us to abandon hopeless relationships, so that we can pursue other successful ones. Just like anger pushes you to not want anything to do with your former lover, once that anger subsides, then depression makes sure you remain hopeless about any prospect with him or her. Sadly, this hopelessness is projected to life and love in general. It reminds me of The Princess Bride when Buttercup says, “I will never love again.” We truly believe these words in our despair.

            There are better benefits to depression than mere hopelessness, which doesn’t seem like a benefit at all when you are experiencing it. Fisher says, “Mildly depressed people make clearer assessments of themselves and others... Even severe and prolonged depression can push a person to accept unhappy facts, make decisions, and resolve conflicts that will ultimately promote their survival and capacity to reproduce” (pg. 172). The whole purpose of depression after you’ve lost a loved one, is to help you to move on to someone better, or more suited for you. While you are in love, you can’t think straight, and believe that the person you’re with is nearly perfect. When it has ended, anger drives you away, and sadness helps you reflect and learn. During this depression is when you can reach the final stage of grief, which is acceptance, though it’s a very long and difficult process to get there.

            Fisher says many psychologist believe that love is an addiction, “a positive addiction when your love is returned, a horribly negative fixation when your love is spurned and you can't let go” (pg. 182). Interestingly, “drugs of abuse” and love both directly or indirectly affect the same pathway in the brain, the mesolimbic award system, which is activated by dopamine. Brain scans of people in love compared to those who just injected cocaine or opioids show that many of the same brain regions become active.

            Lovers show the three classic symptoms of addiction, which are tolerance, withdrawal, and relapse (pg. 183). In the beginning of your love, you’ll crave your partner and can’t get enough of them. If the partner ends the relationship, “the lover shows common signs of drug withdrawal, including depression, crying spells, anxiety, insomnia, loss of appetite (or binge eating), irritability, and chronic loneliness” (pg. 183). Then the rejected lover goes through unhealthy and humiliating lengths to get their “narcotic.” When lovers relapse, it’s the same way that drug addicts do, “Long after the relationship is over, simple events... can trigger the lover's craving and initiate compulsive calling or writing to get another "high"” (pg. 183).

            Is there any end to heartbreak and can people truly move on? Yes, because people do it every day. Fisher explains that there are a lot of things you can do to help you get over a former love, but the first and most important thing is to get rid of everything that reminds you of him or her and end all contact. She quotes Charles Dickens who said, “Love... will thrive for a considerable time on a very slight and sparing food.” Another really important concept to use comes from any 12-step program, “One day at a time.” And of course, the dreaded true advice that everyone gives is time. Fisher reassures us that, “your addiction to a former lover will eventually subside. We heal. Sometimes it takes a few weeks. More normally it takes months. Often it takes more than two years of separation” (pg. 191).

            “People never forget a true love, of course,” says Fisher (pg. 192). I also believe that true love never truly dies. I’ve written about my first love in a post called, “Do you ever forget your first love?” and I’ve mentioned him enough times throughout different posts. That’s because he will forever be important to me. A couple years after our break up, we spoke to each other and both admitted that we would always love each other, just not in the same way we once did. I'm not the only one who believes love lasts forever. An old coworker who was a little over forty had just ended a twenty year marriage when I met her. She was full of rage when she spoke about her ex-husband, but she also told me that it's because she would always love him. It didn't mean she would ever be with him again, nor did she want to. In fact, because she loved him, she wanted nothing to do with him.

            Firsts love shape how you love, and sometimes even who you end up loving. Though I haven’t lived an easy life, my break up with my first love is probably the most agonizing pain I’ve ever suffered. I was depressed for months. I felt hollow inside for weeks. I remember feeling like someone had brutally torn a limb from my body. My biggest fear was that I wouldn’t ever find love again. It took two years for me to move on from him, and another year to let go of the thought of ever having him back in my life. Though I’ve never known a pain like separating from him, and I would never want to relive it, it was completely worth it, because it meant that I loved just as deep as my pain went.

            Fromm says that to love, you need faith and courage. He explains, “To have faith requires courage, the ability to take a risk, the readiness even to accept pain and disappointment” (pg. 116). To truly love someone is one of the bravest things anyone can ever do. It is the risk of allowing someone else to hurt you in a way no one else can. Fromm adds, “while one is consciously afraid of not being loved, the real, though usually unconscious fear is that of loving. To love means to commit oneself without guarantee” (pg. 118). When you let yourself love someone, you can’t make them love you back. If they do love you back, you can’t make them love you the right way. And if their love for you ever ends, you can’t make it return. All you can do is have faith, trust, and hope that you find what you’re looking for.

            Chapman notes, “Love doesn't erase the past, but it makes the future different” (pg. 132). If you are ever lucky enough to find love, it will be the best thing that has ever happened to you. If that love ever ends, it will be the worst. Regardless of what happens, it will change you. If you’ve ever lost a love, don’t give up hope, because Fisher says, “of all the cures for a bad romance, by far the most effective is to find a new lover to fill your heart” (pg. 192). Your lost or rejected love was a learning experience at the least, and now you can begin anew. Fisher has studied passionate love and rejected love across different cultures and people, and she provides the most reassuring insight I’ve come across – “We were built to love and love again” (pg. 152).

Sources:

The 5 Love Languages the secret to love that lasts by Gary Chapman

Why We Love? by Helen Fisher

The Art of Loving by Erich Fromm

What Love Does

“Perfect love is rare indeed – for to be a lover will require that you continually have the subtlety of the very wise, the flexibility of the child, the sensitivity of the artist, the understanding of the philosopher, the acceptance of the saint, the tolerance of the scholar and the fortitude of the certain.” – Leo Buscaglia

*note:  This is the third part in my love series of: What Love Is; When Love Begins; What Love Does; When Love Ends. I’ve been reading these three books about love since last summer, and I’ll be sharing their insights for four weeks. In a brief overview, The 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman, a marriage counselor for over 40 years, is about the different ways we receive and show our love. Why We Love? by prominent anthropologist Helen Fisher, Ph.D examines love from a biological and chemical level, and focuses a lot on what’s happening in our brain. Lastly, The Art of Loving by Erich Fromm, renowned psychoanalyst and social philosopher, is a classic that explores the deep complexities of love.

            I think the best explanation of love is in the Bible, 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 (NIV):

“4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 8 Love never fails.”

            It’s a beautiful and perfect description of love because it both describes what love is and what it does. The biggest misconception we have about love is that it is an emotion, or a feeling. The truth is, you can love without feeling in love. Fromm explains that this is because, “Love is an activity, not a passive affect; it is a "standing in," not a "falling for”” (pg. 21). Chapman explains something similar when he says, “We can recognize the in-love experience for what it was – a temporary emotional high – and now pursue “real love”…” (pg. 33).

           Chapman has explained the difference between the beginning stages of love, and then the real work of love. He explains, “At the heart of humankind's existence is the desire to be intimate and to be loved by another,” and “the euphoria of the “in-love” state gives us the illusion that we have an intimate relationship” (pg. 22 & 32). While we are first falling in love, we become so obsessed with our partner, and especially with wanting to do anything to make him or her happy. It makes us feel like a new person, a better person, even saintlike, because we are willing to sacrifice almost anything for him or her. “Such obsession gives us the false sense that our egocentric attitudes have been eradicated and we have become sort of a Mother Teresa, willing to give anything for the benefit of our lover,” says Chapman (pg. 32). It’s true that being in love can change us, and we also see the other through rose colored glasses. But this selfless sainthood feeling eventually fades (unless you’re actually saintlike). I once heard it takes six months to see the real person you’re with, because whether they intend to or not, they put their best foot forward at the beginning. Beginnings are temporary and not often true.

            Chapman says, “Little by little, the illusion of intimacy evaporates, and the individual desires, emotions, thoughts, and behavior patterns assert themselves” (pg. 32). When this happens, either the relationship will end, or will become stronger and so much more real. “In fact, true love cannot begin until the “in-love” experience has run its course,” says Chapman (pg. 34). This is where choice comes in. While in love, you are being carried along by all the dopamine rushing through your head, to the point where you can’t even think straight and your actions don’t even seem like your own. But once the high fades, you can choose how you will love. You can even choose to do these things during the craziness of that emotional high, but it’s not real love unless you continue to act loving even when you don’t feel like it, even when you don’t feel like you love your partner.

            Fromm explains, “the active character of love can be described by stating that love is primarily giving, not receiving” (pg. 21). He says that there is big misconception on the concept of giving. People think that giving means ““giving up” something, being deprived of, sacrificing.” Fromm says the best thing that we can give to others is part of ourselves and of our lives: “he gives him of that which is alive in him; he gives him of his joy, of his interest, of his understanding, of his knowledge, of his humor, of his sadness – of all expressions and manifestations of that which is alive in him” (pg. 23). If you are afraid to give of yourself in this way, then you are afraid to love. When you are giving as an act of love, you are revealing something intimate and personal about yourself, and you are allowing another soul to see it. That’s what love must be like.

            You are giving of yourself for the benefit of both yourself and another person. It should enhance both your lives, such as when a teacher teaches a student, and is rewarded by the outcome. If you love someone, you are willing to put in the work to help them grow, and to make them feel loved. “The essence of love is to "labor" for something and "to make something grow," that love and labor are inseparable. One loves that for which one labors, and one labors for that which one loves,” explains Fromm (pg. 26).

            Chapman gives us really good practical ways to “labor” for our love. He explains that we all have love tanks, which are filled and fueled by love. When you feel loved, your love tank is full, which means you can also give love out. Like putting gas in a car so that it can drive. When your love tank is empty or low, you don’t feel loved and it’s a lot harder to keep the car running smoothly. You’ll probably experience more breakdowns and other problems. The key to understanding love languages is that they all about what makes someone feel loved. You can love the heck out of someone and do everything you can to show it, but unless it’s in their love languages, they will still feel unloved. Love tanks run on feeling loved. You can spend all day at a gas station, but unless it’s filling you with the right fuel, you’ll still be empty.

            The five love languages are: words of affirmation, quality time, gifts, acts of service, and physical touch. If you would like to discover your love language, or your partner’s, you can take the test by clicking here.

Words of Affirmation

            Words of affirmation has to do with using your words to compliment, show kindness, encouragement, and helping your significant other feel appreciated. As a word person, one of my favorite things is to hear compliments. I could live off of them and never get tired of hearing nice things. That’s why I loved living with my roommates in college, because every day they would tell me I was intelligent, sexy, funny, awesome, etc. A real big ego booster, and I loved them for it. Hearing nice things like that every day made me so happy, and feel very loved. It was part of the reason I loved coming home to them, because they were never negative toward me with their words.

            Compliments aren’t the only way you can use words to make someone feel loved. Chapman says the word encourage means "to inspire courage." When you are trying to encourage someone with your words, it requires empathy and seeing the other person’s perspective. You have to understand why they need the courage, what they feel they are lacking, or what they are afraid of. Chapman says, “With verbal encouragement, we are trying to communicate, "I know. I care. I am with you. How can I help?" We are trying to show that we believe in him and in his abilities. We are giving credit and praise” (pg. 43).

            Love also uses kind words. Chapman references the Bible when he says, “Love doesn't keep a score of wrongs. Love doesn't bring up past failures” (pg. 44). You can use your words to be hostile, or you can use your words to be kind. If you are with someone whose love language is words of affirmation, your unkind words can hurt more than you know. Using unkind words involves placing blame and bring up past faults. Chapman says that when you forgive, your words should show it. He gives this example, “I love you. I care about you, and I choose to forgive you… I hope that we can learn from this experience. You are not a failure because you have failed… together we will go on from here” (pg. 45).

            The most important thing you can do with your words is make requests, not demands. Chapman explains that we demand things of children because they don’t know how to make adult decisions yet, but our partners are not children or beneath us in any way. Chapman says, “When you make a request of your spouse, you are affirming his or her worth and abilities. You are in essence indicating that she has something or can do something that is meaningful and worthwhile to you.” When you make a demand, your partner will feel belittled, because you have eliminated their choice to show you their love. A partner who is responding to demands is not expressing love, because it is an act of fear or guilt.

            One of our deepest human needs is the need to feel appreciated, according to psychologist William James, and our words are one way to enact that. Writing down compliments and words of encouragement and kindness will also be incredibly meaningful to someone with this love language. Whenever my friends or family write nice things to me in cards, or texts, I save them so that I can look back at them later whenever I feel like I need to hear something nice. It reminds me that I’m loved even when I’m not being told in the moment.

Quality Time

            Though words of affirmation are important to me, my primary love language is actually quality time. Nothing is more important to me than someone making the effort to spend time with me,  andgiving me their undivided attention. Likewise, the worst thing someone can do to me is blow me off, or simply never make me a priority in their life. Quality time can be divided in different “dialects” as Chapman calls them, and every love language has them. No matter the dialect, at the core of this love language is giving someone your undivided attention.

            Focused attention is a key ingredient for quality time. My friend was telling me about how she wished her boyfriend would spend more time with her. Even though he would help out her family, and chill with her on the couch when they had free time, she still felt like she needed something from him. Throughout our talk, she kept repeating that she couldn’t stand the stupid game he would always play on his phone whenever they had moments alone together. We discovered that what really got her mad was that he was paying attention to it and not her. He thought they were spending time together, but she wanted his undivided and focused attention.

            People with this love language may often crave quality conversation, which is "a sympathetic dialogue where two individuals are sharing their experiences, thoughts, feelings, and desires in a friendly, uninterrupted context” (pg. 60). “Words of affirmation focus on what we are saying, whereas quality conversation focuses on what we are hearing,” Chapman adds (pg. 61). The important part of this dialect is that you are asking questions, being sympathetic, and trying to understand the other’s thoughts, feelings, and desires. Truly listening to your partner can be the most effective way of letting him or her know that you care. Your main goal is to understand and sympathize, not give advice or criticize. As important as listening is, it’s equally important to contribute your own thoughts and feelings, or else it ceases to be a conversation, and your partner can still feel uncared for.

            Quality activities are also important, where “the emphasis is on being together, doing things together, giving each other undivided attention” (pg. 69). The activity can be anything that one or both of you have an interest in. Chapman says the essential ingredients are, “(1) at least one of you wants to do it, (2) the other is willing to do it, (3) both of you know why you are doing it – to express love by being together” (pg. 69). An important aspect of quality activities is having a positive attitude about what you two are doing together, whether it’s something you want to do or not.

Gifts

            “Gifts are visual symbols of love,” and can be the easiest love language to learn, according to Chapman. For people with this love language, it doesn’t matter how expensive the gift is, but just knowing that you were thinking about them. The fact that you thought about them enough to actually get a gift and give it is what means so much. Even if this love language isn’t primary for you or your partner, you may be surprised to discover how important it’s been throughout your relationship. For example, there could be something someone has given you that you’ve saved for a very long time. Though gifts aren’t important to me, I still like to keep all of the stuff my little sister has made for me throughout the years. I show her that I still have them as she gets older, so that she knows I thought her gift was important to me.

            Chapman says, “Almost everything ever written on the subject of love indicates that at the heart of love is the spirit of giving” (pg. 83). For some people, it may be hard to give gifts because of money. If your partner truly has this love language, the cost of the gift won’t matter. You can make it, or pick a flower, or write a song, or doing anything creative and thoughtful. It’s also important to remember that if you have the money to spend, but would rather spend it on more important things, or save it, understand that buying a gift for your loved in is an investment in them. You are making them feel loved, which is more important than a few extra dollars in the bank. You don’t have to spoil or overindulge, just show that you understand gifts are important to them.

            You can also give the gift of yourself, your physical presence. This love language is all about having something tangible, whether it’s something you can hold, or someone you can touch. Chapman explains, “Physical presence in the time of crisis is the most powerful gift you can give if your [partner’s] primary love language is receiving gifts. Your body becomes the symbol of your love” (pg. 82).

Acts of Service

            Chapman explains acts of service as doing things you know your loved one would like you to do. Your goal is to love your partner by doing things for them. But just as I mentioned earlier, love cannot be demanded only requested, because love is freely given. If your partner is not showing their love by acts of service, criticizing and demanding it will only drive a wedge. It will create guilt, bitterness, and resentment.

            From my own experience, I lived with someone who had this love language, and his constant badgering and my constant failure to do simple tasks only made me feel like a horrible person. If I hadn’t done a chore, I would avoid him for the whole day feeling guilty, and like he would think less of me. In a contrasting experience, my mom has learned to be an expert requester. She uses words like, “It would be really helpful if you did this for me.” She doesn’t say it condescendingly, but instead makes me feel like she would be very appreciative. I still don’t like doing chores, and don’t always do them, but when I do a chore for my mom, I am happy to do it because I know she will be thankful. And she always lets me know that she is.

            I think this love language is particularly tricky, but the most important thing is to listen to what your loved one is requesting. Chapman points out that you can do many things for your loved one, but it’s possible that they can be all the wrong things and their love tank will not be filled. Paying attention to what your loved one particularly needs, no matter how simple or difficult, is the key to filling their love tank. Just as a side note, broken promises can be the most hurtful to people with this love language, because if you promise to do something, they are really expecting you to do it.

            A big pitfall for this love language is becoming a doormat for your loved one, working relentlessly for them, and resenting them afterward. If you are a doormat, your acts of service are not done out of love, but out of fear, guilt, and resentment. “A doormat is an inanimate object... it can be your servant but not your lover,” says Chapman (pg. 101). It is wrong to treat your partner as an object, to manipulate by guilt, or coerce them by fear into doing things for you. That is not love, and if your partner obeys, they are not acting out of love either. Likewise, “Allowing oneself to be used or manipulated by another is not an act of love” (pg. 102). Instead, love says, “I love you too much to let you treat me this way. It’s not good for you or me” (pg. 102).

            Chapman explains, “Only one thing is certain about our behavior: It will not be the same behavior we exhibited when we were caught up in being "in love”” (pg. 100). So, though it may have come easy to do acts of service and go the extra mile while in love, it will not be so easy once the feeling has faded. Then it becomes your choice to continue to make your partner feel loved. Chapman says, “Each of us must decide daily to love or not to love our [partners]” (pg. 100).

Physical Touch

            For physical touch, “Holding hands, kissing, embracing, and sexual intercourse are all ways of communicating emotional love...” (pg. 107). Like all other languages, it requires paying attention to what your partner needs and wants. There are touches your partner will like, and ways to be touched that they won’t like. Chapman explains that someone with this love language thinks this: “Whatever there is of me resides in my body. To touch my body is to touch me. To withdraw from my body is to distance yourself from me emotionally” (pg. 110). The worst thing you can do to someone with this love language is withhold your touch, or never be the first to reach out to them.

            People may confuse sexual desire as the need for physical touch. Though sexual intercourse is a sexual activity both partners can enjoy, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s your love language. If you don’t enjoy physical touch at other times in nonsexual ways, it probably isn’t your love language.

            Chapman explains that there are explicit and implicit forms of touch. Explicit touch demands “your full attention, such as in a back rub or sexual foreplay.” This kind of touching takes more time, “not only in actual touching but in developing your understanding of how to communicate love” (pg. 109). Implicit touches take only a moment, and can involve putting your hand on their shoulder, a quick passing kiss on the cheek, or placing a hand on the other’s leg while sitting together. Even though implicit touching doesn’t involve a lot of time, it involves a lot of thought, because you should find any opportune moment to touch your partner.

            Though everyone has a primary and secondary love language that is most important to them, all five pertain to everyone. For example, gifts is the least important to me, but that doesn’t mean I never want gifts. I love receiving flowers, chocolate, and thoughtful presents. Once you figure out your partner’s love language, you may find that it is not your own and could be difficult for you to enact. To that, Chapman says, “when an action doesn't come naturally to you, it is a greater expression of love… [because] love is something you do for someone else, not something you do for yourself” (pg. 138). It easy to express love in your language, but real love asks that you express it in your partner’s language.

            Whatever your love language, it is important to practice being loving. As Chapman says, when the “in love” feeling fades, then actual effort and work are required to keep the love alive. This is why Fromm says that love is like an art, something to be practiced and mastered. Like anything we are trying to learn and master, Fromm says we need discipline, concentration, patience, and to make love our supreme concern. Above all, practicing love requires faith and courage. It takes a courageous person to step outside of their comfort zone in order to make someone feel loved in the right way. Fromm says, “What matters in relation to love is the faith in one's own love; in its ability to produce love in others, and in its reliability” (pg. 114)

            Fromm says that love requires care, responsibility, respect, and knowledge. With care, “Love is the active concern for the life and the growth of that which we love” (pg. 25). “To be "responsible" means to be able and ready to "respond,"” explains Fromm (pg. 26). Respect is “the ability to see a person as he is, to be aware of his unique individuality” (pg. 26). It means you will not exploit or use them to serve you. Knowledge requires concern and the ability to see someone else on their own terms. It means that you are seeking to learn what is at their core, and not just what they show on the surface.

            If you are to gather anything from this post, it’s that love is an activity done for others. It requires a lot of work. Fromm says it’s “a constant challenge; it is not a resting place, but a moving, growing, working together” (pg. 96). There are many ways to show your love and to practice it. If you are loving the right way, it should produce more love. The love you give will fuel love in others, but the love you withhold will also leave them empty. Chapman says, when “we choose to be kind and generous, that is real love” (pg. 34).

Sources:

The 5 Love Languages the secret to love that lasts by Gary Chapman

Why We Love? by Helen Fisher

The Art of Loving by Erich Fromm

When Love Begins

"Love is like an hourglass, with the heart filling up as the brain empties." - Jule Renard

*note:  This is the second part in my love series of: What Love Is; When Love Begins; What Love Does; When Love Ends. Click on this link if you first want to read What Love Is. I’ve been reading these three books about love since last summer, and I’ll be sharing their insights for four weeks. In a brief overview, The 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman, a marriage counselor for over 40 years, is about the different ways we receive and show our love. Why We Love? by prominent anthropologist Helen Fisher, Ph.D examines love from a biological and chemical level, and focuses a lot on what’s happening in our brain. Lastly, The Art of Loving by Erich Fromm, renowned psychoanalyst and social philosopher, is a classic that explores the deep complexities of love.

            I was talking with a co-worker about her recent break-up, and she was saying how depressed she was the week after it ended, but that over time she got better. Now, she’s just mad at him for everything that happened. She went on to complain about a lot of things, but eventually admitted that it wasn’t always bad. It was really good at the beginning. I could relate, because I shared with her about my recent break-up. The end for me was filled with a lot of hurt, but the beginning was so nice.We lost sleep just to spend time with each other, we wanted to see each other every day, we went on a lot of dates, we tried to do stuff the other person liked, and we had a lot of fun. Beginnings are great, even if they don’t last.

            But before I go on further about what beginning love is like, it’s first important to discuss what needs to happen before we can even reach love. Before we can even fall in love or meet someone who we potentially can love, we need to believe that we are lovable – capable of being loved and capable of loving. Fromm says, “Most people see the problem of love primarily as that of being loved, rather than that of loving, of one's capacity to love” (pg. 1). He adds, “People think that to love is simple, but that to find the right object to love - or to be loved by - is difficult” (pg. 2). It’s in so many chick flicks, and sadly also in everyday life. We search and search for the right person to fall in love with. When we can’t find love, we think we haven’t found the “one,” but Fromm argues that we don’t find love because we aren’t working on loving others. I think it’s combination of being lovable and finding the right person.

            So what does it mean to be lovable? According to Fromm, our culture believes it’s “a mixture between being popular and having sex appeal” (pg. 2). In actuality, he argues that love is an art we need to practice to be better at, just like painting or dancing. A painter doesn’t wait around for the perfect thing to paint and then suddenly paint a masterpiece. He practices his skill, so that he can paint a masterpiece when he finds the right thing, or he makes a masterpiece out of something ordinary because he is so skilled and practiced. Love is similar.

            I had a professor who explained our capacity to love by collecting water bottles, cups, and containers of different shapes and sizes and bringing them to a table in the front of the room. She said each cup represented our capacity to love. She explained that every kind and good thing we do for others made our cups bigger, therefore making us capable of holding more love. But with every ill intent we bestowed on others, our cups would get smaller, able to hold less love. I think our actions affect the size and amount of love we can receive and give, but our cups are filled with love from other people.

            In order to fall in love, we need to practice love to become lovable enough for others to fall in love with us. Of course, sometimes practicing love isn’t enough. You can be very lovable and loving toward others, but still be afraid to open up to love with a special other. If you've loved and been hurt before, then it can be very hard to open up to love again. It's also hard to love when you have low self-esteem. You can be perfectly lovable, but if you don’t believe it, it will be incredibly hard to fall in love. You’ll believe you are unworthy of love, and have thoughts like, “Why would anyone want to be with me, let alone love me?” I’ve known more than one person like this, and it’s sad to see wonderful people have this experience.

            I do have a success story about someone who was like this, though – my best friend. As far as I know, she’s been in love twice. For most of her life, she has struggled with low self-esteem and self-loathing. Even though she was loved by others (particularly me), and was a good loving person, I know she’s had doubts about her lovableness. For her, it took finding a wonderful guy to bring out her confidence. I’ve seen her in love when she had low self-esteem and the love was unhealthy and filled with sadness. With her current love, she’s happier, believes in herself more, and is overall more emotionally healthy. She also admits she probably wouldn’t have the relationship she has now if she had tried to be with him when she was at a worse mental and emotional state. She worked on herself first, and then started something. From there, he was able help grow her cup and fill it with love.

            When we finally are at a place when we can fall in love, and find the right person to fall in love with, then the madness, or I’m sorry, the euphoria begins. Though I’m sure Fisher would agree that it is a kind of madness. Her study of love involved two aspects – a questionnaire of 839 American and Japanese people, and brain scans of twenty men and women who were recently happily in love as well as twenty individuals who have recently been rejected by love. Her questionnaire found that across age, gender, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, etc, we all experience love in the same way.

            If you’ve ever questioned what it’s like to be in love, or how to determine whether you are in love, Fisher has formed a nifty lengthy list of the symptoms of love. To go through the entire list would be exhausting and time consuming, so I’ll discuss a few of the important highlights:

• Special meaning: “Your beloved becomes novel, unique, and all-important.” Similar to the way Romeo expressed that “Juliet is the sun,” your world starts revolving around this special person.
• Intrusive thinking: You can’t get your beloved out of your head.
• Aggrandizing the beloved: Doting on all of lover’s good qualities, and even some of their bad ones, while disregarding reality.
• Intense energy: The tremendous energy associated with loss of appetite and sleeplessness.
• Mood swings: “Romantic passion can produce a variety of dizzying mood changes ranging from exhilaration when one’s love is returned to anxiety, despair, or even rage when one’s romantic ardor is ignored or rejected.”
• Yearning for emotional union: “Without this connection to a sweetheart, they feel acutely incomplete or hollow, as if an essential part of them is missing.”
• Empathy: As poet E.E. Cummings wrote, “she laughed his joy she cried his grief.”
• Hope: Lovers are hopeful it will work out until all possibilities have expired. Even after a relationship has ended, they can still have hope years later.
• Sexual exclusivity: “They do not wish to have their ‘sacred’ relationship sullied by outsiders.”
• Emotional union trumps sexual union: “This yearning for emotional togetherness far surpasses the desire for mere sexual release.”

            Basically the cliché appears to be true. When you're in love, you can't eat, sleep, or focus. All you can do is think about the person you love, rearrange your life for them, and hope above all else that they love you back. When you've gone really crazy for them, they are all that matters to you, or at least is the most important thing that matters. You pretty much lose all sanity. Along with these symptoms of love, Fisher says, “Romantic love is deeply entwined with two other mating drives: lust - the craving for sexual gratification; and attachment - the feelings of calm, security, and union with a long-term partner" (pg. 78). Each of these follow different pathways, produce different behaviors, and are associated with different neurochemicals. Time to get into what’s happening in your brain when you’re going crazy with love.

            Fisher’s participants all claimed to have fallen in love within the past seven months. She had them look at a picture of their loved one as their brains were being scanned. Though many parts of the brain became active, two regions seemed to be central to the love experience. The caudate nucleus is the brain’s reward system, which “helps us detect and perceive a reward, discriminate between rewards, prefer a particular reward, anticipate a reward, and expect a reward” (pg. 69). Interestingly, no matter the age, people who were more passionate about their loved one had more activity in this region. Other activity happened in the ventral tegmental area (VTA), a central part of the reward circuitry of the brain. Fisher calls this region the “mother lode for dopamine-making cells,” and it distributes “dopamine to many brain regions, including the caudate nucleus.” As it sends out the dopamine, “it produces focused attention, as well as fierce energy, concentrated motivation to attain a reward, and feelings of elation, even mania - the core feelings of romantic love” (pg. 71). Another study also examined the brain in love with couples who had been in a relationship for an average of 2.3 years. The brain responded differently, but it’s unsure exactly what the brain parts are doing. All that is known is that, “as a relationship lengthens, brain regions associated with emotions, memory, and attention begin to respond in new ways” (pg. 73).

            Dopamine is a key chemical for romantic love, but Fisher theorizes that norepinephrine and serotonin are also involved. Fisher says, “Elevated levels of dopamine in the brain produce extremely focused attention, as well as unwavering motivation and goal-directed behaviors” (pg. 52). Increasing levels of norepinephrine “generally produce exhilaration, excessive energy, sleeplessness, and loss of appetite” (pg. 53). There is a possible connection with obsessive thinking and low levels of serotonin. Fisher says, “As levels of dopamine and norepinephrine climb, they can cause serotonin levels to plummet,” which could explain why “a lover’s increasing romantic ecstasy actually intensifies the compulsion to daydream, fantasize, muse, ponder, obsess about a romantic partner” (pg. 55).

            For centuries, people have been trying to find different ways to arouse the sex drive. Fisher claims, “But nature has made only one true substance to stimulate sexual desire in men and women – testosterone, and to a lesser degree, its kin, the other male sex hormones” (pg. 81). Both men and women have testosterone, and those who have higher levels of it tend to engage in more sexual activity. “Male libido peaks in the early twenties, when levels of testosterone are highest. And many women feel more sexual desire around ovulation, when levels of testosterone increase,” Fisher explains. Interestingly, levels of testosterone are inherited, but many factors go into its variances, such as poor health, overwork, laziness, age, and also what part of the day, week, or year it is. Fisher adds, “In addition to its reproductive purpose, the sex drive serves to make and keep friends, provide pleasure and adventure, tone muscles, and relax the mind” (pg. 78).

            Attachment happens when “the mad passion, the ecstasy, the longing, the obsessive thinking, the heightened energy” all dissolve and transform into “new feelings of security, comfort, calm, and union with your partner” (pg. 87). The hormones associated with attachment are oxytocin and vasopressin, and they are made in the hypothalamus, as well as the ovaries and testes. These are also called the “cuddle chemicals,” because at orgasm men secrete vasopressin and women secrete oxytocin, which is why many people want to cuddle after sex. These two chemicals are also associated with paternal and maternal attachment, which contributes to fathers feeling protective of their families and mothers bonding with their offspring.

            It seems that so much is happening in our heads and our bodies while in love, so do we have any control of it, or is it just a tidal wave that crashes down on us? In Fisher’s questionnaire, 60% of men and 70% of women agreed that, “Falling in love was not really a choice; it just struck me,” which is what I also agree with. When I fell in love, I fought it, and tried very hard to believe I wasn’t in love, but it was something that overcame me. I didn’t feel like I had any control over how I felt.

            Fisher says, “at the core of this obsession is its power: romantic love is often unplanned, involuntary, and seemingly uncontrollable,” (pg. 22). Yet, even though it can seem so uncontrollable, there are things that can fuel and ebb it. For example, social or physical barriers can make romantic passion more intense. Fisher says, “Fueled by difficulties of one kind or another, they just love all the harder” (pg. 17). She adds that love is not only an emotion, but also a drive, and “like drives, romantic attraction is tenacious; it is very hard to extinguish.” Like the drives for hunger or sex, “romantic love is focused on a specific award, the beloved,” and this drive is very hard to control. Drives push us to fulfill a need or craving, and a lover feels like he needs food and water just like he needs the beloved. Of course, if it is a drive, then it means it’s not completely out of our control. We can abstain and last a time without food, water, or sex, but it may be very difficult.

            Fromm has some other ideas about our ability to control love. He says, “To love somebody is not just a strong feeling – it is a decision, it is a judgment, it is a promise” (pg. 52). He adds that love is paradoxical. We can choose to love everyone in brotherly love, but “erotic love requires certain specific, highly individual elements which exist between some people but not between all” (pg. 53). I have a friend who I've been in a debate with for probably over half a year. She's argued that love is choice, and I argued that you can't choose who you love. We just came to an agreement last week, which sums up Fromm’s point clearly. You can’t choose who you click with, but you can choose what you do to grow or destroy that love.

            I think we all know, either from personal experience or secondhand, that the flame of passion and craziness we experience at the beginning of falling in love eventually fades. Chapman discusses our falling in love delusion like this: “We have been led to believe that if we are really in love, it will last forever. We will always have the wonderful feelings that we have at this moment. Nothing could ever come between us. Nothing will ever overcome our love for each other…” (pg. 30). Dr. Dorothy Tennov found that the “in love” romantic obsession lasts two years on average, so our delusion will end.

            Beginnings are great, but they aren’t meant to last. They’re meant to turn into something better. Fromm says, “Falling in love always verges on the abnormal, is always accompanied by blindness to reality [and] compulsiveness…” (pg. 84). When the emotional high of being in love fades away, we can choose to let it go or pursue “real love.” Chapman says, “Our most basic emotional need is not to fall in love but to be genuinely loved by another, to know a love that grows out of reason and choice, not instinct” (pg. 33). To grow that love, we need to learn what love does.

Sources:

The 5 Love Languages the secret to love that lasts by Gary Chapman

Why We Love? by Helen Fisher

The Art of Loving by Erich Fromm

What Love Is

"What the heart gives away is never gone. ... It is kept in the hearts of others." - Robin St. John

*note:  I’ve been very excited for this month, because one of my favorite holidays is Valentine’s Day. I’ve been reading these three books about love since last summer, and I’ll be sharing their insights for four weeks. In a brief overview, The 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman, a marriage counselor for over 40 years, is about the different ways we receive and show our love. Why We Love? by prominent anthropologist Helen Fisher, Ph.D examines love from a biological and chemical level, and focuses a lot on what’s happening in our brain. Lastly, The Art of Loving by Erich Fromm, renowned psychoanalyst and social philosopher, is a classic that explores the deep complexities of love. The topics for the month will be broken into: What Love Is; When Love Begins; What Love Does; When Love Ends.

            I take love very seriously. You know how there are those people who say they are in love with every person they date? Well, I’m not one of them. In fact, every guy who has ever told me he loves me, I’ve tried at first convincing him that he doesn’t. If not immediately, then some point shortly after. I believe that I’m lovable, but I just think that people use that word very loosely, so I have a lot of trouble believing anyone who says it to me. At least at first. For me, love has to be proven and shown, not just said.

            I know everyone defines love differently. One of my closest friends and I have had an ongoing conversation for months about whether she is in love with her boyfriend. He said it to her a few months ago, and like me, it’s a word she takes very seriously. Once said, you can’t take it back. During the course of our conversations, we both kind of figured out that there are many ways to love someone, and even different levels for that love, which is one of the things I’ll be focusing on for this post.

            Why is love so important to the human existence? Why has there been songs and novels written, battles and wars fought, and art created all for the sake of love? To start with, Chapman points out that “the need to feel love is a primary emotional need” that is seen in all ages. Among childhood needs, “none is more basic than the need for love and affection, the need to sense that he or she belongs and is wanted” (pg. 20). But why is this need so vital to our lives from birth until death?

            To answer that question, Fromm examines our deepest anxiety, which is separateness, or the fear of being alone. This isn’t the kind of alone, where you get lonely once in a while. This is the deep-seated fear of complete isolation from anyone who could ever care about or love you. This anxiety spurs on a lot of our bad choices, like staying in unhealthy relationships, or even seeking out ones that are bad for you. It’s not that we can’t be alone; it’s that we crave unity and intimacy with other people at all costs.

            Fromm goes on to conclude that, “The deepest need of man, then, is the need to overcome his separateness, to leave the prison of his aloneness” (pg. 9). We seek this out in three different ways. The first is the search for what Fromm calls “orgiastic union,” which is simply sexual intimacy. He says that when we only search for sex, the relief of loneliness will be temporary. If we continually search for only sex, it could become like an addiction, living from one high to another. Conformity in any social or cultural aspect is another way to try to overcome separateness. We start to crave to be just like everyone else, so we won’t feel so far apart from them. Lastly, creative activity, which is a union between artist and object can also fill the void, but not completely.

            “Fusion with another person,” which is love, is the only way Fromm says we can overcome being alone. Love brings people together in a way nothing else can, whether it’s between mother and daughter, husband and wife, or friends. It is the only lasting thing that can truly rid us feeling alone, which is probably why psychologists believe it is one of our deepest needs.

            In order to explain what love is, I first have to explain what love is not. Above all, love is not selfish. This claim makes me think of a friend who for a year told me he loved me, but he was very selfish, and I couldn’t believe it was really love. When he finally stopped caring about me, and decided to live his own lifestyle without me, I knew it wasn’t love. Yet, months later, he contacted me again to tell me that it was love, and implied that he possibly still does love me. I’ve learned that I really don’t have the right to tell someone else how they feel. So, maybe it could have been love, but it wasn’t mature or healthy.

            Fromm describes this experience very well in his explanation of symbiotic union. Symbiotic union is what we would normally call unhealthy or immature love, but he claims it’s not love at all. It’s a dependency. He compares it to a fetus and mother. The fetus is a part of the mother and needs her to survive. Her life is enhanced by the fetus. Likewise, symbiotic union is described, “They are two, and yet one. They live "together" (sym-biosis), they need each other... In the psychic symbiotic union, the two bodies are independent, but the same kind of attachment exists psychologically” (pg. 18).

            In these kinds of relationships, there is one who is being worshipped, and one who is doing the worshipping. It’s about one person using another for his/her own needs. They are both dependent on each other in a need-based way. The reason I think of my friend who told me he loved me, is because though he didn’t worship me, he thought very highly of me, and he fulfilled my emotional need to not feel lonely. He would take me out, we would spend a lot of time together, and he was basically a fill-in boyfriend, except that I didn’t like him in that way. We both used each other to fill our own needs, and for a time we both acknowledged it, but that isn’t love. It’s, as Fromm put it, “fusion without integrity,” or as I see it, two people who need and are dependent on each other.

            Similar to symbiotic union is idolatrous love, which happens when one person idolizes the other. The other factor in this kind of irrational love is that the person doing the idolizing doesn’t have a sense of identity. This happens when you lose yourself in the loved one instead of finding yourself. The problem with idolizing another is that they will eventually not live up to your expectations. In contrast to this is projective mechanisms, when you use your loved one to avoid your own problems. The person you love becomes a project for you to fix.

            Fromm explains another form of neurotic love happens when "one or both of the ‘lovers’ have remained attached to the figure of a parent, and transfer the feelings, expectations and fears one once had toward father or mother to the loved person in adult life” (pg. 88). When this happens, “their aim is to be loved, not to love.” This can be evidenced in the classic “daddy or mommy issues.” Lots of unhealthy relationships are caused when one person brings the neglect of a parent into the relationship. It can still be love, but it is an unhealthy love.

            All of these examples are forms of love, but the neurotic, irrational, and unhealthy kind. These are not the right ways to love someone. There is mature love, and there is immature love. Immature love is equivalent to the way a baby loves his parents, “I love because I am loved,” and “I love you because I need you.” Mature love says, “I am loved because I love,” and “I need you because I love you” (pg. 38). Fromm says mature love is a “union under the condition of preserving one’s integrity, one’s individuality” (pg. 19).

            Basically, mature love is not when two people need each other, it’s when two people choose to commit to each other. In my life, I’ve often hated the feeling of being needed. Not in the sense that someone needs me for something once in a while, but in the sense that I am only in that person’s life because he or she needs me to fulfill something. I prefer when someone wants me in their life, because then it is a choice. No one is keeping me around because they are dependent on me, but because they choose to have me in their life.

            Aside from the difference between mature and immature love, there is also an array of variances between the way we love different people. Fromm says, “If I truly love one person I love all persons, I love the world, I love life,” because love produces more love. He adds, “If a person loves only one other person and is indifferent to the rest of his fellow men, his love is not love but a symbiotic attachment, or an enlarged egotism” (pg. 43). So, to love one person is to love everyone. I experienced this with my first love. Loving him opened up my heart to loving people in general.

            Fisher explains that the ancient Greeks had over ten words to distinguish the different types of love, but psychologist John Alan Lee reduces them to six because of overlapping ideas.

• Eros: “passionate, sexual, erotic, joyful, high-energy love for a very special partner”
• Mania: “obsessive, jealous, irrational, possessive, dependent love”
• Ludus: (Latin for game or play) “playful, unserious, uncommitted, detached love”
• Storge: “affectionate companionate, brotherly, sisterly, friendly kind of love, a deep and special friendship”
• Agape: “gentle, unselfish, dutiful, all-giving, altruistic, often spiritual love”
• Pragma: “love based on compatibility and common sense”

            Today, many of us might not consider some of these as forms of love. For example, in ludus, the lovers can love multiple people at once, because of how uncommitted and unattached they are. That doesn’t seem like love to me. Mania doesn’t seem like a healthy love, and pragma also doesn’t seem like real love, because “pragmatic lovers keep score; they look for the perks of the relationship as well as its flaws.” True love doesn’t keep score.

            Fisher includes Psychologist Robert Sternberg's insights, who has his own break down of love that may be more applicable to us. He says love has three basic ingredients: “passion – including romance, physical attraction, and sexual craving; intimacy – all of those feelings of warmth, closeness, connectedness, and bondedness; and decision/commitment – the decision to love someone and the commitment to sustain that love” (pg. 96).

• Infatuation: “passion only”
• Romantic love: “passion plus intimacy”
• Consummate love: “passion, intimacy, and commitment”
• Companionate love: “has intimacy and commitment but is devoid of passion”
• Empty love: “only feelings of commitment hold the relationship together”
• Liking: “based on intimacy; one feels no passion and no commitment”
• Fatuous love: “often full of passion and commitment, but lacks intimacy”

            Most of us seek consummate love and won’t be satisfied with anything less. My best friend and I were talking about these different kinds of love the other day. We were discussing why we chose the relationships we did and why we rejected perfectly nice guys sometimes. For the past year and a half, she’s kept a horrible jerk in her life, because at least there’s passion between them. It’s never boring. She also feels a sense of intimacy, but there is no commitment from him. For me, I realized that I’ve met three guys who fit into my ideal, and I have liked all of them at one time, and all have liked me at a time (not always at the same time). So, why hadn’t I been with any of them? It was a lack of passion from two of them, and a lack of commitment from the third. I think we all desire to be with our best friend, while still experiencing the euphoria and excitement of passion.

            There are so many ways to distinguish the way we love, and Fromm has own ideas. He thinks the basic components to any kind of love are care, responsibility, respect, and knowledge.

• Brotherly love: “The most fundamental kind of love, which underlies all types of love… the sense of responsibility, care, respect, knowledge of any other human being, the wish to further his life.” Also, love between equals.
• Motherly love: “unconditional affirmation of the child’s life and his needs… requires unselfishness, the ability to give everything and to want nothing but the happiness of the loved one”
• Fatherly love: “conditional love;” You can work for this kind of love and do something to acquire it.
• Erotic love: “it is the craving for complete fusion, for union with one other person”
• Self-love: “The affirmation of one's own life, happiness, growth, freedom is rooted in one's capacity to love”
• Love of God: “to long for the attainment of the full capacity to love… the act of experiencing the oneness with God”

            Just to clarify, Fromm’s terms shouldn’t be taken to mean that all mothers and fathers love in that way. He’s just giving a name to the different ways we love each other. For example, motherly love can be applied to anyone who shows love to a more helpless person. Fatherly love can also be deemed as tough love.

            People across time and within different fields have tried to explain what love is and each has had their own opinion. There are clearly many different types of love, and many different ways to love someone. That’s probably why it is said that no two loves are the same. It’s why, if you’ve been in love more than once, you’ve loved each person differently. It’s why parents can’t say they love one child more than the other, they just love them differently.

            I have a friend who firmly argues that love is a choice, and I have firmly argued back that you can’t choose who you love. After reading everything I did, I’ve altered this view. I still strongly believe that you can’t choose who you fall in love with, and you can’t choose to stop loving someone, but you can choose how you love. Fromm says, “love is an act of will, but cannot happen with just anyone, except in brotherly love” (pg. 53). I’ll discuss this idea of choice and love more in my next few posts.

            I think what love, in any form, really comes down to is selflessness. Fromm says, “Love should essentially be an act of will, of decision to commit my life completely to that of one other person” (pg. 52). Love is also a commitment and a promise, “To love somebody is not just a strong feeling - it is a decision, it is a judgment, it is a promise” (pg. 52).

Sources:

The 5 Love Languages the secret to love that lasts by Gary Chapman

Why We Love? by Helen Fisher

The Art of Loving by Erich Fromm