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A Brief Overview of the Meaning of Love
Paul T.P. Wong, Ph.D.
Web Site: International Network on Personal Meanin
Love can be either the most powerful motivation for growth or the
most destructive force in your life -- it all depends on the kind
of love you have embraced.
According to Rubin (1970), love has three components: (1) an
affiliative and dependent need, (2) a predisposition to help, and
(3) exclusiveness and absorption. Liking is more closely akin to
friendship. In his research, Wong has found that liking can be
negatively related to passionate love ; in other words, you may
be madly in love with someone you dislike, because you mind tells
you that he or she is "bad news", but your heart is still
lovesick.
According to Tennov (1979), love is different from limerence.
Love is mutual, and is characterized as a great affection and
concern for the welfare of the beloved. Limerence, on the other
hand, is passionate love gone wild. It begins with a spark of
interest, and under appropriate conditions, can grow into
enormous intensity. Limerence is a state of cognitive obsession,
an unrealistic hope of reciprocation. Almost every trivial
utterance or behavior on the part of the limerent object is
misconstrued as a sign of love, which keeps the hope of
reciprocation alive. A tiny bit of reciprocation, whether
motivated by pity of vanity, will result in feelings of euphoria,
which inevitably turn to despair and misery. However, limerence
can grow into love, when it is completed fulfilled.
Peele and Brodsky (1975) also differentiate between addictive
love and genuine love. Addictive love occurs when a person is
totally absorbed in the love object in order to escape from an
otherwise meaningless and unhappy existence. Such obsession
distracts from a person's ability to pay attention to important
aspects of his or her life. Prolonged separation or termination
of the relationship can cause "withdrawal symptoms" similar to
those of a drug addict.
Lee (1973) has developed a typology consisting of six types of
love: (1) Eros, where the lovers search for someone with specific
physical characteristics; (2) pragma, where potential
love-objects are rationally considered; (3) agape, where the
person loves without expectation of reciprocation; (4) ludus,
where love is treated as agape; (5) storage, which is similar to
compassionate love, and (6) mania, which is similar to addiction
love, characterized by cognitive obsession as well as emotional
peaks and valleys.
Lee (1973) describes manic lovers as extremely possessive and
needy. Unless they become involved with another manic lover, they
are likely to be very dissatisfied in their relationships, since
no other style can tolerate their excessive possessiveness and
intense insecurity.
Sternberg (1986) views love as a triangular structure, consisting
of three components: intimacy, passion and decision/commitment.
Various combinations of these components result in eight kinds of
love: (1) nonlove (absence of the three components),(2) liking
(intimacy in isolation), (3) infatuation (passion), (4) empty
love (decision/commitment), (5) romantic love (passion and
intimacy), (6) compassionate love (intimacy and
decision/commitment), (7) fatuous love (passion and
decision/commitment), and (8) consummate love (which includes all
three components.)
"The above review of the literature indicates that researchers
have not come to grips with the prevalence and important
implications of unrequited love, which remains an
under-researched area. The present conceptual and empirical
analysis of unrequited love is part of a larger research program
on its process and consequences. It remains a challenge for
psychologists to incorporate the construct of unrequited love
within the broader framework of intimate relationships.
The literature, music and films are replete with themes of
forlorn love. Judging from newspaper advice columns, magazine
articles and self-help books (i.e., Halpern, 1983; Phillips &
Judd, 1978), the problem of unrequited love seems both serious
and widespread. It is not surprising that popular interest in
unrequited love has remained unabated, because more often than
not people are not able to win the affection of the man or woman
of their dream and suffer much as a result.
When one's love is not reciprocated, a host of negative reactions
might follow. In extreme cases, a person may be driven to attempt
suicide in order to escape the pain. However, even in milder
cases unrequited love causes pain and may interfere with a
person's daily functioning. Unfortunately, such an important and
common human experience has not been subjected to theoretical or
empirical analysis. Part of the reason for this glaring gap in
the absence of a valid instrument to quantity this experience.
The present paper will introduce such an instrument after a
conceptual analysis of the different kinds of unrequited love.
Unrequited love, as it is commonly known, involves situations in
which one person passionately loves an unresponsive object.
Tennov (1979) has provided numerous examples of forlorn love.
Lee's (1973) manic lover and Hazan & Shaver's (1987) anxious
ambivalent lover also fall into this category. Each of these
describes an intense craving for intimacy, an irresistible
cognitive obsession with the love object, and prolonged
sufferings caused by rejection and jealousy. The driving force is
not sexual gratification, but reciprocation of romantic interest
and devotion. We refer to this type of obsessive love as the
Classic unrequited love.
There is a second major type of unrequited love which involves a
different kind of dynamics. Norwood (1985) wrote a book on women
who 'love too much.' While she admits that this experience is not
solely restricted to women, she believes it is more common in
this sex, and therefore confines her analysis to females. These
women constantly seek out unhappy relationships with men who are
moody, bad-tempered, uncaring and abusive. The interesting
finding is that in some cases once the man becomes reformed and
begins to show love and kindness, the woman may 'dump' this man
in favour of another destructive relationship. Apparently, these
women are not interested in reciprocation.
Norwood believes that these women deliberately seek out unloving
and self-destructive relationships, because their highly negative
early family experiences have made them uncomfortable with any
real intimacy. Such family situations include those in which at
least one of the parents was uncaring, abusive and alcoholic.
These women may attempt to relive these relationships in order to
'fix' whatever that was wrong in their early family life and to
gain the love that was once denied them. Another driving force
that operates in these women is their need to be needed. The
feeling of being needed gives them a sense of self-worth.
Therefore, they prefer unequal relationships in which they play
the role of willing martyrs. This type of unrequited love is
referred to as co-dependent unrequited love, because it has many
of the same characteristics of co-dependency in the field of
alcoholic addiction (Cermak, 1986; Schaef, 1986).
Co-dependency is a term used to describe those people whose lives
are completely intertwined with a drug/alcohol addict, such as a
spouse or lover. The co-dependent identifies with their love
object to the extent of losing his/her own identity. The needs
and problems of the addict are taken on by the co-dependents as
their own. The co-dependents choose to get stuck in a painful
relationship, because of their neurotic need to be needed and
their own insecurity. Thus, unlike classic unrequited love where
the ultimate goal is union, the goal of the co-dependent is the
fulfillment of a need to be needed, no matter how unloving and
painful the relationship is.
The third kind of unrequited love is less intense, and more
common—hence the term minor unrequited love. This type is
characterized by one's perception that one's partner does not
reciprocate one's love to a similar degree. Minor unrequited love
may be only a distorted perception or it may be an accurate
portrayal of the situation. In either case, it may result in
feelings of dissatisfaction and upset.
The practical implications of studying unrequited love are many.
Because it is a negative and potentially destructive experience,
psychopathology may develop. Even minor unrequited love may cause
marital breakdown and may adversely affect other areas of the
person's life. In any event, research on unrequited love will
provide a better understanding of a major source of personal
relationship difficulties and emotional distress."
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