June 16, 2023 • 23 mins
What is Love? It's the eternal question! Love is an interesting combination of psychology, biology, and sociology. It is also our favorite drug. We are talking the science of love and our favorite love movies.
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(00:01):
What is love? It's the eternalquestion. It's doctor Wendy Walsh. You
know, love is an interesting combinationof psychology, biology, and sociology.
It's also our favorite drug. Thisis Mating Matters. Art imitates life and
(00:26):
perhaps nobody knows love better than Hollywood. The science of falling in love involves
biological, social, and psychological mechanisms. Hi, I'm doctor Wendy Walsh,
and on this episode of Mating Matters, let's break down the underpinnings of everybody's
favorite drug, love, using vibrantexamples from our favorite movies. You Have
(00:50):
Bewitched Me, Buddy and Soul andI Love You and the Wish to be
Parted from You from this Dale,that famous scene of mister Darcy's profession of
love to Elizabeth Bennett from the moviePride and Prejudice is one that makes movie
goers hearts swoon. And in thisscene, you might think that both Darcy
(01:11):
played by Matthew mcphaden and Elizabeth playedby Kiera Knightley are feeling the same deep
feelings for each other. Think again, I guarantee they were having very different
experiences of love. All love affairs, even unrequited ones, have a unique
recipe made with biological, sociological,and psychological ingredients, and no two people
(01:38):
experience love the same way. Formost people, love feels darn good.
For others, love can be terrifying, and still others love might feel irritating.
No matter how love feels, it'sdefinitely a bonding mechanism. That's why,
according to anthropologists, love evolved inthe first place to keep humans together
(02:00):
long enough to procreate and maybe evenlong enough to nurture offspring together. Did
my heart laugh till now forsweared sightness or true beauty to this night?
From William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet,written around sixteen hundred and depicted here in
(02:24):
the nineteen sixty eight movie To asfar back as Adam and Eve. Human
stories, art, music, poems, and movies are riddled with the emotion
we call love. The late RobinWilliams in the movie Dead Poet Society explains
why we don't read and write poetrybecause it's cute. We read and write
(02:46):
poetry because we are members of thehuman race, and the human race is
filled with passion and medicine, law, business engineering. These are noble pursuits
are necessary to sustain life, poetry, beauty, romance. Love. These
are what we stay alive for.No doubt about it. Love is the
(03:08):
most effective drug we have. Itcan control pain, It can make problems
disappear, not to mention. Lovecan enable lovers to stay up all night
talking and making love and not feelone bit tired the next day. And
I'm not joking. The special cocktailof hormones and neurotransmitters that fire up in
(03:29):
the brain when one falls in loveis no different from how a drug interacts
with the brain. This biological mechanismof love has three distinct stages, one
lust, two romantic attraction, andthree attachment. During the initial sexual attraction
(03:51):
phase, estrogen and testosterone in bothmen and women's bodies rule the roost,
making people want to lean in close, touch each other and kids. Oh
and kissing, by the way,helps a woman decide if she'll sleep with
a man. Did you know shecan unconsciously taste his immune system in his
saliva. People with different immune systemsprime to fight off different sets of diseases
(04:14):
tend to make stronger, fitter offspring, and therefore they tend to have hotter
sex. There's even a DNA testthat can predict hot sex. Check it
out. It's instant chemistry dot com. And out of this initial surge of
estrogen and testosterone can come romance.Romance is marked by a surge of other
(04:38):
kinds of hormones like dopamine, whichcauses craving and desire. It can also
make you giddy and euphoric and Norabenephrin. Yeah, that's the chemical release
to calm us down after we experiencedstress. Love can be very stressful.
Finally, during the attachment stage,oxytocin, often called the cuddle hormone and
(04:59):
vaso pressing one sometimes linked to monogamy, jump into the game big time and
serotonin decreases, which can make peoplemore obsessive. This party of hormones and
firing of neurotransmitters causes a kind oflove delusion, one that often leads to
commitment. Johnny Depp explains that delusionwell in the film Don Juan de Marco.
(05:23):
Have You never meet a woman inspiresyou to love until your every senses
feel with her. You inhale her, you test her, You see your
unborn children her eyes, and knowthat your heart has at last found their
own. Your life begins with herand without her, it must surely end.
(05:46):
This lustful delusion phase can be reallyimportant if couples end up staying together
for a long time, because it'sduring this phase the couples create mutual memories
of say, romantic dates, vacations, joy reshopping, and all of these
memories can be conjured up years laterby either partner to help rekindle things in
their minds when the going gets tough, because we all know this stage doesn't
(06:12):
last. Where just tell me whatit's me It's my fault. You're just
buried the wrong person. That's allI remember Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep in
Kramer Versus Kramer, the first bigdivorce movie. But even though those early
(06:33):
hormonal feelings don't last, it doesn'tmean that love doesn't last. Love is
much more than a biological event.Human beings are complicated people, and we
interact within layers of important social systems, and we all have individual psychology.
Our idea of love and what itis and what it should feel like is
(06:55):
different in everybody. Oh here's afun fact. By the way, it
takes a person about one to fourminutes to decide if they'd like to have
sex with someone. Half of thatdecision is based on body language, about
forty on tone of voice, andless than seven percent on what a potential
lover actually says. So much forthe value of a good pickup line,
(07:16):
Hi, I was wondering if youcould touch my arm so I could tell
my friends that I've been touched byan angel. When love scientists talk about
the sociology of love, they meanthe stuff people put in their dating profiles
that indicate if their social circles willbe compatible. Education, religion, political
affiliation, career choice, even foodchoices. Are you vegan, vegetarian or
(07:41):
paleo. If two people are deeplybiologically attracted to each other, but their
relationship would clash in day to daylife, their love won't last. Think
of it this way. I'll betthat if you put any two humans alone
on a desert island or in aVegas hotel room, they would eventually fall
in love. But if you tryto take that relationship out into the real
(08:03):
world, it probably wouldn't make it. Remember when Robin Wright as Jenny rejected
Tom Hanks as the lovable Forrest Gumpbecause their lives didn't match in adulthood,
why don't you love me, Jenny. I'm not a smart man, but
(08:28):
I know what love is. Youshould know that there are some couples who
match entirely on sociology, arranged marriages, and then they let the hormones rise
later. That's still love, andit often lasts a long time. As
(08:50):
if biology and sociology aren't messy enough, the feeling of love is further complicated
by an individual's psychological attachment style.You see, we all come into the
world with a predisposition to attach incertain ways, and then during the first
year of life, when our braintriples in size, that genetic predisposition is
(09:11):
either enlivened or suppressed by how ourcaregivers treat us. For instance, let's
say a baby was born with alot of anxiety. If a parent holds
rocks and soothes the baby on demand, that gene might be suppressed and the
baby might grow to believe that theworld and lovers can meet their needs.
(09:35):
On the other hand, if caregiverswere told to let that baby cry it
out, that baby might grow upto imagine love as an eternal state of
longing. Our early life attachments becomea blueprint for love Attachment theory is a
well researched psychological area founded by thelate British psychoanalyst John Bulby. He believes
(09:58):
that we go out into our adultromantic lives and recreate the feeling of mummy
love, even if it was filledwith pain. No one wants to think
that mother never wanted them and werealways really rejected them. It's a very
painful, very very painful situation foranyone to find themselves in. Yet if
(10:18):
it's true, it's true, andthey are going to be better off from
the future if they recognize that thatis what did happen, That was John
Bolby himself. You can actually purchasethe full talk where doctor Bolby explains attachment
theory at lifespan learn dot org.There are many kinds of attachment styles.
(10:39):
Some people fear caregiving and become attractedto people who can't give care. Others
become addicted to longing and become attractedto those who will abandon them. Others
smother a lover as a bid totry to keep them near Still, others
avoid emotional intimacy because it's just toopainful. In our adult romantic lives,
(11:01):
we unconsciously go back to the sceneof the crime and try to solve our
early life conflicts. Like I said, love is darn complicated. Remember share
in Moonstruck, the morning after sheslept with her fiance's brother, I should
have taken a rock and killed myself. I'm gonna marry him. Do you
hear me? Last night never happened, and I'm going to marry him,
(11:22):
and you and I are going totake this to our office. I can't
do that. Why not? I'min love with you? Snap out of
it. Perhaps my favorite psychological theoryof love, next to John Bowby's attachment
(11:43):
theory, of course, is thetriangular theory of love, proposed by Cornell
Universities Robert Sternberg. If you've everstudied any psychology, you probably know Sternberg
for his world renowned theories on humanintelligence, but he's also turned his scientific
life to love, coming up withthe idea that love has three components,
(12:05):
and one, two, or allthree can be present for people to interpret
it as love. The first hecalls intimacy. He doesn't mean physical intimacy
here, He's talking about emotional connection, vulnerability, intense feelings, honesty.
(12:26):
The second component of love, accordingto Sternberg is passion. Now here's where
physical attraction steps in. Passion isconnected to sex, stride, lust and
the crazy cocktail of hormones that willmake someone do just about anything to be
in each other's presence. The thirdkind of love in the Sternberg triangle is
(12:46):
commitment. This is the intellectual choiceto love someone, to make a decision
to stay with them and make futurelong term plans. Now here's where Sternberg's
theory of love gets really interesting.You can experience various combinations of these three
components and still call it love,and your partner, well, he or
(13:07):
she might be experiencing a different combination, and this is where things can get
prickly. So here are Sternberg's sixcombinations of his triangular theory of love.
The first is infatuation passion alone.In this kind of love, there's no
real emotional intimacy and no commitment.If you've ever had a serious crush on
(13:31):
a celebrity or fallen in love withsomeone online, you've experienced Sternberg's infatuated love.
Likewise, if you have a standalone sexual relationship where no one's talking
about their feelings or problems, andcommitment isn't present. You're in infatuated love.
This kind of love doesn't tend tolast very long. The second kind
(13:54):
of love that Sternberg describes is emptylove. Unhappy man urges fall into this
category. What you've got is commitment, but not much else. No emotional
intimacy, no sexual passion. Coupleswho stay together for the sake of the
children, which, according to researchon child development, isn't such a bad
idea, but these couples fall intoempty love. The third kind of love,
(14:20):
Oh, it's a fun one.If you've ever been lucky enough to
experience sexual passion along with emotional intimacy, you know of Sternberg's version of romantic
love. These kinds of lovers aredrawn to each other emotionally and physically,
but they may not have a commitmentto each other, so a big time
(14:41):
marital affair might fall into this category. This kind of relationship can feel kind
of scary and unstable, filled withcloseness, excitement, and fear of loss,
but romantic love is often a steppingstone to married life or, in
the case of an affair, adivorce. Single partners don't want to lose
this amazing feeling, so they getengaged. A married person in an empty
(15:07):
marriage gains the emotional support in aromantic love affair needed to leave their union.
Okay. Love type number four oneif you have a great emotional connection
and are committed to each other buthave no sexual passion. Sternberg calls this
companionate love. It's much stronger thana friendship and can be very affectionate.
(15:31):
It's often what long term marriages becomeas people age. Companionate love can also
be felt by long term room matesor close family members who live together for
obvious reasons. There's no sexual relationship, but the bond is strong and the
two are primary attachment figures. Ihad two great aunties who live together,
(15:52):
Rita and Godilla. One had adaughter. Family folklore said that the baby's
father died and World War two.The two sisters lived together on a farm
for fifty years. No one caneven remember which sister actually gave birth to
the daughter. These two had astrong companion at love. Love style number
(16:15):
five, according to Robert Sternberg,pray you never have this one. It's
costly. You can have hot sexualpassion and commitment, but no emotional intimacy.
Sternberg calls this one fatuous love.It happens to couples who have great
(16:36):
sex at the very beginning of theirrelationship, and then they run to the
altar to try to keep those feelingsforever. Remember the brief marriage of Kim
Kardashian to Chris Humphreys, big wedding, seventy two days later, big breakup.
And how about the crazy Las Vegaswedding in two thousand and four of
Britney Spears and her childhood friend JasonAlexander. That one lasted a whopping fifty
(16:59):
five hours. I like to callSternberg's fatuous love love drunk. There is
a sixth kind of love that RobertSternberg talks about in his Theory of Love,
but I'm going to save it forthe very end of this podcast because
it's the one we all dream about. Besides biology, sociology, and psychology,
(17:26):
there's one other ingredient in the recipefor love timing. YouTube could be
a perfect physical match. You couldlook great on paper, and you might
both have a secure attachment style.But if one of you hasn't hit their
state of readiness, love will bekind of one sided. Remember, women
have the pressure of a fertility windowand tend to fall in love faster and
(17:48):
desire a commitment. For instance,you might think that on paper, that
is sociologically, a movie star anda humble bookstore owner would be a good
fit. But if the timing wasright for both of them, As played
by Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant innotting Hill, love can still blossom.
(18:11):
The fame thing isn't really real,you know. Don't forget. I'm also
just a girl standing in front ofa boy asking him to love her.
(18:33):
Men like to have all their ducksin order education career, and their social
circle has to be coupling up.Weddings, like divorces, are highly contagious
within social circles, and there's nosuch thing as a groom's magazine. They
wait till their buddies do it.So is it worth it to wait it
out until your sexual partner hits hisor her state of readiness? Usually not,
(18:56):
sadly, because after some time togetherall those love hormones start to decline
and people are less likely to makea commitment. That may be why couples
who live together instead of getting marriedare less likely to marry that person,
and if they do, they're morelikely to divorce them. Well, that
could also be because people with aninsecure attachment style, those who don't have
(19:18):
a healthy blueprint for love, aremore attracted to cohabitation than marriage. Tom
cruise in Jerry McGuire found his momentof readiness with Renee's Elwigger when his career
fell apart and he needed a partner. I love you. You complete me.
(19:44):
You had me at hello. Okay, I promised you I would save
the best kind of love for last. Remember Robert Sternberg and his triangular theory
of love, Well, the sixthcombination of love is the one we all
dream about, consummate love. Sternbergthought of consummate love as the perfect love
(20:07):
because it has all three of hiscomponents emotional intimacy, physical passion, and
commitment. These unicorn couples somehow continueto have a great sex life decades into
their relationship. They often say theycan't imagine themselves happier with anyone else,
(20:27):
They have good conflict resolution skills,and they just continue to love and respect
each other. But Sternberg also warnsthat maintaining this kind of love is a
whole lot harder than finding it.Consummate love involves constant communication, emotional regulation
skills, and yes, it involveslove. My favorite definition of the word
(20:52):
love. It is a verb.It's the verb to give. And according
to Robert Sternberg, without love,even the greatest love can die. Many
people live their entire lives and neverget to experience Sternberg's idea of consummate love.
(21:12):
And that's okay. It's a goal, it's an ideal, and every
relationship we have is a lesson inlearning. Every single relationship, if it's
a little bit better than the onebefore, is a successful relationship. I
(21:33):
never judge the success of love onduration. I think all relationships are gymnasiums
for her minds. We can't growalone. We must play out our psychology
interacting with others, and that interactioncan be kind of prickly sometimes. In
fact, the road to intimacy ispaved with a series of ruptures followed by
(21:57):
repairs. It is in those momentsof conflict, of loss, of hurt
feelings when we can be authentic,when we can say I'm sorry, and
this is what love is. We'realways learning and growing through love. Thanks
(22:32):
for listening to this episode of MatingMatters up next Sexy Money. How earning
money for men is really about earningsex and why it works the opposite for
women. I'm doctor Wendy Walsh.Mating Matters is produced in partnership with iHeartMedia.
(22:55):
It is researched, interviewed and writtenby me, doctor Wendy Walsh,
and it is it did and producedby Brooke Peterson. You know, people
don't learn about podcasts usually by justsearching around. They learn about a podcast
because somebody who loved that podcast toldthem about it. So I encourage you
to please subscribe, write a review, and more than anything, hit that
(23:17):
share button. Now, think ofsomebody who would like to hear this information
as much as you enjoyed it.Thanks for listening. I'm doctor Wendy Walsh.
What is love? It's the eternalquestion. It's doctor Wendy Walsh. You
know, love is an interesting combinationof psychology, biology, and sociology.
It's also our favorite drug. Thisis Mating Matters. Art imitates life and
(00:26):
perhaps nobody knows love better than Hollywood. The science of falling in love involves
biological, social, and psychological mechanisms. Hi, I'm doctor Wendy Walsh,
and on this episode of Mating Matters, let's break down the underpinnings of everybody's
favorite drug, love, using vibrantexamples from our favorite movies. You Have
(00:50):
Bewitched Me, Buddy and Soul andI Love You and the Wish to be
Parted from You from this Dale,that famous scene of mister Darcy's profession of
love to Elizabeth Bennett from the moviePride and Prejudice is one that makes movie
goers hearts swoon. And in thisscene, you might think that both Darcy
(01:11):
played by Matthew mcphaden and Elizabeth playedby Kiera Knightley are feeling the same deep
feelings for each other. Think again, I guarantee they were having very different
experiences of love. All love affairs, even unrequited ones, have a unique
recipe made with biological, sociological,and psychological ingredients, and no two people
(01:38):
experience love the same way. Formost people, love feels darn good.
For others, love can be terrifying, and still others love might feel irritating.
No matter how love feels, it'sdefinitely a bonding mechanism. That's why,
according to anthropologists, love evolved inthe first place to keep humans together
(02:00):
long enough to procreate and maybe evenlong enough to nurture offspring together. Did
my heart laugh till now forsweared sightness or true beauty to this night?
From William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet,written around sixteen hundred and depicted here in
(02:24):
the nineteen sixty eight movie To asfar back as Adam and Eve. Human
stories, art, music, poems, and movies are riddled with the emotion
we call love. The late RobinWilliams in the movie Dead Poet Society explains
why we don't read and write poetrybecause it's cute. We read and write
(02:46):
poetry because we are members of thehuman race, and the human race is
filled with passion and medicine, law, business engineering. These are noble pursuits
are necessary to sustain life, poetry, beauty, romance. Love. These
are what we stay alive for.No doubt about it. Love is the
(03:08):
most effective drug we have. Itcan control pain, It can make problems
disappear, not to mention. Lovecan enable lovers to stay up all night
talking and making love and not feelone bit tired the next day. And
I'm not joking. The special cocktailof hormones and neurotransmitters that fire up in
(03:29):
the brain when one falls in loveis no different from how a drug interacts
with the brain. This biological mechanismof love has three distinct stages, one
lust, two romantic attraction, andthree attachment. During the initial sexual attraction
(03:51):
phase, estrogen and testosterone in bothmen and women's bodies rule the roost,
making people want to lean in close, touch each other and kids. Oh
and kissing, by the way,helps a woman decide if she'll sleep with
a man. Did you know shecan unconsciously taste his immune system in his
saliva. People with different immune systemsprime to fight off different sets of diseases
(04:14):
tend to make stronger, fitter offspring, and therefore they tend to have hotter
sex. There's even a DNA testthat can predict hot sex. Check it
out. It's instant chemistry dot com. And out of this initial surge of
estrogen and testosterone can come romance.Romance is marked by a surge of other
(04:38):
kinds of hormones like dopamine, whichcauses craving and desire. It can also
make you giddy and euphoric and Norabenephrin. Yeah, that's the chemical release
to calm us down after we experiencedstress. Love can be very stressful.
Finally, during the attachment stage,oxytocin, often called the cuddle hormone and
(04:59):
vaso pressing one sometimes linked to monogamy, jump into the game big time and
serotonin decreases, which can make peoplemore obsessive. This party of hormones and
firing of neurotransmitters causes a kind oflove delusion, one that often leads to
commitment. Johnny Depp explains that delusionwell in the film Don Juan de Marco.
(05:23):
Have You never meet a woman inspiresyou to love until your every senses
feel with her. You inhale her, you test her, You see your
unborn children her eyes, and knowthat your heart has at last found their
own. Your life begins with herand without her, it must surely end.
(05:46):
This lustful delusion phase can be reallyimportant if couples end up staying together
for a long time, because it'sduring this phase the couples create mutual memories
of say, romantic dates, vacations, joy reshopping, and all of these
memories can be conjured up years laterby either partner to help rekindle things in
their minds when the going gets tough, because we all know this stage doesn't
(06:12):
last. Where just tell me whatit's me It's my fault. You're just
buried the wrong person. That's allI remember Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep in
Kramer Versus Kramer, the first bigdivorce movie. But even though those early
(06:33):
hormonal feelings don't last, it doesn'tmean that love doesn't last. Love is
much more than a biological event.Human beings are complicated people, and we
interact within layers of important social systems, and we all have individual psychology.
Our idea of love and what itis and what it should feel like is
(06:55):
different in everybody. Oh here's afun fact. By the way, it
takes a person about one to fourminutes to decide if they'd like to have
sex with someone. Half of thatdecision is based on body language, about
forty on tone of voice, andless than seven percent on what a potential
lover actually says. So much forthe value of a good pickup line,
(07:16):
Hi, I was wondering if youcould touch my arm so I could tell
my friends that I've been touched byan angel. When love scientists talk about
the sociology of love, they meanthe stuff people put in their dating profiles
that indicate if their social circles willbe compatible. Education, religion, political
affiliation, career choice, even foodchoices. Are you vegan, vegetarian or
(07:41):
paleo. If two people are deeplybiologically attracted to each other, but their
relationship would clash in day to daylife, their love won't last. Think
of it this way. I'll betthat if you put any two humans alone
on a desert island or in aVegas hotel room, they would eventually fall
in love. But if you tryto take that relationship out into the real
(08:03):
world, it probably wouldn't make it. Remember when Robin Wright as Jenny rejected
Tom Hanks as the lovable Forrest Gumpbecause their lives didn't match in adulthood,
why don't you love me, Jenny. I'm not a smart man, but
(08:28):
I know what love is. Youshould know that there are some couples who
match entirely on sociology, arranged marriages, and then they let the hormones rise
later. That's still love, andit often lasts a long time. As
(08:50):
if biology and sociology aren't messy enough, the feeling of love is further complicated
by an individual's psychological attachment style.You see, we all come into the
world with a predisposition to attach incertain ways, and then during the first
year of life, when our braintriples in size, that genetic predisposition is
(09:11):
either enlivened or suppressed by how ourcaregivers treat us. For instance, let's
say a baby was born with alot of anxiety. If a parent holds
rocks and soothes the baby on demand, that gene might be suppressed and the
baby might grow to believe that theworld and lovers can meet their needs.
(09:35):
On the other hand, if caregiverswere told to let that baby cry it
out, that baby might grow upto imagine love as an eternal state of
longing. Our early life attachments becomea blueprint for love Attachment theory is a
well researched psychological area founded by thelate British psychoanalyst John Bulby. He believes
(09:58):
that we go out into our adultromantic lives and recreate the feeling of mummy
love, even if it was filledwith pain. No one wants to think
that mother never wanted them and werealways really rejected them. It's a very
painful, very very painful situation foranyone to find themselves in. Yet if
(10:18):
it's true, it's true, andthey are going to be better off from
the future if they recognize that thatis what did happen, That was John
Bolby himself. You can actually purchasethe full talk where doctor Bolby explains attachment
theory at lifespan learn dot org.There are many kinds of attachment styles.
(10:39):
Some people fear caregiving and become attractedto people who can't give care. Others
become addicted to longing and become attractedto those who will abandon them. Others
smother a lover as a bid totry to keep them near Still, others
avoid emotional intimacy because it's just toopainful. In our adult romantic lives,
(11:01):
we unconsciously go back to the sceneof the crime and try to solve our
early life conflicts. Like I said, love is darn complicated. Remember share
in Moonstruck, the morning after sheslept with her fiance's brother, I should
have taken a rock and killed myself. I'm gonna marry him. Do you
hear me? Last night never happened, and I'm going to marry him,
(11:22):
and you and I are going totake this to our office. I can't
do that. Why not? I'min love with you? Snap out of
it. Perhaps my favorite psychological theoryof love, next to John Bowby's attachment
(11:43):
theory, of course, is thetriangular theory of love, proposed by Cornell
Universities Robert Sternberg. If you've everstudied any psychology, you probably know Sternberg
for his world renowned theories on humanintelligence, but he's also turned his scientific
life to love, coming up withthe idea that love has three components,
(12:05):
and one, two, or allthree can be present for people to interpret
it as love. The first hecalls intimacy. He doesn't mean physical intimacy
here, He's talking about emotional connection, vulnerability, intense feelings, honesty.
(12:26):
The second component of love, accordingto Sternberg is passion. Now here's where
physical attraction steps in. Passion isconnected to sex, stride, lust and
the crazy cocktail of hormones that willmake someone do just about anything to be
in each other's presence. The thirdkind of love in the Sternberg triangle is
(12:46):
commitment. This is the intellectual choiceto love someone, to make a decision
to stay with them and make futurelong term plans. Now here's where Sternberg's
theory of love gets really interesting.You can experience various combinations of these three
components and still call it love,and your partner, well, he or
(13:07):
she might be experiencing a different combination, and this is where things can get
prickly. So here are Sternberg's sixcombinations of his triangular theory of love.
The first is infatuation passion alone.In this kind of love, there's no
real emotional intimacy and no commitment.If you've ever had a serious crush on
(13:31):
a celebrity or fallen in love withsomeone online, you've experienced Sternberg's infatuated love.
Likewise, if you have a standalone sexual relationship where no one's talking
about their feelings or problems, andcommitment isn't present. You're in infatuated love.
This kind of love doesn't tend tolast very long. The second kind
(13:54):
of love that Sternberg describes is emptylove. Unhappy man urges fall into this
category. What you've got is commitment, but not much else. No emotional
intimacy, no sexual passion. Coupleswho stay together for the sake of the
children, which, according to researchon child development, isn't such a bad
idea, but these couples fall intoempty love. The third kind of love,
(14:20):
Oh, it's a fun one.If you've ever been lucky enough to
experience sexual passion along with emotional intimacy, you know of Sternberg's version of romantic
love. These kinds of lovers aredrawn to each other emotionally and physically,
but they may not have a commitmentto each other, so a big time
(14:41):
marital affair might fall into this category. This kind of relationship can feel kind
of scary and unstable, filled withcloseness, excitement, and fear of loss,
but romantic love is often a steppingstone to married life or, in
the case of an affair, adivorce. Single partners don't want to lose
this amazing feeling, so they getengaged. A married person in an empty
(15:07):
marriage gains the emotional support in aromantic love affair needed to leave their union.
Okay. Love type number four oneif you have a great emotional connection
and are committed to each other buthave no sexual passion. Sternberg calls this
companionate love. It's much stronger thana friendship and can be very affectionate.
(15:31):
It's often what long term marriages becomeas people age. Companionate love can also
be felt by long term room matesor close family members who live together for
obvious reasons. There's no sexual relationship, but the bond is strong and the
two are primary attachment figures. Ihad two great aunties who live together,
(15:52):
Rita and Godilla. One had adaughter. Family folklore said that the baby's
father died and World War two.The two sisters lived together on a farm
for fifty years. No one caneven remember which sister actually gave birth to
the daughter. These two had astrong companion at love. Love style number
(16:15):
five, according to Robert Sternberg,pray you never have this one. It's
costly. You can have hot sexualpassion and commitment, but no emotional intimacy.
Sternberg calls this one fatuous love.It happens to couples who have great
(16:36):
sex at the very beginning of theirrelationship, and then they run to the
altar to try to keep those feelingsforever. Remember the brief marriage of Kim
Kardashian to Chris Humphreys, big wedding, seventy two days later, big breakup.
And how about the crazy Las Vegaswedding in two thousand and four of
Britney Spears and her childhood friend JasonAlexander. That one lasted a whopping fifty
(16:59):
five hours. I like to callSternberg's fatuous love love drunk. There is
a sixth kind of love that RobertSternberg talks about in his Theory of Love,
but I'm going to save it forthe very end of this podcast because
it's the one we all dream about. Besides biology, sociology, and psychology,
(17:26):
there's one other ingredient in the recipefor love timing. YouTube could be
a perfect physical match. You couldlook great on paper, and you might
both have a secure attachment style.But if one of you hasn't hit their
state of readiness, love will bekind of one sided. Remember, women
have the pressure of a fertility windowand tend to fall in love faster and
(17:48):
desire a commitment. For instance,you might think that on paper, that
is sociologically, a movie star anda humble bookstore owner would be a good
fit. But if the timing wasright for both of them, As played
by Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant innotting Hill, love can still blossom.
(18:11):
The fame thing isn't really real,you know. Don't forget. I'm also
just a girl standing in front ofa boy asking him to love her.
(18:33):
Men like to have all their ducksin order education career, and their social
circle has to be coupling up.Weddings, like divorces, are highly contagious
within social circles, and there's nosuch thing as a groom's magazine. They
wait till their buddies do it.So is it worth it to wait it
out until your sexual partner hits hisor her state of readiness? Usually not,
(18:56):
sadly, because after some time togetherall those love hormones start to decline
and people are less likely to makea commitment. That may be why couples
who live together instead of getting marriedare less likely to marry that person,
and if they do, they're morelikely to divorce them. Well, that
could also be because people with aninsecure attachment style, those who don't have
(19:18):
a healthy blueprint for love, aremore attracted to cohabitation than marriage. Tom
cruise in Jerry McGuire found his momentof readiness with Renee's Elwigger when his career
fell apart and he needed a partner. I love you. You complete me.
(19:44):
You had me at hello. Okay, I promised you I would save
the best kind of love for last. Remember Robert Sternberg and his triangular theory
of love, Well, the sixthcombination of love is the one we all
dream about, consummate love. Sternbergthought of consummate love as the perfect love
(20:07):
because it has all three of hiscomponents emotional intimacy, physical passion, and
commitment. These unicorn couples somehow continueto have a great sex life decades into
their relationship. They often say theycan't imagine themselves happier with anyone else,
(20:27):
They have good conflict resolution skills,and they just continue to love and respect
each other. But Sternberg also warnsthat maintaining this kind of love is a
whole lot harder than finding it.Consummate love involves constant communication, emotional regulation
skills, and yes, it involveslove. My favorite definition of the word
(20:52):
love. It is a verb.It's the verb to give. And according
to Robert Sternberg, without love,even the greatest love can die. Many
people live their entire lives and neverget to experience Sternberg's idea of consummate love.
(21:12):
And that's okay. It's a goal, it's an ideal, and every
relationship we have is a lesson inlearning. Every single relationship, if it's
a little bit better than the onebefore, is a successful relationship. I
(21:33):
never judge the success of love onduration. I think all relationships are gymnasiums
for her minds. We can't growalone. We must play out our psychology
interacting with others, and that interactioncan be kind of prickly sometimes. In
fact, the road to intimacy ispaved with a series of ruptures followed by
(21:57):
repairs. It is in those momentsof conflict, of loss, of hurt
feelings when we can be authentic,when we can say I'm sorry, and
this is what love is. We'realways learning and growing through love. Thanks
(22:32):
for listening to this episode of MatingMatters up next Sexy Money. How earning
money for men is really about earningsex and why it works the opposite for
women. I'm doctor Wendy Walsh.Mating Matters is produced in partnership with iHeartMedia.
(22:55):
It is researched, interviewed and writtenby me, doctor Wendy Walsh,
and it is it did and producedby Brooke Peterson. You know, people
don't learn about podcasts usually by justsearching around. They learn about a podcast
because somebody who loved that podcast toldthem about it. So I encourage you
to please subscribe, write a review, and more than anything, hit that
(23:17):
share button. Now, think ofsomebody who would like to hear this information
as much as you enjoyed it.Thanks for listening. I'm doctor Wendy Walsh.
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