Long-Term Love and Commitment

The ability to maintain love over time is the hallmark of matu­rity. Many people regard love as something that happens to them, almost like catching the flu. This attitude hides an impor­tant truth about love: it takes effort and commitment to main­tain love—not only commitment to the other person but com­mitment to continually build on and improve the quality of the relationship. Most long-term relationships that end do so not be­cause the couple “fell out of love,” but because, somewhere down the line, they stopped working together on their relationship. In this sense, the old saying is true: the opposite of love is not hate, but indifference.

Sternberg (1985), you may recall, claimed that passion, in­timacy, and commitment are the three elements of love; in con­summate love, he says, all three are present. Yet one tends to hear very little talk of com­mitment in our culture, with its great emphasis on passionate love. In the account of the man and woman in Personal Voices, “Murray and Frances,” it is this sense of commit­ment that is the test of love. Couples going through hard times can persevere and build even stronger and more intimate relationships when their commitment reflects such a deep sense of trust.

If you observe an older couple who have been together for many years, you may have a strong sense of their ease with each other. Couples who continue to communicate with each other, remain committed to each other and the relationship, and remain interested in and intimate with each other build a lasting bond of trust. Those who don’t may feel

Question: How can you stay with only one person your whole life and not get bored?

Love grows and changes when two people commit themselves to work on a relationship. Are you the person you were 10 years ago? What makes you think you’ll be the same 10 years from now? When two people allow each other to grow and develop, they find new ex­periences and new forms of love all the time. People get bored primarily when they lose interest, not because the other person has no mysteries left.

Personal Voices