Love takes many forms. Love exists between parent and child and between family members. Love between friends, known to the ancient Greeks as philia, involves concern for the other’s well-being. Lovers may experience two additional types of love: passionate love and companionate love. In this section we look more closely at these two widely discussed types of love and then present two contemporary models, or theories, of love.
Passionate Love
Passionate love, also known as romantic love or infatuation, is a state of extreme absorption with and desire for another. It is characterized by intense feelings of tenderness, elation, anxiety, sexual desire, and ecstasy. Generalized physiological arousal, including increased heartbeat, perspiration, blushing, and stomach churning along with a feeling of great excitement, often accompanies this form of love.
Intense passionate love typically occurs early in a relationship. It sometimes seems as though the less one knows the other person, the more intense the passionate love is. In passionate love, people often overlook faults and avoid conflicts. Logic and reasoned consideration are swept away by the excitement. One perceives the object of one’s passionate love as providing complete personal fulfillment.
Not surprisingly, passionate love is often short-lived, typically measured in months rather than years. Love that is based on ignorance of a person’s full character is likely to change with increased familiarity. However, this temporary aspect of passionate love is often overlooked, especially by young people who lack experience with long-term love relationships. Many couples, convinced of the permanence of their passionate feelings, choose to make some kind of commitment to each other (becoming engaged, moving in together, getting married, etc.) while still fired by the fuel of passionate love—only to become disillusioned later. When ecstasy gives way to routine, and the annoyances and conflicts typical of ongoing relationships surface, lovers may begin to have some doubts about their partners.
The first weeks and months of my relationship with Bob were incredible. I felt like I had found the perfect partner, someone who filled all that was missing in my life. then, suddenly, he started to get on my nerves, and we started fighting every time we saw each other. It took a while to realize that we were finally seeing each other as real people instead of dream companions. (Authors’ files)
Love and Commnunication in Intimate Relationships
Some couples can work through this period to ultimately find a solid basis on which to build a lasting relationship of mutual love. Others discover, often to their dismay, that the only thing they ever really shared was passion. Unfortunately, many people who experience diminishing passion believe that this is the end of love rather than a possible transition to a different kind of love.
A recent study of 274 married couples revealed that passionate love may be surprisingly enduring. Of the couples in the sample married for longer than 10 years, 40% reported being "very intensely in love." Correlates of long-term intense love included positive thoughts about the partner, affectionate behavior, shared activities, frequent sexual activity, and general life happiness (O’Leary et al., 2012).