Empowerment Through True Love

The story began when we were very tiny, secure in a blissful bond. Her adoring gaze spoke without words, saying: “I love you as deep as the ocean, as much as all the sand on the beach and all the stars in the sky. I will love you forever because this love is endless. You are my one true love. I am devoted to you. I only have eyes for you. I will do anything to care for you, to protect you, to soothe you, to meet your needs. I will give my life for you.” 

And years later, we set out on the quest in our grown-up bodies, to find this blissful state of intimacy and mutual adoration.

What’s Your Love Story?

We all have our own metaphors for love and we all create our own

Love Stories.

In fact, according to Professor Robert J. Sternberg, author of Love Is A Story, there are 26 love stories.

For some, love is a Horror Story based on fear or a Government Story about power or a Police Story, driven by distrust.

For others, love is a Home Story. For some, Love is a Game, a fierce competition with a winner and loser.

For some romantics like me, love is a Travel Story, and their relationship is a journey.

Love can be treated like a Garden that must be tended and nurtured.

For sensible types, Love is a Business Story. And for fun people, Love is a

Humour Story of non-stop laughs.

So what then is real love? The kind of love we yearn for?

Stories can be edited, revised and rewritten. We are the authors of our life stories and love stories. We wrote the Script when very young and can

re-write the script as adults any time we like.

The Love Triangle

Our good Professor came up with the Triangular Theory of Love.

Imagine a triangle. At one point of the triangle is Intimacy, at the other point is Passion and the third point of the triangle is Commitment. 

Without any of these elements, you have Non-love - no love at all.

Passion alone is mere infatuation, the one-sided, torturous crush most of us have experienced at some time in our lives.

The experience of Intimacy between two people sharing their innermost thoughts and feelings, creates a bond. This kind of love is called Liking.

A relationship based on commitment alone, however noble, is Empty Love.

A combination of Passion and Intimacy creates Romantic love, the stuff of novels, movies and love songs throughout history.

Passion and Commitment together is Fatuous Love, where the poor besotted lover is crazy with unrequited devotion.

Love based on intimacy and commitment, but without passionate desire, is called Companionate love, making a couple good, comfortable companions.

However when a couple has all three elements - Passion and Intimacy and Commitment, they have discovered the Treasure of Consummate Love.  

And Consummate Love, like our very first experience of blissful union, can endure and grow stronger and last a lifetime.

In Consummate Love, both lovers say wordlessly to each other, as they gaze into each other’s souls:

“I love you as deep as the ocean, as much as all the sand on the beach and all the stars in the sky. I will love you forever because this love is endless. You are my one true love. I am devoted to you. I only have eyes for you. I will do anything to care for you, to protect you, to soothe you, to meet your needs. I will give my life for you.” 

And this, my friends, is the ultimate Love Story and the precious, empowering experience of finding a soul mate to share your life with.

Finding a partner to love should be as easy as a Hollywood romantic movie. So what goes wrong?

Attachment Theory in Adult Relationships

 Since the pioneering research on the maternal bonding of infants by John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth in the 1930s, attachment theory has been central to understanding developmental psychology and personalities.

And in 2011, ground-breaking researchers Amir Levine and Rachel S. F. Heller published a book applying attachment theory to adult relationships.

When I read Attached in November 2017, at the end of a long marriage, this vital knowledge switched on a light bulb and changed my life.

Levine and Heller explain that there are four attachment styles in adult relationships: Secure, Anxious, Avoidant and a less common combination of ‘Anxious and Avoidant.’

People with a Secure style (around 50 per cent of any population) feel comfortable with intimacy and are usually warm and loving.

People with an Anxious style (about 20 per cent of us) crave intimacy and worry about their partner’s ability to love them.

People with an Avoidant style (about 25 per cent) equate intimacy with loss of independence and constantly try to minimise closeness.

People with a combined Anxious-Avoidant style (about five per cent) vacillate between the two styles.

Mixing up Attachment Styles

When two secure people fall in love and commit to a relationship they have the ability to show empathy, affection, passion and closeness, console each other, support and encourage each other, communicate directly, make decisions and resolve conflicts together and share their lives.

A secure partner often has the ability to accept and adapt to a partner who is avoidant, giving them their space.

The Secure partner can handle the insecurities of an Anxious partner, giving them reassurance, plenty of intimacy and soothing. In fact Levine and Heller claim, based on their research, that having a Secure partner can enable the Anxious type to grow into being securely attached.

In the same way the Secure partner can handle the volatility of the partner with a combination style. The Anxious-Avoidant partner can relax and discover security in their loving arms.

Two Avoidant types will usually not last. They will resist intimacy, passion and commitment. They lack the ability to talk about issues and resolve conflict.  They find fault with each other and build blame and resentment, and will inevitably drift apart.  

Two Anxious types might be able to love each other enough to grow into secure attachment.

The Difficult Match

However, Levine and Heller warn that the partnership between an Avoidant type and Anxious type is the most difficult relationship of all.

When the Anxious partner moves closer for intimacy (affection, personal conversation, sex) the Avoidant type will usually feel vulnerable and uncomfortable and automatically push away their “needy” partner.

Feeling the sting of rejection, the Anxious type will pursue their partner more and get rejected again and again, escalating emotional pain and conflict.

This dynamic – the Pursuer-Distancer Dance - can continue for years in a chronically frustrating relationship. The Anxious type is trapped in a futile struggle to win their partner’s love. All the while the Avoidant type is feeling pressured and stressed, defensive and resentful. A lack of empathy and compassion for each other sets in.

Levine and Heller suggest there are only three solutions to this dynamic.

     1.  The Avoidant partner learns skills of how to bond and experience intimacy.

     2.  The Anxious partner accepts the limitations of the relationship and gives up the struggle for more intimacy.
     3. They leave each other to find more Secure partners.

Finding Your True Love

For those of you who choose to leave and seek a more fulfilling relationship, I came across another illuminating book that guides singles in the art of choosing a mate. The flippant title, How To Avoid Falling In Love With A Jerk belies the profound advice by relationship expert, John Van Epp.

Van Epp’s Three C’s model is a helpful guide for singles who are dating in search of a loving, compatible partner.

He says True Compatibility consists of three dimensions: chemistry, complementarity and comparability.

First off, there has to be chemistry – a rush of sexual attraction that sets your hormones racing! For love to last, you must be turned on by someone’s physical appearance; their face, eyes, smile, hair, skin, voice, laugh, body shape, height and body language.

This electric charge of sexual attraction often happens even before you get to know each other. But sometimes chemistry builds gradually.

I’ve read that biologically, like all mammals, humans have a “partner preference” imbedded in our brains to aid mate selection. This can partly explain individual differences in attraction to certain types. While tall, dark and handsome might be some women’s type, fair-haired, blue eyes and stocky works for others. Psychologically we are also attracted to physical looks that resemble our parents, caregivers or significant figures in childhood.

Complementarity means all the ways you are different that complement each other’s traits, strengths and weaknesses. This is the art of bringing out the best in each other. Your partner makes you a better, well rounded, capable person.

Comparability means all the similarities you share in your personalities, values and lifestyle, including your work and interests. Soul mates share the same core values, goals and dreams and sense of purpose.

When you meet someone and the three C’s are matched, Van Epp advises you to take time to attach, using RAM – the Relationship Attachment Model. There are five slow, steady steps to secure attachment – get to know, trust and rely on the person before you commit and touch - that is, become sexually intimate. 

He believes holding off on sex can save the heartache that comes from jumping into bed too soon and then breaking up when the attraction wears off.

And so in choosing the right partner, someone who is secure and capable of giving and receiving love – the full triangle of passion, intimacy and commitment – you might just experience the True Love you have yearned for all your life, since you first experienced the bliss of bonding as a baby.

And living each day blissed-out with your soul mate will empower you with a sense of purpose, overflowing joy and deep compassion for all humanity, all living creatures and our precious planet.