What could better articulate the uniqueness of love than the quote "In all the world, there is no heart for me like yours. In all the world, there is no love for you like mine." often attributed to the famous poet Maya Angelou?
It is surprising that while we share a common idea of love, we struggle to describe our love for a person. It is universal, yet personal.
Think about this:
If love evokes similar emotions and feelings in all of us, then why is it that the bond you share with your partner feels different from the one your friend shares with theirs?
An American psychologist, Robert Sternberg tried to explain this when he set out to find the answer to the often hackneyed question: “How do people fall in love?”
The Triangular Theory of Love.
Love is a paradoxical phenomenon- both fluid and rigid.
You love your friends, your family, and your partner. Yet, all would agree that each one is different from the other.
But the difference isn’t as rigid as we’d like to believe.
We all must have seen friends turning into lovers, or lovers breaking up yet sharing the camaraderie of friends.
How does this happen?
To explain this, Sternberg argued that love is not a single emotion but a dynamic combination of three core elements: Intimacy, Passion, and Commitment.
These elements interact in a combination of ways to create various forms of love, making relationships complex and in constant flux.
This is often called the Triangular Theory of Love, or the Triangle of Love.
But how does one define intimacy, passion, or commitment?
Well, have you ever talked to someone and felt an instant connection due to similarity in interests, worldview, and understanding? That, my friend, is Intimacy- mutual understanding and emotional support.
While intimacy is your comfort zone, Passion is that fire inside you that attracts you to the other person. Imagine physical attraction, infatuation, crushing over someone, or carnal desire.
And Commitment, we believe is the easiest to describe- it is the voluntary decision to stay in a relationship with a person for a long time.
Sternberg argued that the combination of these three determines the nature of the bond or love you have with/for somebody.
Thus,
Friendship = Intimacy + Commitment (without passion)
Infatuation = Passion alone (without intimacy or commitment)
Ideal Love = Intimacy + Passion + Commitment (Sternberg called this the Consummate Love)
But if the form of love can change over time, it can also disappear completely.
When Love Fades.
Have you ever wondered how love birds who couldn’t stop gushing over each other could possibly separate, or what people mean when they say that they’ve fallen out of love, or “there is no more a spark”?
Sternberg’s theory doesn’t just explain how people fall in love—it also sheds light on why they fall out of love.
As the component of passion diminishes in love, it turns from a Consummate Love (Intimacy+Passion+Commitment) to a Companionate Love (Intimacy+Commitment).
In simple terms, this is what’s happening behind the curtains when people talk of that missing spark.
And when the intimacy also wanes due to miscommunication or no communication, that is when people equate it to falling out of love- where you still stand in solidarity with the person if needed, but there is no more a common thread that binds you with them.
Modern Love- Ideal or Kerfuffle?
The understanding of love we derived from the triangular theory begets an important question- Does the consummate or ideal love still exist?
In the study “Dimensions of the prototype of love” by Aron and Westbay (1996), it was found that those who were in a romantic relationship did not find passion to be one of the important central features in a romantic relationship.
The reason? That love based on passion fades quickly, while that based on intimacy and commitment lasts longer.
This was also corroborated by a finding from another research that relationships often built on passion (cohabitation/live-in relationships) were qualitatively poor as passion and fornication diminished, leaving many unhappy.
But even if we remove passion as one of the central components in defining ideal love, the story doesn’t get merrier.
When people in a romantic relationship were interviewed by the Pew Survey, they found that almost half of Americans mentioned that their partners are often distracted by their phones when they’re trying to talk to them. A third of the participants also mentioned that they had checked their partner’s phone without their knowledge, indicating a lack of trust.
This reveals that modern romantic relationships lack intimacy in their current form.
The trends for commitment do not tell a happy story either.
Even a cursory glance at the trend of divorce rates in America would give one a glimpse of the shifting priorities of commitment in love.
What is perhaps the final nail in the coffin, the apps people use to find their “ideal love” consisting of all three components subtly aid the relaxation of the ideal rather than trying to fix it.
The situation is sadly so bleak, that if you wanted to find “consummate love” these days, you would have to get yourself a Library card and ransack through books in the fiction section.
Perhaps it is time to ask ourselves: Are we choosing passion, intimacy, or commitment when finding love? More importantly, are we willing to nurture all three over time?
Because if there’s one takeaway from Sternberg’s theory, it’s that love isn’t just found-it’s built.
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