Determining Your Love Story
After developing the popular 3-factor聴intimacy, passion, and commitment--theory of love, Sternberg (see last section) felt a lot about love was still unexplained. He wondered: where do our attitudes, expectations, and feelings about love come from? What prompts a beginning relationship to change into love? Why do some loves last and others evaporate? It seemed likely to Sternberg (1998) that your 聯love story,聰 i.e. your needs and how you imagine your love life will unfold, has a great bearing on who you are attracted to, how your love is expressed, how well it endures, and so on. For a love relationship to work, the two love stories need to be compatible聴in some cases, that means similar stories and needs (e.g., both giving or highly social), and in other cases, complimentary or supplemental but congruent stories and needs (e.g., one a leader and the other a follower or one outgoing who helps the shy one socialize).
Sternberg and his students started by trying to identify people聮s love stories. They ended up with 26, for example:
Sacrifice story聴love means both give up things for the other.
Police story聴love involves the 聯Officer聰 watching the 聯Suspect聰 closely.
Travel story聴life should be a happy journey for two lovers.
Sex story聴love mainly involves an exciting sex life.
Domination story聴love involves a strong, frightening leader-type and a follower.
Recovery story聴love is helping a troubled person overcome serious problems.
Garden story聴love requires work and time, constant weeding and nourishment.
Partnership story聴love relationships are like a job聴each person has duties to do.
Fantasy story聴a prince/princess is waiting for me; we聮ll be blissful forever.
Let聮s Fight story聴arguing and fighting is exciting, fun, and healthy.
Laugh-It-Off story聴humor is easier and better than seriously discussing a problem.
Multiple-Lovers story聴the more attractive people I can attract the better.
Give-and-Take story聴one loves to make money, the other loves to spend it.
Science Fiction story聴attracted to strange, unusual, crazy, wild lovers.
Theater story聴all the world is a stage and I love acting on it.
Considering these stories (there are many possible), what is your love story? If your story isn聮t yet clear to you, consider these factors: (1) how and with whom did you learn to love as a child? (2) What kind of love experiences have you had聴what kind of persons were attractive to you and what kinds did you attract? What were the attributes of your most appealing partners? What characteristics seemed to lead to your loss of interest? (3) What ideals or dreams about love still pluck your heartstrings?
If you are pretty sure of your love story but a relationship just hasn聮t worked out, then perhaps you can decide how your story needs to be changed and how you need to experiment with new approaches and expectations in love. The results of these new real life experiences may permit you to consciously change your unconsciously developed love story into a more satisfying life drama.
Sternberg聮s 聯story聰 approach is simple, appealing, and interesting. The stories make intuitive sense to us. One can readily imagine the likely course of events for people with specific personalities and needs. It is also easy to speculate how two peoples聮 stories might interact and lead to love, how other stories combine to lead to an unhappy but lasting marriage, and how still other stories result in about 45% of all marriages ending in divorce.
The problems that concern me about this theory are practical ones: Do we or can we really know what our lover聮s story is before we get married? Do we even know our own real love story, which was unconsciously developing since infancy, until our secret ogre (e.g. anger, unfaithfulness, or self-centeredness) is out of the closet about 3 or 4 years into the marriage? Do the pre-marital fantasies tell us much about how we will change over time? (An issue raised earlier by Sternberg himself.) Does the love story indicate the ability of a lover to 聯work it out聰 or 聯tough it out聰 or to actually change his/her love story when things aren聮t working out? When marital troubles get very serious, does it help to analyze and make use of the love stories at that point? More research will tell us the answers.
Sternberg (1998) makes an interesting point: he says relationship problems can聮t be treated by changing habits and behaviors. (I doubt this statement.) He considers behaviors merely symptoms; the root problems are in the incompatible stories. If this is true, then problems in a relationship indicate we need to change our love story (or change partners), which Sternberg says we can do聴sometimes? He suggests that correctly understanding both partners聮 stories would help a couple decide what needs and expectations are causing the difficulties. I agree and this is important. But believing you know the cause of the problems doesn聮t automatically result in a change in our well-entrenched love story. He doesn聮t give much help for this last crucial step. Therefore, if you have serious marital problems, I聮d suggest selecting another book (see extensive list later). However, for help selecting and adjusting to a lover, Sternberg聮s intuitive narrative approach holds promise.
聟聟聟聟聟聟聟聟聟聟聟聟聟聟聟聟聟聟聟聟聟聟聟聟聟聟聟聟聟聟聟聟聟聟聟聟
Object relations therapists believe we are born wanting a loving, nurturing attachment to a parent. Within the first year or two of life (long before the Oedipus phase), according to this theory, we all develop an image of our "love object" and our relationship with that person. These images ("internalized objects") are not realistic; they are the feelings, fears, and wants--the mental-emotional concoctions--of an infant and toddler for his/her parent(s). In time, the really scary parts of these feelings and images are repressed--pushed out of our awareness. Example: suppose our mother fails to meet our needs, as all parents do, and we (18 months old) get very mad and fearful of rejection. We have to repress these negative expectations and feelings because we need mom's love. Much later, however, in intimate relationships, we may project our negative repressed feelings and traits (the old distrust and intense anger) to our loved one, i.e. we see our bad characteristics in our partner. We may even unconsciously select the "right kind of partner" and behave in ways designed to make that partner very emotional (angry) or untrustworthy, while we remain certain that we are well controlled and not resentful (Freud's ego defense).
Both spouses or lovers may be projecting personal traits to each other, e.g. he projects his depression to his wife (and via self-fulfilling prophesy she responds with weakness and despair) and she projects her repressed strength and independence to him (he reacts logically and confidently--and does his own thing). As a result of these projections to the other person, he never feels his depression and she never feels strong. But, while she, in part, is expressing his depression for him, her increasing depression creates an intolerable situation for both of them. They come to hate each other--indeed, they have hated or feared these projected traits all their lives--and they fight frequently. The solution? Become more aware of what feelings really are going on inside of us and how these conflicts often come from early childhood.
Some people, while in a love relationship, primarily experience only one side of a mixed or ambiguous situation. A classic example is a conflict between being an independent, separate person and being a interdependent, intimate person. In love, this ambiguity or conflict exists. Some people concentrate exclusively on wanting closeness and warmth; others dwell on needing space and distance; both types find it difficult to tolerate the internal conflict of striving for distance and closeness at the same time. So, if two people like this start a relationship, they handle the internal conflict by projecting part of their needs (closeness or independence) to the other person. Thus, when relationships are created between a "pursuer" and a "distancer," both tend to be blinded to part of their needs. They become irritated with the partner (their own characteristics each has rejected in him/herself and projected to the lover). No one in a relationship carries all the needs for closeness and the other person all the needs for independence, but they act and think that way.
A similar kind of polarization via projection of some of our emotions to the partner, similar to Shostrom and Kavanaugh's male-female relationships, can occur within many dimensions, such as reasonable-emotional, strong-weak, rescuer-troubled, boss-slave, smart-dumb, good-bad, etc. We have to recognize that we have--and should have--all kinds of feelings and motives (in varying degrees), not just one end of a dimension.
What can we do about unconscious motives? Become more aware of your feelings. Of course, I don't mean trying to remember your emotions as a 18-month-old. I mean becoming aware of your fears and anger if you don't think you have any. I mean finding out about your childhood, e.g. were you or one of your parents sick or absent? Were there family fights? Were you a caretaker as a child or considered helpless? What kind of expectations did others have of you? Are you repeating any of your early family conflicts? Observe the feelings you have toward yourself and your mate--ask yourself: "Wonder if my background could be causing these feelings?" Could I be projecting characteristics or emotions to my partner? If the answer is "maybe," look for more evidence, pro and con. What and who molded my self-concept in childhood? You can read chapter 15 and some of the books recommended below, especially Hendrix (1992).