Keep your eyes open, hold tight to your convictions, give it all you’ve got, be resolute, and love without stopping.
I Corinthians 16:13-14
If you were designing a recipe for romantic love, what would be your top ingredients?
A mountain of new research reveals what maters most. Robert Sternberg, a Yale University psychologist, says it basically comes down to three ingredients:
- Passion – the biological part of love: This it the spine-tingling sensation that moves us toward romance. It starts with our hormones. It’s sensual and sexual, characterized by physiological arousal and an intense desire for affection. The Song of Songs, for example, celebrates the physical love between a man and a woman in passion-filled poetry: “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth — for your love is more delightful than wine” (Song of Songs 1:2).
- Intimacy – the emotional part of love: Love without intimacy is only a hormonal illusion. You can’t desire another person over the long haul without really knowing that person. Intimacy has a “best friend” or “soul mate” quality about it. We all want someone who knows us better than anyone else — and still accepts us. And we want someone who holds nothing back from us, someone who trusts us with personal secrets. Intimacy fills our heart’s deepest longings for closeness and acceptance.
- Commitment – the willful part of love: Commitment looks toward a future that cannot be seen and promises to be there — until death. “Without being bound to the fulfillment of our promises,” writes philosopher Hannah Arendt, “we would be condemned to wander helplessly in the darkness of each person’s lonely heart.” Commitment creates a small island of certainty in the swirling waters of uncertainty. As the mooring of marriage, commitment secures love for our partner when passion burns low and intimacy wanes. Commitment says, “I love you because you are you, not because of what you do or how I feel.”
Whenever we have a chance to speak to newlyweds, we’ll tell them that they can’t expect to wake up every morning of their married life and have all three of these ingredients at a 10 out of 10. But, they can enjoy a lifetime of romance if they work on cultivating passion, intimacy and commitment.
How about you? How are the two of you doing when it comes to these three?
Reflect and Respond
As you consider the three ingredients of love, which one do you need to work on most and what will you do about it?
Go ahead, tell us in the comments.
Related Resource
With more than a million copies sold, Saving Your Marriage Before It Starts has become the gold standard for helping today’s engaged and newlywed couples enjoy lifelong love. This expanded and updated edition has been honed by years of feedback, professional experience and the latest research, making it more helpful and informative than ever.
Prayed for your ministry this morning. Love you both.
The missing link called PLATONIC LOVE outlasts all!
Intimacy- I saw my parents love and be committed to each other but very little trust and intimacy. Now being married this is something I am learning to do with my husband. I am able to do it with my Mom and brothers, my friends and counselor but for whatever reason it is difficult with my spouse.
Intimacy without a doubt. While I am certainly not perfect, for whatever reason my wife simply cannot be honest with me, keeps secrets from me and affirmatively lies to me–even though I have made it clear that I believe trust is essential to a successful marriage.
I have only been married 8 months and have almost divorced twice, the last time being last week. We have had a very difficult time growing closer, my husband just won’t let me into who he is emotionally and we have a non existent sex life, which he says is due to ED. But even with that there is no touch, no communication, no real love that he shows towards me, and it hurts deep within my soul. I’ve been praying for us and in the last two days I’ve cried a river, but we’ve managed to have some very open and heartfelt dialogue about what’s going on in our marriage. I’m hopeful that things will get much better.
According to Rev.2.4-5 the three essential ingredients to getting back to love are remember (what it was like), repent (for your part in the fall from love), and re-do (the things you did while you were in love). Leaving your first love and never getting it back is a relationship killer as per v. 5.
We certainly have commitment but because of some problems with hormones there is no passion. There is also not much intimacy. I have failed in this department of intimacy with my husband. Somehow I feel all his questions are always pointing out my flaws. He is the one that wants to talk and work things out. I’m the one who shuts down. Seems like roles are reversed. Counseling hasn’t helped much either.
Even after 44 yrs marriage for me is still a roller coaster. Passion (not just sexual passion) is there for me but my wife is driven more by physical world goals and she leaves me behind, so to speak, while fixated on her goal. I’ve learned it’s not a dismissal. It is her personality type and there are many advantages to it. I try to think it is a positive thing to be what some would call “taken for granted”. To her I am the dependable portion that doesn’t need focused attention. Sometimes I do receive her full attention and am grateful. My biggest problem is when I am in a hormonal storm nothing sooths it like time alone with my wife but hormones don’t check the schedule.
Emotional intimacy is there. Physical intimacy is there but not enough to keep me out of depression. Hormones don’t think. They don’t care about timing. If she says “How could you even think about sex at a time like this?” it just doesn’t compute with me. Who said I was thinking?) Someone said “For women, sex is a decision. For men it’s hormones.”
Commitment is there. “This-is-my-wife.” “This” not that. “Is” not was or will be. “My” not yours. “Wife” more than a companion or friend. This. Is. My. Wife. I repeat as necessary and be thankful.
Katie, that means SO much coming from you. You have such a great eye yolruesf. I will be in PA for a wedding in May, let’s do some photos of you and Dave. So much has happened since marriage, you have to celebrate that through photography too!
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