My favorite relationship model originates in the work of anthropologist Helen Fisher. She has devoted decades of her life and career to the study of love, intimacy and relationships. I find her theory of three kinds of love incredibly useful for understanding relationships.
It proceeds from the premise that not all love is experienced in the same way. Anyone with enough romantic and sexual experience will tell you that love and passion can taste different. For some it is intense and violent, for others it is soft and delicate. Some relationships resemble a roller coaster with many ups and downs, others develop slowly and consistently over time.
But the theory of the three types of love is not abstract reasoning. Scientists like Fischer have studied the cognitive and neurobiological processes underlying attraction and love, and have begun to pinpoint the different emotions that arise at different stages of a romantic relationship. Thanks to these studies, Fisher was able to identify H. E. Fisher, A. Aron, et al. Defining the brain systems of lust, romantic attraction, and attachment / Archives of Sexual Behavior neurobiological components of love experience of various kinds and compare them with existing social realities.
This is how three types of love arose: lust, passion and devotion (in his book "Why we Love" Fischer calls them lust, romantic love and affection). They occur in different parts of the brain independently of each other. You may feel strongly attracted to someone, but not feel any attachment, such as in a one‑night stand.
Let's take a closer look at what each of the three types is.
Many people know this feeling. It is H. E. Fisher. Lust, attraction, and attachment in mammalian reproduction / Human Nature pure instinctive desire to reproduce. Lust is a kind of suggestion to which you can answer "yes" or "no": do you want to have sex with this person right now? Everything happens instantly and is based on fairly simple physical and behavioral components of attraction.
Lust can disappear as quickly as it appeared. It is short-lived and constantly changing. He has no preferences or "favorites".
This is an emotional connection that arises between two people. Two in a state of passion are considered head over heels in love. They constantly look at each other, want to spend every minute together and talk heart to heart until six in the morning.
Imagine the newlyweds on their honeymoon, the "candy‑bouquet" period, Romeo and Juliet. Passion is created through strong emotional attraction and a sense of novelty and spontaneity. Therefore, a long-married couple goes on a romantic journey to kindle the flame of a relationship.
Passion has an incredible ability to disable logical thinking. It forces us to say things that are not too deliberate and make rash promises. A guy who confesses his love to a new girl, and four months later changes his mind. A girl who dreams of moving in with a guy for a year, and then, as soon as it happens, realizes that she doesn't love him as much as she thought. Blinded by passion, we cling to the present moment and create an image of an endless and utopian future for relationships.
Passion does not develop without lust, although it can be maintained even after the attraction to each other disappears (again, think about a long-married couple).
Without unifying experience and novelty, passion perishes. After 6-12 months of living together, when the freshness of the first impression wears off, a couple is waiting for a serious test of compatibility. If two people can combine their lives to share their new experiences with each other, then the passion will persist. If not, it will eventually disappear.
And this brings us to the last type of love.
If two people have a passion for each other for a long enough time, their compatibility has stood the test of time and they continue to exchange new life experiences, then loyalty arises. This is an incredibly strong feeling that is rarely found in life.
Devotion appears when passion becomes unconditional. In couples who feel love of the second type, but have not yet moved on to the third, everything is often fine until something serious happens ‑ he loses his job, she has a miscarriage, someone starts drinking and so on. Loyalty means that you emotionally accept and love your partner's shortcomings as well as his virtues.
Scientists noticed V. Quintard, S. Jouffe, et al. Embodied self‑other overlap in romantic love: A review and integrative perspective / Psychological Research that people who have reached this level of attachment, the perception of their own "I" merges with the perception of a partner. Experts observed couples who had been together for a long time and recorded patterns of neuronal activation. They found out that if you ask a man who has been married for 20 years to imagine that his wife had an accident, and then that he himself had an accident, then the same areas are activated in the brain. And they won't "turn on" if he thinks about other people. Such a "merger" with a partner occurs only in those who have long felt loyalty.
This type of love is born with the idea that the relationship will last indefinitely. They can only end if one or both of them change to such an extent that it will be dangerous to identify with the other. For example, if the husband becomes an alcoholic or the wife starts constantly cheating. But sometimes loyalty persists even in such situations.
Lust and passion can disappear after devotion arises and not affect it in any way. Thus, each type of love serves as a prerequisite for the emergence of the next, and then loses its meaning. Lust is necessary for passion, but it can exist without it. Passion is necessary for devotion to arise, but later there is no need for it.
Each type of love has its own "schedule". And although it is quite random and varies from couple to couple, it is useful to think about it. Lust is instantaneous, it constantly comes and goes, it is very easy to return.
It takes from several days to several weeks for passion to appear, and it usually lasts from 3 to 6 months. In couples with a high level of compatibility, passion can last longer, but it will require a lot of effort and constant communication.
Devotion appears after 1-3 years of living together and persists until the end, unless the two separate once as individuals. In this case, it will take years to get rid of the last type of love forever.
