1. Married and Single Life Text
Love and Commitment
Chapter 15 begins page 210
Married and Single Life Text

2. Objectives: Describe the different types of love.
Explain the difference between infatuation and love that lasts.
What are the components of lasting love?
Describe factors that affect partner selection.
How do you determine readiness for commitment?

3. What is Love?
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
 Love is any of a number of emotions and experiences related to a sense of strong affection and attachment. The word love can refer to a variety of different feelings, states, and attitudes, ranging from generic pleasure to intense interpersonal attraction.

4. What is Love (cont.)
The word love is both a verb and a noun. Love is not a single feeling but an emotion built from two or more feelings. Anything vital to us creates more than one feeling, and we also have feelings about our feelings (and thoughts about our feelings).

6. What is Love (cont.)
This diversity of uses and meanings, combined with the complexity of the feelings involved, makes love unusually difficult to consistently define, even compared to other emotional states.

7. What is Love (cont.)
As an abstract concept, love usually refers to a deep feeling of tenderly caring for another person. Even this limited conception of love, however, encompasses a wealth of different feelings, from the passionate desire and intimacy of romantic love to the nonsexual emotional closeness of familial and platonic love to the

9. What is Love (cont.)
profound oneness or devotion of religious love. Love in its various forms acts as a major facilitator of interpersonal relationships and, owing to its central psychological importance, is one of the most common themes in the creative arts. (movies, music, art)

10. Types of Love Love you feel for family Love you feel for friends
Love you feel for a brother or sister

11. Types of Love Love you feel for girlfriend /boyfriend
Love you feel for puppy/pet
Love you feel for your country
Love you feel for ideals or causes

13. Types of Love Love goes through stages: Babies’ first love is of self
Young children learn to love parents
Love of a role model also called “hero worship”– admiration for an adult believed to be perfect or ideal.
Teens are generally excited about being in love therefore- “love of love”

15. Defining Love
Love depends on what we are loving– basketball, ice cream, the sea, family, a friend, or that special someone
But people understand what you are talking about when you say you love ice cream or apple pie, too

16. Defining Love Love is accompanied by a complex set of emotions:
A chemical in the brain triggers a response to feelings of love
Thus a giddy feeling toward a special person
Signals include: lightheartedness, tenderness for the person, singing in the shower, smiling for no apparent reason, heart racing, the person is often in your thoughts

17. Infatuation
Is a love experience that is based on a sudden intense attraction. The feelings are very real and very powerful. This is the kind of love that disappears in time. Infatuation can be pleasant or painful, depending on the attitude of the second person involved.

18. Love that Lasts True love is lasting love.
True love is more difficult to identify.
It is often confused with infatuation.
Real love is more than just an emotion.
Real love is a relationship that puts feelings into action.
It means caring about another person so much that his or her health, happiness, and well-being are as important to you as your own, some times even more important.

19. Love that Lasts Real love also means: Give and take Deep devotion
Sharing
Togetherness
Understanding
Respect
Strong affection
Like
Trust

21. Paul wrote in the Bible
“Love is patient and kind. It is never jealous, boastful, conceited, rude, or selfish. Love takes no offense and does not resent. Love finds no pleasure in the failings of others, but delights in the truth. Love is always ready to excuse, to trust, to hope and to endure whatever happens.”

22. What are the Dimensions of Lasting Love
1. Mature Love: (love that lasts)-has three dimensions:
Romantic
Intellectual
Physical love

23. Dimensions of Lasting Love or Mature Love
A. Romantic Love:
First dimension to appear
Involves getting to know and cherish all the wonderful things about a person

25. Dimensions of Lasting Love or Mature Love
A. Romantic Love (cont)
Is thoughtful and spontaneous
Romance is what makes a relationship unique
It can make doing routine chores special when they are done together

27. Dimensions of Lasting Love or Mature Love
It is important to understand that the feeling in lasting love relationship may become less intense over time.

29. Dimensions of Lasting Love –Intellectual Love
B. Intellectual Love
Involves mutual respect
Valuing the belief, opinions and life goals of the loved one.

31. Dimensions of Lasting Love –Intellectual Love
B. Intellectual love involves:
Getting to know each other
Long talks
Mutual respect
Valuing the beliefs , options' and life goals of the loved one

33. Dimensions of Lasting Love –Intellectual Love
B. Intellectual Love happens by:
Seeing each other in different real life experiences
Discovering how the other acts to boredom, stress, and crisis
Communicating and becoming friends

35. Dimensions of Lasting Love –Physical Love
C. Physical Love --
Refers to the intimacies expressed by two people in love
Based on initial attraction, that is made stronger by romantic and intellectual love feeling.

37. Dimensions of Lasting Love –Physical Love
C. Physical Love is –
touching, kissing and holding each other.
the warm secure feeling of being close, along with the excitement and passion of sexual intimacy.

39. Dimensions of Lasting Love –Physical Love
C. Physical Love
is based on a desire to make the loved one feel loved and needed, rather than on a desire for personal gratification.

41. Telling the Difference.
Infatuation and love both seem real when they happen- but infatuation is based on only a few desirable traits, lasting love knows and cares for a person as he or she is.

42. Telling the Difference.
Infatuation
True Love
--Is self centered
--Leads to daydreams and lack of interest in real-life concerns
--Infatuated people try to ignore problems
--Infatuation places major importance on the physical side of a relationship
--Infatuation of love-at-first-sight simply disappears upon closer inspection
--Is focused on the loved one
--Fosters ambition, hard work, & planning for the future
--People in love work to solve their problems together
--Love sees physical intimacy as a meaningful expression of feelings, not just a source of pleasure
--Enduring love deepens as you get to know the person

43. The Stages of How Love Develops
1. An intense, sometimes unexpected attraction to a particular person develops.

44. The Stages of How Love Develops
2. A willingness to share deepest secrets surfaces.

45. The Stages of How Love Develops
3. Each partner looks to the other for support and encouragement in everyday living.

46. The Stages of How Love Develops
4. Each partner attempts to meet the emotional needs of the other.

47. “Falling In Love” is not like falling in a trap– --- LOVE requires a sense of purpose in order to develop. It needs to be built through self-control and sacrifice. It must be nurtured and nourished in order to last.

48. It is not love when… It happens suddenly.
You want or plan to change the person.
Separation causes you to forget him or her.

49. It is not love when… Thoughts are of your own needs and feelings.
Feelings are based on one or two qualities of a person.
You are too much in love to eat or work.

50. Differences are ignored. You can’t wait It fades fast.
It is not love when…
Differences are ignored.
You can’t wait
It fades fast.

52. It Is Love When…
It grows as two people get to know one another.
You accept the person’s faults

54. Feelings endure separation.
It Is Love When…
Feelings endure separation.
You put the loved one’s needs ahead of your own.

56. Feelings are based on the total personality of the loved one.
It Is Love When…
Feelings are based on the total personality of the loved one.

57. You work for your loved one, yourself, and your relationship.
It Is Love When…
You work for your loved one, yourself, and your relationship.

58. Problems are faced together. You are patient. It lasts!
It Is Love When…
Problems are faced together.
You are patient.
It lasts!

59. “ “Don’t they make an odd couple?”
Have you heard someone say…
“ “Don’t they make an odd couple?”

61. “I wonder what she sees in him.”
Or..
“I wonder what she sees in him.”

63. “I don’t think they were made for each other.”
Or even…
“I don’t think they were made for each other.”

65. Partner Selection
The reasons for choosing a particular person to love are not always apparent to others.

66. Proximity (another word for nearness)
Where you live, your social setting, your workplace, people you meet -- make up your choices of potential partners.

67. Opposites Attract
The theory that opposites attract is based on the idea that people look for partners whose qualities make up for gaps in their own personalities. The result is that people with different personalities may prove to be very compatible.

69. Opposites Attract Examples:
A high achiever may be compatible with a highly supportive person.
A talkative person may be happy with a good listener.
A dominant person may choose a partner who is easygoing and easy to do things his/her way.

70. Opposites Attract More Examples:
A person who has trouble making up his/her mind may seek out someone who is a good decision-maker.
A shy, uncertain person may look for a secure, assertive person.

71. Similarities
Another theory is that you are most likely to match up with someone who is much like yourself in terms of age, race, religion, social group, education and interests. This is because you have more in common with people of the same background and experiences.

72. Readiness for Commitment
A commitment to a relationship is a promise or pledge of loyalty to another person. Being ready for such a commitment requires the individual readiness of both partners as well as the readiness of the couple.

73. Readiness for Commitment
When individuals are ready for commitment, their personal life goals and priorities are not in serious jeopardy. These life goals include:
Career plans
Education goals
Family obligations

74. Readiness for Commitment
“love does not conquer all”
Not talking about important issues; not discussing family issues and responsibilities; sacrificing career or educational goals; not communicating with each other can only lead to serious conflict in any relationship!

75. Readiness for Commitment
You need to discover
How your loved one handles unpleasant situations?
How does he/she react to an emergency?

76. Readiness for Commitment
You need to discover –
Can he/she handle a problem with patience and determination?
How does he/she react to boredom, frustration and hard work?

77. Readiness for Commitment
You need to discover –
Has your loved one seen you looking less than your best?
Have you been together when one of you was sick, tired or discouraged

79. Jealousy!
When people feel insecure in a love relationship, they may show signs of jealousy! Love can easily be threatened by this, so it is important that both partners are mature in any relationship.