THAT'S MEN:Researchers now say that romantic love can survive years after the knot is tied, writes Pádraig O'Morain
MARRIAGE DOESN’T kill romance. There’s a shocking thought for you.
“Shocking” isn’t my word for it. It’s the word used by two researchers writing in the Review of General Psychology about romantic love and long-term relationships.
The researchers, Bianca P Acevedo and Arthur Aron, set out to examine the proposition, commonly held, that the romantic love that brings people together at the start of a relationship eventually gives way to what is sometimes called “companionate love”.
Romantic love they define as love characterised by intensity, engagement and sexual interest. Companionate love is a warm, less intense sort of love without attraction or sexual desire.
Their conclusion, after reviewing many studies in this area, is that romantic love can and does thrive in many long-term marriages. This, they reckon, could come as a bit of a shock to couples who have settled for companionate love as the best that’s likely to be available.
The conventional view is expressed by Oscar Wilde, whom they quote in the article: “One should always be in love. That is the reason one should never marry.” Oscar, they suggest, was wrong.
This doesn’t mean, thank heavens, that people stay infatuated all their lives. The initial state of infatuation which brings so many couples together doesn’t usually last, and if it does it’s not necessarily a good thing. Infatuation tends to involve an element of obsession. You think obsessively about this person you are in love with, you desperately want to be with them and you are desperately afraid of losing them.
That’s grand for a while. However, while romantic love, in which you value the other person, want to be with them and are sexually attracted to them, increases the level of satisfaction in a marriage, obsessive love has the opposite effect.
It’s easy to see why. The obsessive lover is very unsure as to whether the partner is committed to the marriage, whether he or she will stay or go and is often eaten up by jealousy. To be the partner of such a person is wearing and tearing – hence the reduction in marital satisfaction.
Fortunately, you find obsessive love much less often in long-term relationships than you find romantic love. I suspect this is because obsessive love ultimately has the effect of killing relationships.
I wouldn’t want to do down the whole concept of companionate love which works satisfactorily for many people.
But the research studies looked at by the authors reveal a lower level of satisfaction in marriages characterised by companionate love than in those in which the couples experience romantic love.
Contrary to the views of the cynics, married people tend to have a greater sense of wellbeing than their single counterparts. Add romantic love to the mix and their satisfaction goes up, their emotions are more positive and they find life in general more satisfying.
Obsessive love, on the other hand, is linked with control, jealousy, domestic violence and other negative experiences.
A fascinating finding from the study is that the capacity for romantic love owes so much to each individual’s own personality strengths. The partners don’t get lost in romantic love. Instead their individuality enhances that love.
Those who experience romantic love a long way into their marriages tend to be people who feel confident in themselves. Their self-esteem tends to be fairly high. This means they value their partner, they want to be with them but they are not jealous or possessive.
The obsessive partner, on the other hand, tends to be insecure about himself or herself and full of doubts.
Self-assurance, and not self-doubt, opens the space for long-term romantic love.
I mentioned a couple of times the authors’ view that people who have settled for companionate love might be shocked to discover that there’s more to romance and marriage than this.
On the plus side, though, they point out that this realisation may give these couples “the inspiration they need, even if challenging, to make changes that enhance their relationship quality, and thus general wellbeing”.
The authors end their article with the question: Could Oscar Wilde be wrong?
Well, I don’t know about Oscar, but I do know it’s time for candles, flowers, chocolates and soft music.
Padraig O'Morain is a counsellor. His book, That's Men the best of the That's Men column from The Irish Times, is published by Veritas