Three names of our feelings

When we talk about love, we link together physical attraction, emotional communication, and camaraderie. Meanwhile, love has many shades: dependence, merging, rationality, affection, hatred… “Ancient Greek philosophers distinguished between sensual and bodily attraction, the need for spiritual intimacy, as well as passionate love (thirst for possession) and tender love (need for self-giving), ”says Doctor of Philosophy, sexologist Igor Kon.

Most of us experience various types of love throughout our lives, moreover, we can treat our partner differently even during one short romance. And what we ourselves consider love, for another person it may well not be.

Psychologists and sexologists, following the ancient Greeks, distinguish three types of love: eros, storge and philia. “Relationships can begin within the framework of one model, continue in another, then move on to a third,” explains Marina Chibisova, a Gestalt therapist. “We change, and relationships often become different.”

But what unites these different images of love? “The idealization of the other and, in a sense, the depreciation of oneself,” says the French psychoanalyst Didier Laurue. – Stunned by emotions, we endow our partner with virtues and virtues, which, as we often believe, we ourselves are deprived. It can be said that idealization, narcissism, dependence on another determine the characteristics of these three types of love.

Eros: love-passion

Vivid emotions, delight and constant physical attraction to a partner, excitement from being near him, touching or any bodily contact and impatience, strong anxiety even with a short separation … “Such love arises spontaneously and does not depend on a conscious attitude towards another person,” says sexologist Igor Kon. “Psychologically, it is experienced as a state of acute emotional instability with transitions from euphoria to excruciating insecurity and jealousy.”

“It seems that the feeling completely captured us,” continues Marina Chibisova. “Moreover, there may not be sexual relations as such, but the constant desire to be together becomes the main one and dominates other feelings.”

In eros relationships, the main experiences are related to what physical sensations a person experiences. To love passionately means to discover in ourselves the ability to experience emotions, the intensity of which we did not suspect before. Quite often such relations arise at the beginning of acquaintance.

“The couple is driven into the future primarily by the desire to increase the intensity of emotions and maintain a sense of saturation of life,” explains French psychologist Claude-Marc Aubry. – In a partner, we see what we lack in life – attention, support, risk, thanks to him we realize our erotic fantasies of ideal love… The duration of this passion depends on how strong our projections onto another are. As a rule, this lasts from six months to two years.

And then what? Eros relationships are usually short-lived: when the intensity of passion subsides, we catch ourselves thinking: “He has changed”, “I don’t recognize her anymore.” We finally see the partner for who he is. And either we accept it and enter into a relationship of a different type, or we are disappointed and part.

Love passion is beneficial for everyone, but cannot become the foundation of a real relationship. Only when partners accept each other with all the advantages and disadvantages, realize themselves as they are (outside the couple), they take the next step – from reckless passion to constructive, peaceful love.

Storge: love-friendship

We understand each other, we have common interests… Thanks to intellectual and emotional intimacy, sexual relationships can also arise: friendship flows into love, and the emotional excitement that is present in storge relationships initially complements the sexual one.

“Such love is strong with feelings, but it does not begin with a passionate attraction, but with a closeness of interests,” explains Marina Chibisova. “Sexual attraction is important, but it’s not the key.”

“It arises at the moment when we idealize the other as much as possible,” Didier Laurue clarifies, “and it is often at this moment that we feel for the first time: we are loved.” And then there is a desire to surrender to love feelings, which until now have been suppressed due to a lack of self-confidence or fear of spoiling friendships.

“Such love is reliable, durable and gives confidence that the partner will always understand and support us,” says Igor Kon. “But in such relationships, there can be monotony, which can cause boredom.” Knowing each other well, partners may stop feeling curiosity, interest in each other, or the need to seduce each other – emotions weaken, which can lead to the desire to look for thrills on the side …

Philia: love-respect

It happens that we perceive a loved one literally as a second half: without him it is difficult for us to feel our integrity. Philia suggests that each of us is a self-sufficient person. This is love that combines desire and reason: partners know how to live together, love each other, but do not belong to each other. They feel good together, but they can exist each separately.

The basic principle of a relationship that develops according to the type of philia is: “I love you, but I understand that I am not you and that you are different from me.”

“Brought up on romantic patterns of love, some of us understand real relationships as the absence of boundaries and complete merger: “I am you, you are me,” says Marina Chibisova. – They are proud of such closeness: “I don’t go anywhere without her”, “We only have mutual friends”, “My husband won’t let me go alone” … Filia is based on a sense of boundaries – one’s own and a partner, on mutual respect and acceptance. In such an alliance, we do not dissolve in love, but continue to be independent individuals, and our attitude towards a partner is “I feel good with you”, and not “I can’t live without you”.

The main thing in this kind of love as philia is respect not only for the partner, but also for yourself. In this case, we listen to our interests and desires – and this allows us to come to a deeper relationship that is comfortable for two. And, although the word “respect” does not fit well with romantic ideals, it is precisely this that is the best “insurance” for love.