Is the passionate style of love different fromcompassionate love? How are they different? Well! We all have experienced it inour lives, yet, it requires to be defined more precisely for commonunderstanding. This post elaborates on passionate love and compassionate loveand also differentiates between the two on various parameters. So buckle up andnavigate through this post until the end to get a fresh perspective onpassionate and compassionate love.
Whatis Passionate Love?
Accordingto Hatfield (a renowned psychologist), passionate love is a state of intensedesire for union with another. Passionate love is common in the beginning days.Couples in love experience strong feelings for each other. Passionate love hassome common behavioral symptoms. They always crave the intimacy of the otherperson, may think of the other person constantly when not together, andexperience severe distress when apart. The passionate style of love has two common forms – Requited and Unrequitedlove.
Requitedlove is a state wherein two individuals share a strong bond with each other andstrive to be together. Contrarily, unrequited love is a one-sided feeling ofpassionate love that often evokes feelings such as depression, anxiety, orloneliness.
Characteristicsof Passionate Love
Tounderstand passionate love better, let’s throw a look at its commoncharacteristics:
Idealizingthe Partner or Relationship
Two people sharing a feeling of passionate love often tend to idealize each otherand perceive each other as flawless. They lack the eyes to see the flaws ineach other. Furthermore, they also believe that their relationship is perfectand no relationship can be so perfect as this.
Constant Thoughts about the Partner
People in a passionate love state keep thinking about their partners around the clock.It fills them with immense joy and pleasure. These thoughts can be intrusiveand hard to skip, even when someone deliberately attempts to avoid them.
Desire to Tell and Know More
Ano theremotional characteristic of passionate love is a yearning desire to know and beknown to another partner. People in love, especially in the initial days, canspend the whole day telling and knowing about one another without gettingbored.
Strong Feelings like Never Before
No feeling is simple in the people sharing a passionate bond. They feel extremelyhappy when things go well and feel devastated when adverse things happen in therelationship. There are no intermediate feelings.
Craving for the Physical Intimacy
Physicalattraction is one of the most common yet strongest feelings people inpassionate style love can easily develop for each other. They desire to comeclose to each other physically, and this feeling is really intense.
WhatIs Compassionate Love?
Now that we have discussed passionate love let’s relate and compare it withcompassionate love. Passionate love is mainly characterized by intensity, whereascompassionate love is depicted by the level of intimacy. Compassionate love canbe perceived as the later stage of a relationship when feelings such as trust,commitment, intimacy, and affection become dominant. It takes time but makes arelationship more beautiful.
Passionalso exists in a compassionate relationship; however, the intensity mayalleviate with the development of other feelings, such as care and compassion.This form of love is more meaningful. Wherein, people tend to genuinely care foreach other, understand each other, and remain committed at all times, be itgood or bad. Disagreements happen, but compassionate love remains unaffected bythe arguments and disagreements.
Characteristics of Compassionate Love
Compassionatelove can be understood by its common characteristics as stated in thebelow-given list:
UnshakeableTrust
Compassionatelove is marked by unshakeable trust in the other partner and their deeds.
Disagreementscan occur in situations; however, people in compassionate love find a way outof the arguments towards a more agreeable solution.
DeepIntimacy
Compassionatelove liberates people from sharing their deepest darkest secrets with eachother. This level of intimacy and reliability strengthen the bond over time.
Long-Term Commitment
The commitment shared in compassionate love can endure the toughest situation andmoments of mistrust. Compassionate love has the ability to bring things back ontrack even when nothing goes well in the relationship.
GenuineAffection
Partnerswho are in a long-haul relationship journey learn to show affection andunderstand it’s important to make the bond stronger. It is a crucial part ofcompassionate love.
WhatAre the Influencing Factors?
Taking the above-given points as common characteristics, you can’t ignore the externalfactors that can affect a relationship:
Timing
Thephase of life wherein you are developing a bond decides if it will shimmer intoa compassionate love or develop the feeling of boredom.
Way of Attachment
The waypeople attach together also depicts the future of the relationship. If youattach it securely, the bong will grow stronger with time. On the other hand,an anxious attachment led to a short-lived relationship.
Compatibility
Compatibility is also one of the most important factors that let a passionate style of lovethrive into compassionate love.
Summingup!
Thefactors discussed here can differentiate passionate love from compassionatelove. In a nutshell, you can understand that passionate love is often briefer,but compassionate love can withstand the hardest situations of life and remainthere for one another.
