In your relationship, are you a cop, a comedian, a prince or a martyr? Robert J. Sternberg, Ph.D., reveals how you can use your "love story" to find your perfect match.
Relationships can be as unpredictable as the most suspense-filled mystery novel. Why do some couples live happily ever after, while others are as star-crossed as Romeo and Juliet? Why do we often seem destined to relive the same romantic mistakes over and over, following the same script with different people in different places, as if the fate of our relationships, from courtship to demise, were written at birth?
Perhaps because, in essence, it is. As much as psychologists have attempted to explain the mysteries of love through scientific laws and theories, it turns out that the best mirrors of the romantic experience may be Wuthering Heights, Casablanca and General Hospital. At some level, lay people recognize what many psychologists don't: that the love between two people follows a story. If we want to understand love, we have to understand the stories that dictate our beliefs and expectations of love. These stories, which we start to write as children, predict the patterns of our romantic experiences time and time again. Luckily, we can learn to rewrite them.
I came up with the theory of love as a story because I was dissatisfied not only with other people's work on love, but also with my own. I had initially proposed a triangular theory of love, suggesting that it comprises three elements: intimacy, passion and commitment. Different loving relationships have different combinations of these elements. Complete love requires all three elements. But the theory leaves an important question unanswered: What makes a person the kind of lover they are? And what attracts them to other lovers? I had to dig deeper to understand the love's origins. I found them in stories.
My research, which incorporates studies performed over the past decade with hundreds of couples in Connecticut, as well as ongoing studies, has shown that people describe love in many ways. This description reveals their love story. For example, someone who strongly agrees with the statement "I believe close relationships are like good partnerships" tells a business story; someone who says they end up with partners who scare them -- or that they like intimidating their partner -- enacts a horror story.
Couples usually start out being physically attracted and having similar interests and values. But eventually, they may notice something missing in the relationship. That something is usually story compatibility. A couple whose stories don't match is like two characters on one stage acting out different plays -- they may look fine at first glance, but there is an underlying lack of coordination to their interaction.
This is why couples that seem likely to thrive often do not, and couples that seem unlikely to survive sometimes do. Two people may have similar outlooks, but if one longs to be rescued like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman and the other wants a partnership like the lawyers on the television show The Practice, the relationship may not go very far. In contrast, two people with a war story like the bickering spouses in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf may seem wildly incompatible to their friends, but their shared need for combat may be what keeps their love alive.
More than anything, the key to compatibility with a romantic partner is whether our stories match. To change the pattern of our relationships, we must become conscious of our love stories, seek people with compatible tales, and replot conclusions that aren't working for us.
The Beginning of the Story
We start forming our ideas about love soon after birth, based on our inborn personality, our early experiences and our observations of our parents' relationships, as well as depictions of romance in movies, television and books. We then seek to live out these conceptions of love ourselves.
Based on interviews I conducted in the 1990s, asking college students to write about their romantic ideals and expectations, I have identified at least 25 common stories which people use to describe love. (There are probably many more.)
Some stories are far more popular than others. In 1995, one of my students, Laurie Lynch, and I identified some of the most common tales by asking people to rate, on a scale of one to seven, the extent to which a group of statements characterized their relationships. Their highest-ranked statements indicated their personal love story. Among the most popular were the travel story ("I believe that beginning a relationship is like starting a new journey that promises to be both exciting and challenging"), the gardening story ("I believe any relationship that is left unattended will not survive") and the humor story ("I think taking a relationship too seriously can spoil it"). Among the least popular were the horror story ("I find it exciting when I feel my partner is somewhat frightened of me," or "I tend to end up with people who frighten me"), the collectibles story ("I like dating different partners simultaneously; each partner should fit a particular need") and the autocratic government story ("I think it is more efficient if one person takes control of the important decisions in a relationship").
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