What Character-Based Love Is

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Do you remember the first time you fell in love? Or the last time? For most of us, romance lights us up; it exhilarates and enlivens us like no other experience. Therefore, it's often impossible to forget.

Bristling with passion, awash in the "pleasure hormone," dopamine, romance ushers a powerful rush that is singularly unique and intoxicating, even addictive for some of us. Swept up, the truly love-smitten gloat and revel in a memorably euphoric "two-person carnival" wherein each partner perceives the other as the proverbial wishing well of their most quixotic desires and needs—the much-sought-after, coveted solution to a fulfilling and lasting relationship. All aglow, lovers luxuriate in what is often a fleeting illusion of shared compatibilities, a short-lived celebration of their similarities.

With unbounded enthusiasm, romantic partners laud each other's traits, boasting about them in lofty, idealized ways to family, friends, or sometimes to anyone within earshot. These romanticized characterizations trumpet the couple's reasons for why they are "head-over-heels" in love with each other.

I see what I need to find.

Here's a classic example: She proudly announces, "He's so intelligent, so confident, and he always makes me laugh… I really love him." And he delightedly declares, "She's so kind, sexy, and fun to be with… I really love her."

Charged with positive emotion, these scintillating character-based narratives are the perceived "birthplace," the source or genesis of each partner's full-hearted, impassioned feelings. This is "character-based love," dressed to its best and fully illustrated. It is the expected or conventional way we fall in love. In short, we "see" or "find" qualities in our romantic partners and then attribute the origin of our love to the existence of these qualities.

Perception and trait-dependent love

Character-based love is thus premised upon the very plausible, conventional notion that one's love for their romantic partner flows directly from and is solely attributed to their partner's traits, physical and psychological. We all recognize this as the commonest explanation or expression of romantic love, but it's limited, even flawed, because it is perception-based and trait-dependent. With potentially forbidding consequences, partners can unwittingly surrender in large measure, if not completely, the control over their feelings of affection as they are now subject to the perceived existence and manifestation of their partner's qualities. Character-based love is thus a form of love that happens to us—we fall in love—as opposed to love being the product of our own proactive making.

Logically then, character-based love has an external locus of control, meaning the perceived wellspring of our affection is located squarely within the person of our partner. Therefore, often unbeknownst to us, what ultimately influences the ebb and flow of our affection is generated by this source "fixed" outside ourselves. Again, expanding this logic, we are thus passive recipients as opposed to proactive "creators" of our affection. Does this sound somewhat infant-like? Does it strike you as inadequate?

Conversely, however, speaking briefly to character-based love's positive side, for a majority of us, it is the "launch pad" for partner affection that can broaden, deepen, and lead to greater commitment. But again, how sustainable is it?

Another bombshell

Now, the foreseeable caveat: What happens to my "partner-derived-affections" when my perception of my partner's traits changes, or my partner acts "out of character" or changes altogether? And they often do. Is my love predicated upon a dubious, shifting ground of perception? Did you see this coming?

Further, two related and deceptively malignant strains run throughout character-based love. First, when the "right" person is found, it's tempting to wrap up our search: Mission accomplished! We may understandably but wrongfully conclude our quest is complete, and our happiness is all but guaranteed, henceforth and forever. This commonplace thinking smacks of an illusory or pseudo-cause-and-effect relationship—find the right person (cause), and you'll be happy (effect). Isn't it very likely that most, if not all, divorced couples originally thought they'd found the right person?

Second, in lockstep with the first, we often assume that the splashy traits we initially perceived in our romantic partners will be stable, consistently expressed, and, more, they'll ensure the ongoing gratification of our needs, with little or no effort of our own—again, more infantilizing?

A personal example

As a graduate student, I remember telling a friend that if I married, it would be to an intelligent, educated woman: character-based love. Not long after, I met and eventually married a fellow doctoral student—and we lived happily ever after. Well, not exactly. Without a doubt, my wife's intelligence and education have contributed hugely to our relationship, and I love and admire her decisively for these qualities. However, in my weaker, less-than-stellar moments, these same traits have also posed personal challenges, especially on those occasions when they are used to outwit me, find the holes in my logic, or propose better alternatives and solutions to our shared problems. These occasions have tested my "ego strength" and my personal maturity (as maybe they should). Clearly, we need to be very mindful, prepared, and perhaps even cautious of the qualities we look for in our intimate partners and why we desire these particular traits.

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Of course, who among us wouldn't search for attractive and compatible qualities in a romantic partner? But consider these pertinent questions: What qualities attracted you to your partner? Or to what, exactly, did you attribute your initial feelings of affection? Was your attraction trait-based? And if so, how are these qualities now weathering intimacy's inevitable inclemencies, its abundant trials and tribulations, its ups and downs?

Further, has your perception of your partner's traits changed over time? If so, have your feelings about your partner changed? Perhaps most importantly, is the love you currently feel for your partner under your own control, of your own making? Or is it character-based and, therefore, passive-dependent?

An effective additive

Dramatically epitomized by the heat of romance, character-based love delivers a potent "jump-start" to what could become our most significant relationship. Yet, for too many couples, it falls woefully short of ensuring the health and longevity of their intimate relationships. Analogously, a sprinter does not always make a good long-distance runner.

What, then, would overcome character-based love's intrinsic limitations? What's lacking? To answer hypothetically but with considerable clinical confidence, I'm strongly recommending that self-generated love, when piggy-backed atop the traditional, trait-based, partner-generated affection, can be a powerful supplement, even an effective antidote. This is why: Briefly, self-generated love has an internal locus of control, meaning we put ourselves at the "helm" of what we feel for our partners by how we think, feel, and behave toward them. In this way, our affection comes under our own purview and is thus freed of the vagaries of perception and trait-based dependencies—character-based love's major shortcomings.