True Love

“Mawaiage. Mawwiage is what bwings us togewah today. Mawwiage, that bwessed awangement, that dweam awiffin a dweam… And wuv, twoo wuv will fowow you foweva… so tweasure your wuv.” -Clergyman from the Princess Bride

In case you cannot read this quote from the Princess Bride, shame on you. (It is fine if you haven’t watched the movie.  I will still claim you as my acquaintance, but not my friend. Just kidding. I still love you even if you have not seen a movie that my family and I quote a lot. 😊) It is a classic. (But seriously, you need to go and watch it! You have enough time now because it’s summer and COVID-19.) The clergy man says the Marriage. Marriage is what brings us together today. That blessed arrangement, that dream within a dream… And love, true love will follow you forever… so treasure your love.” So today, we are going to talk about…. Falling in love! I got ya, didn’t I? You were going to say marriage. (This is the only exciting intro about falling in love that I could think of instead of a lousy pun. So, there you go.) What is love? What is falling in love? Settle, down. One question at a time. 😉

Love is a simple word that we use to describe many situations. Love is extremely complex. There are SO many different kinds of love. And it seems like there are a million and one theories about love. No wonder why people are so confused about it! If everyone in the world picked one of those theories, then you would only have about 7,000 people agree with you. (I made up that number, but it sure does feel like there are a million theories about love. Anyway, back to the blog.)

I am no love expert. I am not claiming to be one. I do not have a boyfriend and have not had one yet. So, I have not had much romantic love experiences, but I have experienced other kinds of love, like parent/child, with my siblings, best friends, friends, roommates, teachers and classmates. I can say that I love my sibling, but it is not the same kind of love as with my teachers.

In my class, we discussed how the Greeks had 4 kinds of love: philia, storge, eros and agape. Philia is the love within a friendship. Storge is the love between a child and his or her parents. Eros is love between a woman and a man. And finally, agape is unconditional love. It is there no matter what. If you have this kind of love for someone, then you put their needs above yours. We tend to blend different levels of these kinds of love in each of our relationships. For example, I love my parents and I feel like I have a good friendship with them. Therefore, I experience storge and philia love with my parents.

Henry B. Eyring sums up what love is for me. He says, “The greatest joys and the greatest sorrows we experience are in family relationships. The joys come from putting the welfare of others above our own. That is what love is.” I love this quote. It makes me think of parents and all that they do to help their children thrive, especially the sacrifice of mothers. Their bodies literally give the growing baby the nutrients that he/she needs.

In my classes, I have been reading a book called, How to Avoid Falling in Love with a Jerk by John Van Epp. He came up with a way to visually see if your dating/romantic (or any other) relationship is healthy. He called it the Relationship Attachment Model or the RAM. It looks like this: 

This is what a healthy relationship looks like. Image from BYU-I Scroll

Think of this as a sound board. It has little knobs that you can slide up and down. Each slider depends on the one to the left. (So how much I trust someone depends on how much I know you. And so on.) Van Epp defines Knowing someone with this formula. Know= Talk (mutual disclosure) + Togetherness (doing DIFFERENT activities together) + Time (>3 months) Trust is ­­­trusting that person. Relying is how much you can depend on them to fulfill your needs. Commitment is the level of commitment in the relationship. And Touch is referring to sexual and intimate contact.

I like how you can adapt this to your own personal situation. For example, I have chosen to only be sexually intimate with my husband after we get married. As far as I know, I haven’t met him or dated him yet. So, for me Van Epp’s Touch section on his RAM is not sexual. It’s like giving hugs or giving high fives.

What happens if there’s too much touch and all of the other levels are low? I’m so glad that you asked. You probably have seen this clip before but watch this video and think of where you would put each of the sliders.

I probably just ruined Frozen for you. I’m sorry. You’ll never see that clip the same way again. For me, I would say that the Know section for Anna and Hans is rock bottom. Touch is the highest section followed by Commitment, Trust and Rely. This is not a balanced or healthy relationship. If she had married Hans that night, she would have realized that she married a jerk and a weirdo after it was too late. Had she dated him for at least three months, she could have seen how he treats others in many different situations. Then she would have seen his true colors and not  have gotten stuck in that situation.

What happens when you fall in love? I like how this cute little video describes it.

In short, we need to make sure that we are taking the time to truly know, trust, rely, and commit to someone and not immediately jump to engagement/marriage. (Cough, cough, Anna, Cough) 😊

I’m sorry that I didn’t go into a lot of depth on this post. There’s just SO much that we could talk about love. I could have probably made this blog post into 10. If you want to learn more about a specific type of love, anything that I’ve talked about or have any questions, ask them in the comments below.

Keep on dancing!

💙

Emily