J Marital Family Therapy - 2007 - Grunebaum - THINKING ABOUT ROMANTIC EROTIC LOVE

Journal of Marital and Family Therapy
1997, Vol. 23, NO. 3, 295-307
THINKING ABOUT ROMANTICEROTIC LOVE
Henry Grunebaum
Ha rva rd Medical Schoo 1
The implicationsfor therapy of the salient characteristics of romantic/erotic love

are discussed.
I . We do not have control over our feelings of romantic/erotic love.
2. Thesefeelings occur relatively infrequently during most people S lives.
3. Being with a partner whom one loves is valued and regarded as a good; it
sometimes conflicts with other values and goods. There are no clear criteria for
resolving this conflict.
4. Love is regarded as one essential basis for marriage.
5. In addition to romantic/erotic love, other qualities and capacities are im-
portant in sustaining a long-term relationship such as a marriage.
“True love. Is it normal, is it serious, is it practical? What does the world get from
two people who exist in a world of their own?” (Szymborska, 1995)
Romantic/erotic love is a powerful force in the lives of ordinary men and women -
one about which comparatively little has been written in the family therapy literature. This
kind of love is often contrasted with everyday love or affection, but it is my impression that
romantic love is like the spice that is present from time to time or perhaps more often in the
lives of many couples. Indeed, many, if not most, people hope to find and to experience
romantic love, to find a partner whom they love and desire. For instance, Graca Machal, age
5 1, the Minister of Education and the widow of the President of Mozambique, was quoted
as saying about Nelson Mandela: “Oh, all right, I thought that part of my life was over, and
here I am in love” (Machal, 1996).
The ideas I will discuss here are based on my clinical experience of more than 30 years
of working with couples. All clinicians know that issues of romantiderotic love are ubiqui-
tous in clinical work. In a recent week, about half my patients brought up issues concerning
it. Here, I will focus particular attention on the problems of finding a romantic relationship,
the loveless relationship, and the relational problems in loving relationships. Less attention
will be paid to affairs, which compound the problems of love with those of deceit.
Henry Grunebaum, MD, is Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the Harvard Medical School and Direc-
tor of the Family Division of the Cambridge Hospital, 1493 Cambridge St., Cambridge, MA
02139
I want to acknowledge Lynn Cetrullo and Michael Madoff, who collaborated with me and conducted
interviews on love many years ago. I also am most appreciative of Norman Lobsenz for his
excellent editorial assistance and of Douglas Sprenkle’s, Everett Bailey’s, and Frank Pittman’s
careful readings and helpful comments. This paper owes far more than I can say to Judy
Grunebaum.
July 1997 JOURNAL OF MARITAL AND FAMILY THERAPY 295
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This paper is not a comprehensive review of the literature, although I carried out a
comprehensive search. Little is written about romantic/erotic love in the couple’s therapy
literature, and it is indexed only twice in the 1511 pages of the two volumes of the Hand-
book of Family Therapy (Gurman & Kniskern, 1981, 1991). It is of interest that the litera-
ture on affairs is one place where issues involving romantic/erotic love are discussed; how-
ever, affairs are a special and perhaps distorted lens through which to see love.
My purpose in this essay is twofold: (a) to explore and identify some of the salient
characteristics of romantiderotic love and (b) to discuss how these characteristics must be
taken into account in our work with patients.
WHAT IS ROMANTICEROTIC LOVE?
Not uncommonly, therapists mistakenly believe that romantic love is a phenomenon

unique to Western cultures and first expressed by the troubadours of the Middle Ages (Fisher,
1995). However, a recent survey of the anthropological literature by Jankowiak and Fisher
(1992) found evidence of romantic love in every culture for whch there were adequate
data. For instance, an 80-year old Taita man recalled his fourth wife with words that could
come from a Valentine card: “She was the wife of my heart.”
In Western civilization, it was philosophers, mostly male bachelors or Christian theolo-
gians, who wrote most about romantic love (Solomon & Higgins, 1991). These philoso-
phers were primarily concerned about its allegedly subversive effects on society and the
concomitant need to control such an irrational emotion. Later Marx and Engel’s, and more
recently feminist philosophers such as Rapaport (1991), have seen romantic love as leading
women into a situation of diminished power. In Rapaport’s view, romantic love is a social
practice which ensnares and enslaves women.
Other modern philosophers have become interested in the value of emotions such as
romantic love as a guide in life. In The Rationality of Emotion, de Sousa (1990) notes that
although reason is central to many human activities, emotional capacities may be of equal
or greater importance in enabling one to lead the good life. Thus, loyalty and love may be
more important than reason in enduring relationships.
Marital and family therapists seem ill-prepared to deal with romantic/erotic love. A
review of the literature yields no agreed upon definition of being in love as distinguished
from other emotional bonds such as friendship, affection, or sexual desire. Moreover, the
part this kind of love plays in a person’s life differs widely from individual to individual,
depending on the importance they give it.
The definition of romantic/erotic love used here is based on my clinical experience. It
identifies three main features:
1. Feelings of longing for the other, including the desire to be intimate with them both
sexually and psychologically, and feelings of loss and loneliness during separations. For
example, Napoleon wrote to his empress Josephine: “I have not spent a day without loving
you; I have not spent a night without embracing you . . . [you] occupy my mind, fill my
thoughts” (quoted in Fraser, 1976, p. 70)
2. The experience of the beloved as special, idealized, necessary for one’s happiness.
There is often a desire to know and share many details about the other: “Don’t you think I
was made for you?” Zelda Fitzgerald asked F. Scott Fitzgerald shortly after they met. “I
feel like you had me ordered - and I was delivered to you” (quoted in Fraser, 1976, p. 143).
3. The preoccupation with and overevaluation of the loved one. Lovers place great
296 JOURNAL OF MARITAL AND FAMILY THERAPY July 1997
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importance on appearance and may spend many hours looking in each other’s faces.
I have deliberately linked romantic with erotic love because in life they are usually
linked. As Henry Fielding says in Tom Jones (1749/1973), “The pleasures arising from
such pure Love may be heightened and sweetened by the Assistance of amorous Desires”
(pp. 205-206). Because romantic/erotic love exists in all cultures for which we have ad-
equate data and because it does not appear to vary in its characteristicsas a function of age
or mental health, it is likely, as Fisher (1995) maintains that romantic/erotic love is an
emotional experience based on a biological propensity. It differs from other bonds, such as
the affiliativebond of friendship,which only rarely involves a romantic or erotic aspect; the
affectioxdattachmentbonds of the parent-child relationship; and even from sexual desire,
which can occur in the absence of loving feelings, although all of these bonds are usually
part of love.
CHARACTERISTICS OF ROMANTIC/EROTIC LOVE AND THEIR

RELEVANCE TO THERAPY
Romantic/erotic love has certain features that clearly differentiate it from other kinds
of loving feelings. These features are, for the most part, common knowledge, but therapists
do not usually write about them or adequately take them into consideration in either theory
or practice. Based on my clinical experience, the following characteristics of romantic/
erotic love are of the greatest significance for the therapeutic process.
We do not have control over ourfeelings of romantiderotic love.

“Placed on the same pedestal for no good reason, drawn randomly from millions, but
convinced it had to happen this way -in reward for what? For nothing.” (Szymborska, 1995)
We cannot choose whom we love, nor predlct when the feelings will occur, and we
usually cannot recapture the feeling when it has disappeared. That we use the expression
falling in love suggests how precipitately the event can occur. I have surveyed a number of
groups of people in long-term committed relationships, asking how long it took to know
that the person they were to become involved with was a special person. More than half of
them said they knew during the first or second meeting, and some said they knew immedi-
ately. Many added that it was not just a matter of attraction to the other person but a case of
“actually falling in love.”
Since people cannot choose whom to love, they may find themselves loving at inop-
portune times or with inappropriate partners. And people cannot make themselves love
appropriate partners. For instance, Robert and Karen came for couples therapy when, after
they had moved in together, their sexual relationship, which had been minimal, became
nonexistent. Robert had hoped and believed that because they were so well-suited to each
other, he might come to desire her. We can all remember having tried in vain to convince a
friend that the love he or she was pursuing would bring only pain and trouble and introduc-
ing two ideally matched friends to no avail.
Falling out of love is also a not uncommon clinical problem over which the individual
has little control and the therapist, in my experience,little influence. In some cases, therapy
can help couples who seemingly can not end their relationship not only to do so, but also to
part with lessened anger, bitterness, and need for revenge, which is particularly important if
the couple has children.
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For instance, Bill and Janet were an unusually successful,attractive, and likeable pair who
had been married for 3 years and had no children. Sex before the marriage had been satisfac-
tory, but afterwards it went downhill. Bill had expected marriage to make for increased variety,
while Janet had hoped it would make Bill sensitive to her more conventional desires. Therapy
had no impact on these expectations. Both remained hurt, and they separated; but neither was
able to proceed with a divorce. They continued as best friends and could not go on with their
lives. Their feelings of romantic love could not be resurrected.
One of the important problems people face is how salient romantic/erotic love should
or can be in their lives. The following case illustrates that therapy can enable a person to
realize that affectionate love, while not typically romantic, can be sufficiently fulfilling.
A woman who very much wanted to have children while it was still possible met a kind
and caring man. He was not as exciting as some of the men she had lived with before, men
who had treated her badly. Her group therapy focused on her need to replicate the unhappi-
ness of her childhood and attempted to enable her to accept a more tender and gentle love.
Married members of the group gave particularly useful input, so that she could enjoy what
her life had to offer.
Therapy cannot create feelings of love; it is also of little use in quenching them. Unre-
quited love is a uniquely painful, and often long-lasting, experience.
John fell wildly in love with Sandra. She was passionate, exciting, just the opposite of
his ex-wife, whom he experienced as unemotional. Never had sex been so wonderful. Un-
fortunately, Sandra had not ended her relationship with her former lover and finally went
back to him, leaving John bereft. It took several years of therapy for him to regain his
emotional stability. When he remarried 5 years later, he continued to m i s s the passion he
had once known, although his life as a whole was much happier.
A significant part of any couples therapist’s practice is helping partners fan the embers
of dormant love and relundle a flame, especially when there is hope for changing certain
individual or relational difficulties. But in my clinical experience, when romantiderotic
love is lost, it is almost always gone for good. The key clinical distinction is between dor-
mant and lost, and this distinction is often difficult to make.
Finally, there are those unfortunate people who sadly complain about their inability to
fall in love at all. Carol came for therapy in her 40s because she had never fallen in love,
although she had had a few sexual relationslups with men. These men always lived far
away and she was able to see them only rarely. Her fear of love was understandable, given
her highly sexualized and spouse-like relationship with her father.
Therapists are often successful in helping such patients discover why they fear falling
in love and defend themselves against this form of intimacy, a subject Kernberg (1974a,
1974b) has discussed usefully. Therapists can often help these patients take the emotional
risks associated with loving. The patients, however, do not always find a partner.
We are likely to experience romantiderotic love only afew times in a lifetime; it is thus
a relatively rare occurrence which tends to make it a precious experience.
“The light descends from nowhere. Why on these two and not on others? Doesn’t this
outrage justice? Yes it does.” (Szymborska, 1995)
Although one retains the capacity for romantiderotic love throughout one’s life, it is
my clinical and personal experience that these feelings arise relatively infrequently. Since I
found nothing in the literature about the frequency of romantic love, I carried out a small,
informal questionnaire study of a sample of 30 middle-class health care professionals in
Cambridge, MA. The results supported my clinical experience: my respondents believed
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that the usual frequency of romantic/erotic love was about three to six times over a person’s
life and that in their practices they had seen clients who had never been in love and a very
few who fell in love repeatedly and frequently. Hatfield and Rapson (1996), who studied
romantic love for many years, stated not only that there were no studies of the frequency of
romantic love, but also that the figure of three to six times in a lifetime was a good estimate.
My clinical experience suggests that one is likely to experience romantiderotic love
perhaps once in high school, once in college, once or twice more before marriage, and
perhaps once after the loss of a spouse due to divorce or death. Typically, then, one experi-
ences romantic/erotic love between three and six times over all. It may be argued that the
word infrequent should not be used to describe an experience that occurs perhaps once a
decade; nonetheless, most people seem to regard romantic/erotic love as a fortunate and
infrequent event.
Precisely because most people experience romantic/erotic love relatively infrequently,
we do not have much experience in assessing what it means and what course of action to
take. “We can never know what to want, because, living only one life, we can neither
compare it with our previous lives nor perfect it in our lives to come. Was it better to live
with Theresa or not?” (Kundera, 1985, p. 8).
Like Kundera’s protagonist, a person experiencing romantic/erotic love is likely to ask
himself or herself, “Are these feelings the basis for a long-lasting relationship or a brief
affair?’ “Will this relationship foster or impede my personal goals and how much and in
what ways?’
If one is young, one may simply choose to enjoy the present love for what it without
regard for the future; if it ends, one may expect to find love-of some kind-again. But if
one is further along in life, when having a partner and children often assumes increasing
importance, one may not want to take a chance of finding another beloved.
Because love is rare, people consider it precious, an experience not to be easily relin-
quished, enduring much to stay with a beloved other. In addition, people not infrequently even
search out a former beloved after years of separation and attempt to renew the relationship.
Betty and Michael began a romance that involved both friendship and passionate sex in
college, but it ended when their postcollege careers took them to distant cities. Eventually,
they each met and wed another partner, had children, and were reasonably happy. Still, they
kept in touch, and after about 10 years of marriage began meeting to renew their feelings
and their sexual relationship. When Betty’s husband died and Michael and h ~ wife s di-
vorced, they married each other and lived well together.
On the other hand, Ethan, to his amazement, was contacted by his high school girl
friend, Rhonda, whom he had pined for during his 20-year marriage. He had often fanta-
sized about her during sex with his wife. Ethan consulted a therapist to discuss divorcing
his wife, and the therapist suggested that he should arrange to meet Rhonda first. The
meeting led to his bitter disappointment; not only was Rhonda no longer 17 but she was also
loud, brash, and intolerant. It was painfully evident how far apart they had grown.
Sometimes people who have had a romantic/erotic love and either lost it or gave it up
are able to convince themselves that what replaced it, what they have now, is good enough or
perhaps even better. Betty and Michael did this for more than 10 years. But other people-
even though the relationship is good enough4ecide that living without love is intolerable.
When John asked Eileen to marry him, she accepted his proposal. After all, John was
a kmd, dependable man who cared deeply for her. Shortly before the wedding, Eileen
realized that although she cared for John, she felt neither love nor physical desire for him.
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Nevertheless, since John was so nice and she did not want to hurt him, she went through
with the marriage, hoping that these missing feelings would develop. Three years later she
had a brief romantic, though unconsummated, experience with a co-worker. This con-
vinced her that she could be emotionally excited, that she needed more than her marriage
was providing. She sought therapy in order to have a safe place in which she could tell John
that she wanted to leave him and to understand how she had gotten into this predicament.
Life, however, does not always afford one the opportunity to find a new and exCiting
love, so Eileen may not find what she is seeking. Sometimes compromises must be made
and past losses grieved. It is important, however, to resolve old and persistent feelings
about an earlier romance before one can be free to love again.
Sam, a man in his 40s, came for therapy during a bitter divorce from his second wife,
whom he had never loved but married because of her insistence. He expressed remorse
about his first wife, whom he had loved very much but who left him because he was never
able to tell her how he felt about her. Indeed, he was so emotionally repressed that he had
not even been able to tell his dying father that he loved him.
Sam was encouraged by members of his therapy group to get in touch with his first
wife, to tell her of his never-acknowledged love for her, and to apologize for his earlier
inability to share these feelings with her. After his second divorce, and perhaps because of
his emotional breakthrough, he fell in love with a woman he had met at work and was able
to share his feelings with her. Interestingly, about a year later, his first wife called him,
seeking his support because she was getting divorced.
Therapists should take into account the relative infrequency of romantiderotic love, its
salience for many people as part of a relationship, the enduring specialness of past lovers in
memory and in life, and the need to grieve these relationships for new ones to succeed.
A third characteristic of romantic/erotic love is that it is regarded by mostpeople as a
good, a positive value. This good can and ofen does come into conflict with other values,
and the criteria for resolving this conflict are themselves problematic.
“Doesn’t this [romantic love] outrage justice? Yes it does. Doesn’t it disrupt our
painstakingly erected principles, and cast the moral from the peak? Yes on both counts.”
(Szymborska, 1995)
Love is a good, but it is not the only good. It often comes into conflict with other goods
such as reason, personal goals, family, and ethical obligations. And the power of romantic/
erotic love can lead one-even knowingly-into a relationship fraught with conflict, into
moral and emotional minefields. Some of these conflicts are external, arising when a love
relationship impacts negatively on other bonds and loyalties, particularly those involving
one’s family of origin, one’s friends, and sometimes one’s spouse and children. Still other
conflicts are internal, focusing on the potential effect that loving a certain person will have
on one’s own values and what one needs to enjoy life.
Throughout history there have been differing views of what is necessary for the good
life. The ingredients of the good life, what “creatures such as us” require to thrive, were
called by the Greek philosophers, eudamonia. They did not distinguish as we do between
moral goods and other goods (Nussbaum, 1986). Later philosophers tended to use the
concept of a good in a religious sense to connote the ethically good, which they viewed as
the paramount consideration in evaluating human behavior (Nussbaum, 1990).
It may be interesting here to consider the painter Gauguin, whose passion for art led him to
leave his wife and family for the South Pacific. Does the beauty of Gauguin’s art justify his
desertion? What if he had painted poorly? What criteria could one use to decide this dilemma?
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It is the earlier and broader sense of good that I believe we therapists have not given
adequate weight, for an ethically good life without other goods - friends, love, work, and
avocations - would be bleak and unsatisfactory. The philosopher David Hume said that
there is arguably no greater pain than that of loneliness and argued that human relationships
are an important good. However, while being loved is important for a good life, having
someone to love may be even more important as an expression of the self. It is probably our
best opportunity for an intimate YThou dialogue, for caring for another and for sharing that
person’s concerns and developing a shared history (J. Grunebaum, 1990).
The challenge in thinking about the consequences of romantic/erotic love is to deter-
mine what criteria to employ. We have available to us standards based on the Western
religious tradition, the humanistic and Enlightenment traditions, and the Greek criteria of
eudarnonia, to name but a few. For instance, some Jewish families treat as dead any mem-
ber who marries outside the faith. How does one weigh the joy of being with the loved one
against the positive and negative effects this love may have on oneself and on others?
Even if we strive to be ethically nonjudgmental, as therapists we cannot help having
our personal opinions about the place of romantic/erotic love in our clients’ lives. In my
view, we hold overly conservativeopinions, perhaps based on theories which often aim for
a socially desirable norm. As Goldner (1989) emphasizes, therapists often see themselves
as agents of social control; they may view falling in romantic love as a form of acting-out
behavior.
Rachel, a teacher in her late 20s, was referred by her therapist for group therapy be-
cause of her eating problem. Soon after, she met an Israeli engineer who was due to return
to Israel within a month, and they fell in love.
The group and the therapist encouraged Rachel to explore the relationship as deeply as
she could. She at once moved in with her boy friend, visited Israel over Spring vacation,
and moved to Israel over the summer and married him there.
Rachel’s therapist was dismayed at the stance of the group and the group therapist
since he believed that she had many unexamined issues and was acting out. The group felt
that it was supporting Rachel’s opportunity to find love. Over the next several years, holi-
day cards from Rachel indicated that she was happy with her decision and with her life. But
what if she had been unhappy?
The above case illustrates one therapist’s belief in the importance of the therapeutic
process. The next case shows that other values of the therapist also have an influence.
Mary was finally divorced from a long and painful marriage and had gotten over a tempes-
tuous affair with Bill, who was incapable of commitment. She then met Dan, a most appro-
priate choice, and they fell deeply in love with each other. Her therapist believed that she
should date widely and strongly encouraged her to do so. This soon led to a loss of this love
and repeated her earlier loss of a college boy friend who had not met some of her parents’
expectations. Clearly, the therapist’s value that dating widely is a useful experience played
a role in the break-up of this relationship.
That many therapists tend to assume the role of social control agent is exemplified by
many of those who have written on the topic of the extramarital affair. For example, Pittman
(1989) takes a decidedly antagonistic stance toward extramarital affairs, an attitude reflected
in the labels he assigns to the participants: “the infidel,” “the affairee,” and the “cuckold.”
He describes the harmful effects of the mistaken overvaluation of romantic love on family
life. Brown (1991), on the other hand, states that some affairs may be a way of ending an
July 1997 JOURNAL OF MARITAL AND FAMILY THERAPY 30 1
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unhappy marriage. Yet in the process of doing our work we may underestimate the force of
romantic/erotic love and the role it plays as part of the good life. To quote Nisa, a Kung San
bush person, “Having affairs is one of the things God gave us” (Shostak, 1983, p. 27).
I do not assert that affairs are a good thing, nor that they are bad. My point is rather that
a genuine difference of opinion about values dictates the range of judgments that exists.
Although Pittman’s view is ethically valid for many, the view that love may be a paramount
value is equally valid for others.
In addition, it is likely that Pittman and I see different kinds of cases since I am im-
pressed how few cases of mine are having affairs, although many are living in unhappy
marriages and wondering what to do. Recent cases in my practice which involved affairs
included two men and three women. The men were trapped in marriages with wives who
told them that they no longer loved them and did not want to have sex with them. As a
result, the men were having outside sexual relationships, often with friends. On the other
hand, all three of the women had left their husbands, often using a lover to help them leave.
What values should be considered when deciding what to do about a loveless marriage?
A case example will illustrate the problem.
Steve was not sure he wanted to marry Ann. He was inexperienced with women and
suggested that they extend their engagement, at which point she chased him around the
room with a hammer. He married her, but during the 20 years of that marriage, Steve had
numerous affairs and casual infidelities. At some point Steve met Myra, who said her
marriage was companionable but sexless. Intimacy grew between Steve and Myra, a pas-
sionate affair ensued, and they left their spouses and built a fulfilling life together.
There are various ways that we may think about affairs:
1. Falling out of love can happen during any relatively good marriage; these feelings
will gradually wane and the patient should be helped to get over it.
2. Falling out of love means that a person is unfulfilled in his or her life. This leads to
two alternative possibilities: either the person is dissatisfied because of past life experi-
ences and should enter individual psychotherapy, or the person is dissatisfied because of
interactional problems within the relationshp and should seek conjoint therapy.
3. Loving someone other than one’s spouse or partner is simply wrong. One should put
such feelings aside and go about one’s present life loyal to its commitments.
4.Interestingly, the view that falling in love is a fortunate event and the patient should
be encouraged to act on these joyous feelings is rarely espoused. Yet that is often what
people, patients, and even therapists do in their own lives -whether wisely or happily is
unknown.
5. In addition to these basic perspectives on affairs, it is important to keep in mind that
both depression and mania can be involved in affairs and that infatuation and love are often
difficult to distinguish, for both the lover and the therapist.
What then is the therapist to do? I believe the answer is fairly straightforward. The
therapist should keep in mind all of these possible perspectives so long as the patient’s
material suggests that they may be relevant and to raise them if and when it seems appropri-
ate to do so. This approach leads naturally to a shared consideration of which of these ways
of looking at love helps the patient to move forward and to reach a considered decision.
Although the therapist can help in the search, he or she should not permit theoretical or
personal biases about which factors should be salient in making the final decision. The
therapist should endeavor to provide a holding environment in which the work can occur.
The issues posed by affairs complicate and obscure the value that most people give to
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love. For while extramarital affairs sometimes involve love, they almost always involve
lies, deceit, and betrayal. Thus the conflicts about the value of love maybe better illustrated
by cases in which affairs have not occurred. Such cases are common.
After her first date with Jonah, Virginia predicted to her mother that he would propose
to her and added that she did not love him. She did not want to marry Jonah because she felt
no real passion for him, but he pursued her so ardently that she finally yielded to his entreat-
ies. Twenty years later she is still married to Jonah but feels no love for him and does not
really want to live with him. On the other hand, they have a child, and her life is financially
secure. She looks curiously at friends who do love their partners even though she is well
aware of the difficulties in their marriages. She wonders, in therapy sessions, if spending
the rest if her life without experiencing love is to have lived a good life.
And we, too, may wonder. George Eliot wisely said, “The great problem of the shifting
relation between passion and duty is clear to no man who is capable of apprehending it”
(1860, p. 452).
Romantic/erotic love is regarded today as an essential element f o r a happy marriage.
Throughout history and across cultures it has been unusual for love to be viewed as the
basis of a committed heterosexual relationship or marriage with the goal of child rearing
(Luepnitz, 1988). One exception were those persons who were able by virtue of wealth or
rank to choose their partners. And England and America were also somewhat unusual in
that as far back as the late 18th and early 19th centuries, mutual affection and the free
choice of partner for both men and women emerged as the basis of marriage (Degler, 1980).
Let us next consider the importance of equality for romantic love. After all, who would
truly consider themselves loved if they did not believe that they had been freely chosen?
And one cannot freely choose in a situation of unequal power.
The importance of equality in love and marriage was advocated by John Stuart Mill
(1869/1984) in his essay, “The Subjugation of Women.” The importance of equality has
also been richly portrayed in the English novel. It is not inaccurate to read Pride and
Prejudice, a favorite book of mine, as the story of a woman of little wealth, Elizabeth Bennet,
equalizing her standing with a wealthy gentleman, Darcy, by virtue of her intelligence and
wit (Austen, 1813/1966). She explains to him why he has come to love her: “The fact is,
that you were sick of civility, of deference, of officious attention. You were disgusted with
the women who were always speaking and looking and tlunking for your approbation alone.
I roused and interested you, because I was so unlike them . . . . There, I have saved you the
trouble of accounting for i t . . . . To be sure, you know no actual good of me - but nobody
thinks of that when they fall in love” (p. 262).
The vicissitudes of love in a situation of inequality, when genteel women had no other
option but marriage, are also well illustrated by Charlotte Lucas, another young woman in
Pride and Prejudice. Because she comes from a family of more modest means than
Elizabeth’s and is less handsome, Charlotte has to marry Mr. Collins, an unappealing man
at best: “Mr. Collins, to be sure, was neither sensible nor agreeable; his society was irk-
some . . . . marriage . . . was the only honourable provision for well-educated young women
of small fortune . . . and at the age of twenty-seven, without having ever been handsome,
she felt all the good luck of it”(p. 86).
It seems likely that as society moves toward a “one world culture” in which equality
between the sexes is increasingly acknowledged, romantiderotic love will become a major
basis for marriage everywhere. For example, Jankowiak (1995) has described the growing
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importance of romantic love in China, where traditionally it was considered not at all im-
portant. Hatfield and Rapson (1996) likewise emphasize in their cross-culturalreview, “the
appeal and spread of passionate love and the growing importance of the ideal of marriage
for love all over the world” (p. 57). Today, we do not regard love as simply a feeling to be
enjoyed for itself. Rather, it has meaning and consequences for how we live.
Although falling in love and romantic/erotic love are wonderful, other ingredients and
capacities are necessary to sustain a long-term relationship during which these feelings of
love will have both peaks and valleys. The characteristicswhich foster enduring romantic/
erotic love in marriage are the ones which lead to strong relationships generally and are
those of the mature person. By enduring romantiderotic love I do not mean that couples
remain in a state of romantic bliss, but rather that they know they love each other and feel
romantically and erotically toward each other from time to time. It is also important to
acknowledge the role of good fortune, both for the couple and for those close to them.
Accidents, ill-health, premature death of one of the partners or of a child or of a member of
the extended family are all examples of random events which may adversely influence the
best, most loving of relationships. Similarly, upheavals such as a depression or an era of
downsizing, or a war, or a natural disaster, are not only not in a couple’s control but also
place great stress on a personal relationship. As Marx has said, “Man makes his own his-
tory, but not in circumstances of his own choosing” (Marx 1852, p. 320).
Romantic/erotic love is constructed by a particular discourse (in Foucault’s sense of
this term) that makes it a problematic basis for marriage. Abu-Lughod and Lutz (1990) have
suggested that “emotion discoursesestablish, assert, challenge,or reenforce power or status
differences” (p. 14). An important emotion discourse characterizesromantic/erotic love as
both short-lived and tragic. From Romeo and Juliet, to Anna Karenina, to the recent roman-
tic best seller, The Bridges of Madison County, the lovers are together only briefly and the
outcome is tragic. There is little in literature of love that endures over the years, with the
possible exception of the long-mmied couple in Mtirquez’s Love in the Time of Cholera
(1988), but even they do not fully recognize their love for each other until the husband is
dying. The wife is then courted by the lover she had rejected many years before but who
has continued to love her as she, perhaps, has always loved him.
Clearly, the view that romantic/erotic love is almost always short-lived and tragic does
not help anyone to deal with its many problems and demands. Even so, many of us know,
from our practices and our personal experiences, that romantiderotic love can indeed en-
dure and even t h v e over the years.
For all of these reasons it is vital for the therapist to be aware of the variability of
romantic/erotic love. Typically, couples come for consultation during their down periods
and rarely, if ever, during their peak ones. Yet even in a down period couples somehow may
remain subliminally aware of the deepest flows of their feelings and seek to recapture the
love they had for each other, often by engaging in a ritual which has brought them together in
the past. Therapy of a structured and supportive nature can help them to achieve that result.
Working with couples where romantic/erotic love is a feature. Since feelings of roman-
tiderotic love vary from couple to couple and over the course of a relationship, it is essen-
tial for a therapist to explore whether these feelings exist, to what extent, and how they
influence other areas of a couple’s life. Although couples therapists have developed an
understanding of the dynamics of relationships and how to intervene in them effectively
(Alexander, Holtzworth-Munroe, & Jameson Brooke, 1994), we still know comparatively
little about romantic/erotic love and how to influence it. It appears that we often find it
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difficult to help our clients love an appropriate object or enable them to quench their pas-
sion when it bring them only pain.
Psychotherapists have tried to make sense of the phenomena they encounter, but ro-
mantic love is not rational; it subverts reason, disrupting the given order.
Romantic/erotic love can be considered a special form of attachment and thus a combi-
nation of the various bonds that human beings form (Sperling & Berman, 1994): (a) affec-
tion (sometimes called basic attachment), (b) friendship, (c) sexuality, (d) commitment and
joint problem solving, and (e) a shared extended network, including children and commu-
nity (H. Grunebaum, 1990). When the balance of these binding forces changes, adaptation
is often difficult.For instance, for some couples there is little basis for friendship and shared
interests, save perhaps for their shared love for their children, and as this becomes less
important when the children grow up, the marriage may face problems. For other couples,
one member’s commitment may wane, despite love and desire, because of the other’s in-
ability to solve work or family problems. It is often useful to evaluate carefully the charac-
teristics of these bonds in couples when embarking on treatment.
When romantiderotic love is an issue, the following guidelines are useful:
1. In order to ascertain the presence of love, ask each member of the couple the follow-
ing: Do you love the other? Are you in love with them? If so, how do you characterize this
feeling? How do you show these loving feelings and want them shown to you? Do you feel
sexual desire for your partner? How often? How do you show it?
2. If there is romantic/erotic love between two people, it should be regarded by the
therapist, as it is by most couples, as a relatively rare and therefore precious resource.
3. Many people are willing to endure a good deal of emotional pain for the sake of love.
So long as love is present, the therapist should help the couple to understand that romantic/
erotic love is not easily found and may be worth saving by working out conflicts in the
relationship. In a paper unique because it is on romantic/eroticlove, Roberts (1992) empha-
sizes the importance of the “affective dimension of the relationship, facilitating positive
change through new experiences, focusing on the sexual aspects of the relationship, and
incorporating new experiences in rituals” (p. 360).
4. The therapist should recognize that the conflict between a new love and loyalty to a
previous love commitment may be a real conflict in its own right, not simply a form of
acting out of marital conflicts.
5. At the outset of therapy, it is useful to remind couples that any marriage or relation-
ship is an aspect of life and as such requires attention, care, and thought; that the relation-
ship is both different from and more than either of the partners, yet will nourish them if they
attend to it. They should try to see that much of what they do, in and out of therapy, is for
the relationship, the living bond between them, and thus serves each partner in the relation-
ship as well as the relationship itself.
In working with couples for whom romantiderotic love is an issue, some of the follow-
ing approaches can prove useful. The therapist must first assess issues of safety, violence,
danger, abuse, and suicidality before undertaking psychotherapy. Then the therapist can:
1. Assist the couple in remembering when, where, and how they have loved each other
and to build on these good memories and feelings.
2. Deal with issues that lead to anger and distance between the partners by exploring
expectationsbased on family-of-originissues. These include ethnicity, religion, cohort, and
class, as well as issues that trigger projective identifications and destructive entitlement.
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3. Explore and attempt to change behaviors which engender fears and power struggles
and which lead to a lack of equity in the relationship.
4.Encourage positive changes by offering suggestions and reinforcing any positive
behavior which occurs spontaneously.
5. Help the couple to enhance their sexual relationship, which may improve with be-
havioral techniques. A couple’s sex life is both diagnostic of the state of the relationship
and, usually, an important source of either pleasure or pain. Unless the therapist inquires
about this issue, the partners may be reluctant to raise it.
6. Remind a couple that the two most important events human beings can experience
are losing someone you love and losing yourself. The therapist must address these aspects
of object relations.
7. Urge partners to consider group psychotherapy for one partner or both partners in
cases where they are unable to be friends and solve problems jointly (H. Grunebaum, 1985).
I believe that couples group therapy is the intervention of choice for many couples. How-
ever, the complex schedules of the two-career couples I evaluate in Cambridge have made
it impossible for me to offer it in recent years.
EPILOGUE
There are no easy solutions available to the clinician whose clients are experiencing
problems with romantic/erotic love. There are no easy solutions because love itself -in all
of its manifestations and disguises - is complicated and perplexing. But why should we
expect it to be less so than life?
We desire to have another to love, for without one we will be lonely and there will be
no one who truly knows us. We desire to become one with the other, to be selfless, and to
lose ourselves in sexual intimacy. But we are also afraid of losing ourselves, for we know
that the person we love is other, independent, and that we can never truly know him or her.
This is the predicament of love.
What makes matters even more challenging is the fact that we ask a great deal of
marriage, of any serious intimate relationship. Perhaps the greatest demand we make is that
it should combine passion and stability, romance and monogamy, transports of tenderness
and excitement from the person who will also perform the many mundane tasks of daily
living - in other words, meld everyday love with romantic/erotic love.
Somehow, most of the time for most women and men, this seems to work. And when
it does, it is love at its best.
In writing this essay, I have found the following books to be of particular value: About
Love: Reinventing Romancefor Our Times (1988) by Robert Solomon and The Fragility of
Goodness (1986) and Love’s Knowledge (1990) by Martha Nussbaum.
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(Eds.), Handbook ofpsychotherapy and behavioral change (pp. 595-630).New York: John Wiley.
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Austen, J. (1966). Pride and prejudice. New York: W. W. Norton. (Original work published 1813)
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Journal of Marital and Family Therapy

1997, Vol. 23, NO. 3, 295-307

THINKING ABOUT ROMANTICEROTIC LOVE

The implicationsfor therapy of the salient characteristics of romantic/erotic love

July 1997 JOURNAL OF MARITAL AND FAMILY THERAPY 295

WHAT IS ROMANTICEROTIC LOVE?

Not uncommonly, therapists mistakenly believe that romantic love is a phenomenon

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CHARACTERISTICS OF ROMANTIC/EROTIC LOVE AND THEIR

We do not have control over ourfeelings of romantiderotic love.

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