Loving Relationships

In this posting I specifically want to examine loving relationships. It is generally accepted our lives are meaningless if we don’t love anything or anybody. Our lives are given meaning by loving a cause, a place, children, another person in another person an erotic manner and so on. Moreover even if we love are lives are still further enriched if we are also loved in a loving relationship. Someone can love a cause or country but she cannot be in a loving relationship with either. Only other creatures can love us. I have purposely used the word creature because it might be argued one reason why so many people keep pets is an overwhelming need to be loved. Accepting the above would explain why dogs are such popular pets. Dogs seem better able to return their owners love than other pets. However in what follows I am only interested in loving relationships between people. Loving places conditions on the lover. I will now set out these conditions and then examine how these conditions affect loving relationships.

I will assume that love is not merely some intermittent emotion or a disposition to feel some emotion. I will further assume that loving involves persistent disinterested “caring about” as envisioned by Harry Frankfurt (1). What constraints does Frankfurt’s concept of loving place on lovers? I suggest loving places three constraints on lovers. Firstly loving means the lover must disinterestedly care about her beloved. This in turn means the lover must identify herself with her beloved interests. A lover will be harmed if her beloved interests are damaged. It follows a lover must feel some empathy for her beloved. Secondly love must have some persistence. If you love someone you cannot simply stop loving her and walk away unharmed. It is of course possible for love to slowly fade or to end a relationship even if one continues to love the beloved. For instance one may continue to love someone and still end this relationship provided you believe that by doing so you are acting in the beloved best interests. However doing so will of necessity hurt the lover. The third constraint is that the lover must be satisfied with her beloved. This satisfaction is not a feeling of smug satisfaction. The satisfaction of the lover is simply a complete absence of any restlessness to change her beloved. For instance if you love a particular person you are satisfied with your love and have no desire to change even if someone who is more attractive becomes available. I will now consider how these conditions affect loving relationships.

Let it be accepted that people benefit from both loving and being loved. For these reasons people seek to enter into loving relationships. I will define a loving relationship as one that involves both loving and being loved. It follows both parties in a loving relationship must be capable of loving. It further follows somewhat surprisingly that a mother’s relationship with her very young baby is not a loving relationship. The mother simply loves her baby. None the less parents can quickly enter into loving relationships with their children as quite young children can fulfil the three conditions needed for love outlined above. What do these three conditions outlined above mean to a loving relationship? First someone entering into a loving relationship must be prepared to increase her vulnerability. This follows as by identifying with her beloved’s interests, interests she cannot control, a lover risks being harmed. The second point is connected to the first. Because a lover identifies herself with her beloved’s interests and loving must have persistence any lover in a loving relationship must be prepared to give up part of her freedom. Lastly because a lover must be satisfied in her love she must accept her beloved as he is. Any lover who simply tries to change her beloved is not acting in a disinterested manner. This position is in stark contrast to the Platonic one. Plato held that a lover did not really love her beloved as such but rather loved the admirable qualities he possessed. It would appear to follow from this if a lover could find these admirable qualities in greater abundance in another beloved that she should not be satisfied and seek to change her beloved. I will now consider the practical implications of the above.

Many couples live together instead of marrying. Such relationships often are loving relationships. None the less some such couples often give the ease of ending their relationship as one of the main reasons for living together instead of getting married. However if such a relationship can be so easily ended, with no messy consequences, I would argue the partners do not make themselves vulnerable or cede any of their freedom in the relationship. It follows such a relationship is not a loving relationship. It is impossible to easily end a loving relationship without the lover’s being hurt. Let it be assumed a couple live together rather than get married, their reason being their relationship can be easily ended if they desire to do so and that theirs is in this particular case is a loving relationship. It follows this couple’s reason for living together instead of marrying carries no weight. Indeed I would argue, because love demands commitment and marriage also demands commitment, they would be better demonstrating their existing commitment by marrying.

People benefit from both loving and being loved for these reasons people seek to enter into loving relationships. However it is important to be clear, that when someone enters into a relationship she does so to seek love rather than because she already loves her beloved. If someone loves another then by definition she is already in a relationship with him. It is important to be clear what seeking love in a loving relationship requires. If someone seeks only being loved in a loving relationship and her beloved loves her then of course she is loved but she is mistaken if she believes she is in a loving relationship.  A loving relationship involves both partners loving and being loved. To create a loving relationship someone must not only seek to be loved but also to love. Furthermore even if someone brings love to a relationship she must bring the right sort of love, she must love her beloved. For instance someone might only bring loving being loved to a relationship. Indeed it seems in our current culture this is all some lazy and self-indulgent people seem capable of bringing to a so called loving relationship. Loving being loved is a distorted or perverted type of love. This is because loving being loved is not loving in a disinterested way. Admittedly it is not always easy to love someone in a disinterested manner. For example it is impossible for someone to love another simply by willing to love him however hard she tries. Some people believe we can achieve almost anything by sheer perseverance and acts of will. If they believe loving is one of the things that can be achieved in this manner they are deluding themselves. What we love is beyond our volitional control. We cannot make ourselves love someone. It follows we cannot turn a relationship into a loving relationship by simply willing to love our partner. If someone wishes her relationship with her partner will develop into a loving relationship the best she can do is encourage the circumstances in which love is likely to occur naturally. To do this she should try to encourage her natural sympathy, or preferably empathy, for her partner.

I now want to consider loving relationships that are incomplete or corrupted. Such relationships involve both partners loving and being loved to some degree. However such a relationship is incomplete because one of the partners is unwilling or unable to accept that genuine love constrains him and hence makes him vulnerable. The lover in such a relationship wants love and is indeed prepared to love; but only on his own terms. The fact this lover only wants to love on his own terms suggests to me that the love he brings to this relationship is incomplete. I have argued that a lover must disinterestedly care about his beloved. A lover who only wants to love on his own terms does not genuinely disinterestedly care about his beloved. Such a lover does not genuinely love his beloved. None the less there are degrees of disinterestedness and this lover may love his beloved to some lesser degree. Because of this I have suggested his love is incomplete. In many cases a lover wants to love on his own terms because he wants to retain power in the relationship. Wanting to retain power in a loving relationship corrupts the relationship because one partner’s love is incomplete. Wanting to retain power in a relationship is usually, but not exclusively, connected to men. The above seems to suggest that marriages in some cultures in which husbands retain power over their wives, such as Moslem culture, are at best concerned with corrupted loving relationships. I will not consider in this posting whether a marriage should be based on a loving relationship.

I have argued we cannot will ourselves to love and that any attempt to do so fails to understand the constraints of love. I have argued in a corrupt loving relationship some love still exists. It follows in such a relationship something might be done to help the relationship. I have defined such a relationship as one in which one of the partner’s only wants to love on his own terms because he is unable or unwilling to make himself vulnerable. If a lover is unable to love except on his own terms then perhaps little might be done to improve the relationship. Perhaps as I have suggested above the circumstances in which love might grow should be encouraged. If a partner is unwilling to love except on his own terms more might be done. Let it be assumed that such a lover genuinely wants to love. The reason why he is unable to do so is his unwillingness to make himself truly vulnerable to his beloved’s interests. The lover might fear that by doing so he would weaken himself. Let it be accepted if a lover makes himself vulnerable he requires courage. Fear weakens someone and courage strengthens him. It might then be pointed out to a lover, who only wishes to love on his own terms, that genuine committed love might actually make him stronger. It might be further pointed out to men in particular who fear losing power that this fear actually weakens them.

1. Harry Frankfurt, 1999, Necessity, Volition, and Love. Cambridge University Press, chapter 14.