Seven Love Types (Part 4) Love# 3: Storge (belonging love)

This series of posts looks at Seven Love Types:

Epithumia, liking-love,

Xenia, hospitality-love,

Storge, belonging-love,

Philia, friendship-love,

Eros, romantic-love,

Agape, giving-love, and

Mentor. guiding-love.

Storge, belonging-love, is the kinship of family and greater belonging, even to a city, country, school-class or fan-club. Any place you “belong” can be a source of storge love for you. We all belong to the family of the human race and life on planet Earth. Storge is loving with or without liking. It is a strong love. I belong is one of the most wonderful feelings life has to offer. This feeling is found in homes.

Mostly, storge isn’t chosen. You can choose your friends but you can’t choose your family. Even if you don’t like a sibling, loving them is often taken for granted: she’s my sister and I love her. He’ll always be my brother and I love him despite our differences. Likewise, you don’t choose the people with whom you go to school or college, or your fellow citizens or fellow football fans, yet you somehow “belong” together and may become friends with some.

Parents and siblings will be important throughout your life, regardless of how well you get on. As far as possible, it’s best to get on. Storge belonging-love is sticking up for younger siblings in the playground, it’s family pride, and it’s the good feeling of any group you belong to.

If you are a mad keen football fan and your team wins the big league, you may dance with a fellow fan; that’s storge. If your team loses, storge allows you to commiserate with a fellow total-stranger-fan. Try crying on the shoulder of someone who doesn’t like football to feel the difference.

Minority groups of all kinds share storge belonging-love, particularly if they feel persecuted: we need to stick together, like a family. A minority group can be your tribe; your family. Disagreements still arise, but you feel a common bond.

Taylor often feels misunderstood, except by fellow redheads. Whenever I pass another redhead, we make eye contact. It’s as though we ask each other: ‘How do you cope being different? How do you fight the sun? Have you been bullied? How many people really accept you?’ Storge belonging includes shared understanding.

If you go to a school reunion, you may be strangely pleased to see people you didn’t like. Childhood feuds are forgotten, you laugh and accept as you feel the storge.

Belonging-love unites people of the same nation, religious group, or ethnicity. When I studied in Europe, I befriended fellow Australians. The kinship was based on being born in a country far away and a yearning to speak Aussie English. Jars of Vegemite were always on hand. Like a little family in exile, we felt drawn together.

Sibling storge love

A poignant example of belonging-love is the relationship between late anti-theist Christopher Hitchens, and his brother Peter Hitchens, a devout Christian. There was much discord between them. On Christopher’s death, however, brother Peter acknowledged the discord, but also the underlying belonging-love:

Like me, [Christopher] was small for his age and … [he would] stand up to some bully or other in the playground. … My brother possessed courage to the very end, and if I often disagreed with the purposes for which he used it, I never doubted the quality or ceased to admire it. [Daily Mail 11/12/2011]

As a psychiatrist, I unfortunately get to see the times when belonging-love fails: a father who abandons his family, a mother who inadvertently fails to protect her daughter from a predator, a man who kills his father, a parent who abuses children, a woman who manipulates siblings. The results of these failures can be devastating. Fortunately, I also come across strong and noble belonging-love bonds between siblings.

Linda and Kath were both adopted out and didn’t meet until they were in their late 30s. I found out I had a sister. Kath and I get on like a house on fire. We’re a happy family, just the two of us.

I’m going back to Poland, announced Wassily. My brother is not well. I am his brother and I will take care of him. This was despite Wassily not having had any contact with his brother for over twelve years.

Brian was an elderly gentleman I had been treating for many years. I’d be lost without my older brother Nigel. As a child I had leukemia and was supposed to die, but Nigel help me survive. He fed my brain with games, puzzles and chess. We both became scientists. I don’t really like science but because Nigel studied it, I did. He told me not to marry my wife, but I did. After my messy divorce he picked up the pieces. We still meet Mondays for whiskey and chess. I’d be lost without him.

We all crave belonging.

How do we mix up storge with other loves?

We sometimes feel we don’t love someone close because we don’t like them, but the two are different loves. You storge-love them, but perhaps you don’t like them as a friend.

Couples who break-up often underestimate the storge belonging love that has built up. They then miss each other greatly. They also miss the other storge connections: children, in-laws, other family members, all the people that said we belong as a family.

To get more storge in your life, think about your family relationships. Is there someone you haven’t spoken to for a while? Give them a call. Try. Experience more of the power of storge love.

Love to you.