Seven Love Types (Part 6) LOVE #5: Eros (Romance-love)
Ready to look at eros, the most exciting and complex of the 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.
The Ancient Greek word eros means erotic, sexualized love. The Greek son of goddess Aphrodite, Eros, fell in love with a mortal woman, Psyche (“mind”), and their love transformed her into a divine being. There is much to ponder in their complex story. It combines thinking and feeling, mind and body, and passion and reason. Perhaps the union of heart’s passion and mind’s reason lifts us, in a good eros romantic relationship, we feel life is full, vibrant and meaningful. Maybe passion needs to be harnessed by reason so things go right instead of haywire. Maybe reason needs passion to avoid a cold shallow existence. Maybe all of the above and more.
Eros romantic-love is desire for one person. Wanting sex itself without loving the person is an epithumia liking-love. Our society invests so much in the falling-in-love, one-and-only eros-love; it is an underlying framework, a source of excitement and heartache, and a marketing target. Trillions of dollars keep the ideal alive: movies, songs, holidays, dating, jewellery, perfume, clothing and much, much more.
Eros is a chosen love with fun and frustrating highs and lows. Usually exclusivity is agreed: you and me only. Because of high expectations, eros is a relationship under pressure: it takes much effort and much can go wrong. Still, our collective idealism believes it is worth it and many couples achieve much of the ideal.
Eros, chemistry and sex
Rosanna wanted to leave her husband of twenty-one years. James treats me well, he’s a good father and we’re best friends, but I’ve never felt that chemical attraction I had with Lance. Rosanna had an affair, but Lance refused to leave his wife. What am I supposed to do? (Tricky.)
In eros, we expect one person to fulfil sexual, friendship, family, leisure and social needs. Tall order. Yet, as astounding as it sounds, many last happily. The bond can become very strong and, studies show, it’s fantastic for physical and mental health. Long-term eros relationships encompass other love types: two people belong together (storge), become friends (philia), respect differences (xenia), selflessly tough out hard times (agape) and guide each (mentoring).
Rosanna doesn’t feel the chemistry with James, so she feels it must be over, but so much else is working well; perhaps they’re at 7/10. With Lance it may be 10/10 chemistry, but Lance can’t commit, isn’t a friend, they’re not a parent team and he doesn’t like it when she’s down. Maybe it’s only 5/10 overall with Lance. Difficult.
Sharing sex forms a close bond: arms and legs entwined, mouths and genitals connected, sounds and gazes shared, and two brains communicating pleasure in an altered state science doesn’t fully understand. It’s as close as two people can get. Share this often with one person and feelings of you are a part of me grow. This is Attachment, a close bond in heart and mind, like Eros and Psyche.
A long-term relationship means security and familiarity, but eros also wants novelty, surprise and forbidden excitement, and that makes eros vulnerable to affairs, cheating, and reluctance to commit. In long-term eros relationships, novelty is created by shared imagination, memories and daring experiences. Amidst the chemical excitement, long-term security grows philia, agape, mentorship and storge love. It can become a seven-love package.
More love stories
It’s not just the sex. Michelle had been with Dan for nine years when he was struck by very early-onset prostate cancer. He was afraid she would leave him as treatment left him impotent. She didn’t. We belong together, we’ll get through this together. They manage pretty well.
Milaad was grief-stricken. I talk to you and take pills to help me get over the grief; she was my strength. Cancer took her. The best Milaad can do is live the sadness. For him it’s like doing without an arm or a leg.
So what am I supposed to do now? Rebecca just cried. Mental illness strained her sixteen-year marriage. It was too much, he left. Now she faces life as a single woman trying to make ends meet, find new friends, and trying to move forward with a teenage daughter.
There are two problems with eros romance-love: finding it and keeping it. You’ll need to be a person looking for lasting love and find someone else looking for the same. It helps if both have a capacity to love, communicate, give and take, and value loyalty, kindness and commitment.
How do we mix things up in eros?
Eros passion needs Psyche reason. You can love someone without sex and you can have sex without love. In a long-term eros partnership, however, they come together. To stay together, we need to negotiate life with passion and reason, heart and mind. You don’t have to like everything about your lover to love them enduringly.
At times, you may find yourself attracted to someone else. That doesn’t mean you love your partner less; it’s often just a chemical thing. But you don’t have to enter into another relationship. You decide (just try to think clearly when you do).
Many couples, when faced with breakup, ramp up the sex and romance. That’s OK but they could also attend to friendship, belonging, epithumia, xenia respect, agape or the mentoring side of their relationship.
To find a lasting eros relationship in your life, you may need to kiss a few toads. Listen to your head as well as your heart, but then again, don’t let your head get in the way of your heart. Complex, huh. Eros and Psyche may flow together.
To keep eros romance-love, if you are fortunate enough to have it, don’t take it for granted. Nurture it like a garden that yields beautiful flowers and delicious fruits; keep out weeds; plant seeds of vulnerability, joy, kindness, hope and shared dreams, and harvest a crop of successes and perhaps a few failures. Above all, love.
Love to you.
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