Review article
Love and intimacy
Mirjana Pernar
; Department of clinical, medical and organizational psychology, CHC Rijeka, Rijeka, Croatia
Abstract
An intimate relationship is a major source of personal well-being. It helps us to
overcome feeling of loneliness. There are at least two kinds of love – passionate and companionate.
Passionate love is physical, nonratinal and could develop and vanish very fast. It
could flare up between relative strangers. When this type of love is reciprocated, one feels
fulfillment and ecstasy. Emptiness, anxiety or despair are typical reaction when passionate
love is not returned. Companionate love is the affection we feel for those with whom our
lives are deeply entwined. It usually takes some time for companion love to develop.Sharing
thoughts, feelings and experiences help companion love to last, to deepen intimacy and
overcome conflicts. People with strong need for controlling and low self-esteem have difficulties
to establishing and maintaining intimate with someone. For love relationship to
eventually emerge as intimate, several things must occur between the couple self-disclosure,
sense of fairness between partners, commitment to stay together. One of the most
commonly reported reasons for pulling away from a love relationship are misunderstanding
about how committed each partner is to the relationship. Gender roles have a powerful influence on how we choose partners. Sexual norms are regulating
people’s sexual behavior and are usually introduce by family, church and educational
institutions.
Keywords
intimacy; love; partner relations; sexual relations
Hrčak ID:
59245
URI
Publication date:
13.9.2010.
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