Prototyping Love and How It Can Help You

Mini-Love-Lesson #218

Synopsis: This often, most useful and relatively easy way to arrive at a very helpful understanding of love is presented with clear, four point and 12 point trait examples; and 10 quick, practice exercises to help you immediately apply important love tools to your own love life situation, as well as arrive at an effective way to describe and semi-define love.

Your Better Way to Understand Love?

Love is so complicated!  Understanding what love is, has and does confuses and confounds millions.  Conflicting and contradictory concepts about love abound.  Ignorance about love and its workings, dynamics, functions and benefits cause a lot of people to miss out on many of life’s finest and most wonderful experiences.  Undervaluing love leads to dangerous vulnerabilities in both psychological and physical health, in close relationships and in life fulfillment.  People who misidentify love get trapped in tragic, false love syndromes causing great emotional pain and life dysfunction.

With all that at risk, you can see how having a good understanding of love may make a world of difference in your own life and the lives of those you care most about.  The question is how to get that good understanding.  Well, one way that may help you is using the prototype approach to comprehending and defining love.

What Is Prototyping?

Prototyping basically means building a model of something.  At the idea level, it is an assemblage of observations and concepts built into a mental model to help explain what something is by compiling and putting together what probably makes it up.

In the social sciences, prototyping is a formalized research approach which arrives at a descriptive model of a subject being studied which is created from social-psychological research into its defining characteristics, traits, features, distinguishing qualities and often times its functions, dynamics and idiosyncratic peculiarities.  Informally, prototyping means forming a mental picture or model of something from what some of its parts seem to be.

Prototyping is similar to crowd sourcing and in criminology it is similar to profiling.  An example is, if you want to know what a tree is or what people think a tree is, you ask 1000 people what they think.  Some may say it has leaves and others pine needles and pinecones but if they all say it has roots, a trunk and foliage which is usually green in the spring those last three, agreed on items, can go into your model prototype of what a tree is.  Of course, that is an oversimplification and there are rather advanced research procedures, algorithms and other statistical treatments involved in the actual research.

The prototyping of love has been undertaken by researchers in a number of fields especially sociology, social psychology, cultural anthropology, family studies and child psychology with contributions from sociobiology, sundry brain sciences, experimental animal comparative psychology and others.  But they are not the first to attempt prototyping love.

The Wisdom of Early Efforts

Smart, wise, insightful and inspired people have been listing the characteristics of love for a long, long time.  Plato in his Symposium on Love, Ovid in the Art of Love, St. Paul in his First Letter to the Corinthians, Rumi in The Sufi Path of Love, Stendhal in On Love, Jung in his work on arch types in the collective unconscious, and Fromm in his The Art of Loving have all made contributions to creating a prototype definition of love.  Some of their ideas are lasting, some problematic, some useless and some just wrong.  However, taking together they all provide valuable observations for the historical prototyping of what love has been seen to be.

Likewise, every major religion has descriptions of what love’s characteristics are as have several schools of philosophy.  They all add to the pool of observations for prototyping the historical wisdom concerning what love is.  In my view, they all deserve considerable attention.  Likewise, the sciences are giving us differing but slowly more and more useful ideas which include those arrived at by the social prototyping approach.

Toward a Prototype Definition of Love

In a new field coming to be called Loveology (see “Is There Really A New Field Called Loveology?”) researchers are busy trying to weave together the wisdom of the ages and sages, the best contemporary thinking, and the many scientific approaches and discoveries for understanding love.  This includes the social scientists’ attempts to arrive at a psychosocial, definitive, prototype of love.

One such effort showed love to involve a prototype having 12 main attributes.  They are: (1) trust, (2) caring, (3) honesty, (4) friendship, (5) respect, (6) concern for others’ well-being, (7) loyalty, (8) commitment, (9) acceptance of another’s way of being, (10) supportiveness, (11) wanting to be with the loved and (12) high and manifold interest in the loved.

A moderately different set of results came from emphasizing characteristics for a prototype of committed love in established relationships.  Those research revealed characteristics were: (1) loyalty, (2) responsibility, (3) keeping one’s word, (4) faithfulness, (5) trust, (6) being present for the other in good and bad times, (7) devotion, (8) reliability, (9) giving best efforts, (10) supportiveness, (11) perseverance and (12) concern for the loved ones well-being.

In other research, a prototype emphasizing positive feelings and emotions resulted in a rather different prototype of love.  It showed love to involve the emotions of: (1) caring for the loved mixed with wanting to feel helpful to the loved, (2) having a strong desire to be in the other’s presence while feeling care coming from the loved, (3) experiencing a feeling of mutuality of trust and (4) feeling a sense of mutual toleration and acceptance of faults, shortcomings, etc.

Social and comparative psychology prototypes for understanding what love is and how it is done, have been arrived at by researching the observable and reported behaviors of love in humans and in a variety of other animals around the world.

Higher order lifeforms, especially mammals, seem to do a lot of tactile love actions including caressing, licking, cuddling, snuggling, grooming and rubbing.  Tonal love behaviors also are thought to occur via a variety of comforting and connecting sounds.  Love expressional gestures through certain head movements, postural movement actions, forelimb behaviors and tail wagging also are thought to be evidence of love.  Gifting love actions involving food, nesting and play experiences occur in many species.  Caretaking and protective behaviors also are common.  Some species are suspected of communicating love via amazingly rapid, brilliant, color changes especially the cephalopods (cuttlefish, squid, octopus).  Some think that a good many of our animal cousins might communicate love through scent changes and olfactory generated responses.

All of that might get included in a prototype of general animal love.  Of course, it actually would be different for each species.  That these actions convey love is supported by comparative brain science research which suggests similar brain regions, neurochemistry and neuro-electrical activity occur in human and other higher order animal brains when love is involved or thought to be occurring (see “Dog Love Is Real Love”).

How to Help Yourself with a Prototype Model of Love

If you are serious about love, you can do the work of either selecting or creating your own, prototype model of what love looks like, gets us to act like and feels like.  In a fuzzy, indefinite, subconscious sort of way, you probably have one of those already though you may not be consciously aware of it.  With conscious effort, you can weed out its mistakes and improve on it.  Then you can use it to do love better, know when real love is happening or not happening, think about love more clearly and in more informed ways, select the most appropriate and productive love actions, untangle love problems and come up with better love issue solutions, etc.

Here is an example.  Gunther had on his prototype list of love’s traits “love is kind”.  He realized on close self examination, that what he felt for Loretta and how he acted toward her did not involve much kindness.  He was, he honestly confessed to himself, more controlling, possessive and demanding though very sexually interested and pleased with her.  He set out to be more kind and their relationship gradually turned into more of a sexual friendship but not what he would want for a marriage or lifetime love mate, like he previously had thought.  Loretta came to a similar determination about her relationship with Gunther.  They are still friends but seeing others now.  Gunther concluded that without the analytical tools provided by his prototype of love, a life damaging mistake likely would have been made.  Loretta concurred and was thankful.

10 Quick, Practical, Practice Love Prototype Exercises

To get some practice in using a prototype of love, look at the first list above under Toward A Prototype Definition of Love, the one that begins (1) trust (2) caring, etc.  Now, think of someone you do, or may, or might love and who you hope does or could love you.  Then with that person in mind, apply and work with the following questions.  You also can adapt this into a couple’s effort.

1. Checking this list of love’s traits, does it seem he, or she, really loves me? (Note: you also can think about a group such as a family)
2. Checking the same list, does it appear I really love him, or her?
3. Using this list, does it seem I really healthfully love myself?
4. Thinking of these traits, how can I, or we, do our love better?
5. What traits of love might need to get more attention in my, or our, love relationship?
6. Which of the prototype traits of love do I, or we, see as most important right now?
7. Which of these traits do I, or we, see as least important and am I making a mistake to see them that way?
8. Which of these traits and characteristics of love do I, or we, probably need to learn a lot more about?
9. If I, or we, get better at enacting some of these traits, how well can I, or we, know for sure our love relationship is improving and growing?
10. How am I, or we, going to make our work on getting better at these prototypical love traits fun, exciting and rewarding? (Remember, fun with work can be much better work)

Some Problems with Prototyping Love

Once upon a time, social prototyping the nature of our earth would have led to describing it as flat.  When too many people share a mistaken idea about what something is the mistake can go into the prototype.  That definitely is a danger when it comes to a social prototype of love.  Also, when there is too much widespread ignorance about a subject, social prototyping fails.  Unfortunately, love ignorance seems rather abundant.

The good news is, lots of people find it a lot easier and more useful to define love in a prototyping way than they do any other way.  So, if you use it, be careful and know prototyping has its shortcomings.

One More Thing

I bet you can get a lot more out of this mini-love-lesson by talking it over with others.  While you are at it, why not tell them about this site’s broad-spectrum of love-related subject matter, wealth of love knowledge and how you’re using it?

As always – Go and Grow with Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

♥ Love Success Question: If you’ve been hurt in a love relationship, could thinking with a good prototype of love help you avoid getting hurt that way again?

Trust and Mistrust in Love

Synopsis: The case of the nude photos and what’s best to learn from it; a terrible, fascinating truth about romantic-love trust; and a self-strengthening approach to building great, dependable, love trust; more.

The Case of the Nude Photos

“I’m in shock and don’t know which way to turn.  I just discovered nude photos of my teenage daughter on a phone I didn’t know my husband had.

 “Horrible scenarios are running through my head.  Are my husband and daughter involved in incest?  I can’t bear to think about it.  Should I call the police, see a lawyer, file for divorce?  Can I have both of them committed to a psych ward?  Is my husband a sex addict, or is my daughter?  Is everything I believed about my marriage a lie?  Am I one of those parents who doesn’t know what’s really going on with their kids?   I don’t trust anybody or anything any more.  Am I going crazy?  Is nothing the way I thought it was?  Is there anything or anyone I can trust?  Will I ever trust anybody again?”

As you can see Helen was having a huge ‘trust crisis’.  Up to the discovery of a strange iPhone in her husband’s briefcase, life had seemed pretty much normal and OK.  Her adolescent daughter had been a little rebellious but nothing serious seemed to be going on, until now.  Lately her husband had been kind of distant emotionally but also lately his business work-load had been extra heavy.  She, herself, had been stressed with projects demanding overtime at her office but about that there was ‘light at the end of the tunnel’.  Since her horrified discovery life was all panic and gut-wrenching disaster.  Her whole family seemed to be descending into nightmarish chaos – or so it seemed.

Helen said she couldn’t face all this alone so with some help she quickly was able to arrange for her husband and daughter to meet with her and a talented therapist intern of mine that evening in an emergency family counseling session.  She came in looking pale and shaking and her husband and daughter entered looking quite worried.  With fear and trepidation Helen confronted them with the sequence of events that had lead her to the discovery of the nude photos.  She got excellent support, clarification, interpretation, and help with sufficiency and accuracy from my intern.

Slowly the truth emerged and something resembling normalcy began to return.  It was revealed that Kendra, Helen’s teenage daughter, had been taking sexy, nude photos of herself and had been sending them to her boyfriend and her closest girlfriends, who were doing the same thing, like so many other kids at her school.  She explained it was quite a fad.  Bill, Helen’s husband, caught Kendra doing this and confiscated her phone.  He said he didn’t want to tell Helen about this until Helen’s big project at work was over.

Furthermore, Kendra had gotten him to promise that he and she would handle it because they thought Helen tended to over-react.  Kendra admitted she’d sort of manipulated her father into that promise.  Kendra also said she wouldn’t be doing any of this again, especially because her best girlfriend had gotten into really big trouble over this and was being sent away somewhere and she didn’t want that to happen to her.

After a lot of anguished bewilderment, confusion, anger mixed with relief and disappointment this family began to show each other love.  Soon they were able to agree that they should and could be a lot more self-disclosing to one another.  Helen agreed to work on not being so prone to panic, and Bill and Kendra agreed not to keep secrets from Helen.  They all agreed they would aspire to greater, loving communication of their important truths to each other, no matter what it was about, and they set out to do just that.  They made a ‘no big secrets contact’ with each other and that seemed to help a lot.  They further agreed that trust was built on ‘truth mixed with love’ and they made that their family goal.

What do you suppose you would do if you made a discovery similar to Helen’s?  Would your trust in your loved ones be shaken?  Would you lose trust in your own judgment?  Would you do as well as they did in patching things up and recovering from this episode?

Let me suggest the best thing to learn from this example is when experiencing strong mistrust do not jump to conclusions.  Quick conclusions are your enemy.  I can’t tell you how many love relationship problems I have helped people get through that were started by, or made much worse by, people drawing premature, erroneous conclusions.  Related to this is a second, huge, common, trust issue problem.  It’s the problem of keeping secrets.  So many mistrust calamities could have been avoided had the people involved been able to get their truth out in the open and discuss it, even if it hurt.  In successful, love relationships it takes sharing truth and that builds trust.  Hiding, avoiding, denial, distortions and mis-representations of the truth, more often than not, work against ‘trust building’ even when they are done for well-meaning reasons.

Trust Issues and Their Surprising Complications

Trust and mistrust issues are among the biggest problems in love relationships.  Do I trust you to be faithful?  Do I trust myself to remain faithful?  Can I love you and not trust you?  If I forgive you does it mean I have to trust you?  Do I trust myself to keep being loving no matter what?  Do I trust myself to have enough ‘attraction power’ to hold you or should I secretly spy and pry into your life to make sure you’re not betraying me?  Do I trust you not to turn into my mother, or my father?  Do I trust us enough to make a go of it?  Do I trust that our love can be strong enough to hold us together and survive what the world throws at us?   Do I trust in trusting?  Yes, there are great many trust issues that many people give no thought to until they have occasion to experience very upsetting mistrust.

It’s not only with lovers and spouses that we have trust issues.  Shall I trust my kids do what I have taught them?  Should I trust myself to be a good parent?  Can I trust that my family will support me in a crisis?  Will my avowed, true friends be there for me when I need them?  Will I come through for them when they call on me in crisis?  With every love relationship there can be heavy-duty trust challenges.  So, let’s ask this question.  How does healthy, real love guide us in facing all these trust issues?

Understanding Trust Itself

To answer the above questions let’s first look at a few ways trust is understood to work. Here’s a concept about how trust operates considered to be a little radical.  It goes like this:
All smart trust is really self-trust.  There’s no such thing as trusting other people.  There’s only trusting yourself to handle what others may send your way.  If you do not unconsciously, sufficiently trust your own ability to handle what someone else may bring to your life then you consciously will not trust them.  All trust and mistrust is projected self-trust or the lack there of.  The highly self-trusting find it easier to forgive and try again, while those who have low self-trust don’t.  It’s hard for them to forgive because they secretly know they can’t handle what might be done to them, or so goes this understanding of trust dynamics.  There is some research to support this kind of thinking.

Those who come to re-trust a person after betrayal tend to trust their own ability to handle things well even if they are betrayed again. The more ego-weak a person is the less they trust in others.  This apparently is true of many people, but not all.  Those who have a high self-trust tend to either easily choose to trust or not trust, but they seldom spend much time in uneasy, anxious mistrust of others.  There also is some research which suggests that the most highly mistrusting people are not to be trusted.  The naïve and innocent also give trust too easily.  And the frequently traumatized, abused and misused tend to place little trust in anyone.

Another viewpoint on trust goes like this.  All trust is a gamble and should be seen as such.  In love when we trust someone we are gambling on the person we love and on the love in the relationship.  Intelligent people know that some of these love-gambles will pay off and some will not.  Some people gamble on love and win enormously and some lose enormously.  In gambling the saying goes “if you can’t afford to lose, don’t bet”.  However, in love and other great life experiences the truth is "you can’t afford not to gamble".  Consider the old wisdom teaching “it is better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all”.  For most people that’s probably true.

Consider this concept.  The adventures of love bring people their biggest and most meaningful life experiences, even when they don’t win at love.  Some think nothing defines or develops a person so much as their love relationships.  However, those love relationships take great gambles of trust, or they are far too limited.  Whether it be love of a spouse, a child, a family, a people, a nation, a cause or a deity, to win big takes gambling on trust big.

There are important problems and exceptions to the above thinking.  Quite sadly there are far too many people who make the gamble of love with someone who will literally destroy them one way or another.  So many murders and terrible abuse tragedies are stories of love gone wrong.  So many people who die of a substance addiction were started on that addiction path by way of a poor or false-love relationship.  So many suicides, heart attacks, strokes and other sudden health failures occur after the loss of a love.

All too frequently the trust-gamble of love poorly chosen results in tragedy.  The good news is that people who learn about love and its workings make much better gambles of trust.  They, therefore, win at love more often and far bigger.  Another good news factor is that the vast majority of people win more than they lose when they gamble on love.

Romantic love, or mate or spouse love probably is the most problematic when it comes to trust issues.  Pet love and grandparent’s love of grandchildren probably are the types of love with the fewest, trust foul-ups and the most, trust related, good results.  Still every kind of love relationship can have trust problems.  Therefore, every love relationship deserves some thinking and probably talking about trust issues.

Mistrust In Love

One view of mistrust holds that the more untrustworthy you are the more you will not trust the people you love and who you hope love you.  If you are highly prone to deception you will suspect others are likewise deceptive.  Suspicion and mistrust can ruin an otherwise good love relationship.  Here’s what Marcia said, “You tapped my phone, secretly went through my things, had me followed, read my diary when I ask you not to, and now you’re asking me to trust you.  Not a chance!  I thought we had a good thing going.  Now I see how sneaky you are.  If you can’t trust me I don’t want to have anything more to do with you.  We are through, and that’s final!”  Love often demands that we gamble ‘trust in another’ and if instead we rely too much on mistrust, and the behaviors that mistrust leads to, a love relationship can become poisoned.

Romantic Love and Trust

In romantic love there is a terrible, fascinating truth.  The more we don’t trust our own worth, value, love-ability and attraction power the more we can become insecure.  The more we are insecure the more we subconsciously believe someone better than ourselves will come along and be more desirable than we are.  That "more desirable person" will steal our loved-one away from us and we will be abandoned, alone and unloved.  Therefore, we must mistrust and guard against our loved-one looking at other attractive people, talking to them, being around them without our supervision, looking at images of attractive sexy others, etc. and generally we must keep our loved-ones ‘on a short leash’ to keep them to ourselves.

That indicates we might feel like our loved-ones are our property like a dog, or a slave, who is going to run away.  With this kind of thinking any suspicious involvement with another must be punished severely and the leash shortened.  Usually the final result of the ‘short leash approach’ is to drive our loved ones away and possibly into the arms of someone better than us.  Mistrust frequently is, in effect, a self-fulfilling prophecy.

A Self-Strengthening Approach to Building Love Trust

The best way to build trust is to become ‘psychologically big and strong’ enough to handle being very truthful in a loving way.  To be big in healthy self-love so as to be able to own up to one’s mistakes and problematic behavior is a highly desirable part of the trust-building process.  It also is important to become big and strong enough psychologically, and especially emotionally, so as not to be destroyed or irreparably harmed when a loved one disappoints, betrays or otherwise dishonestly deals with you.

Furthermore, it is quite important to grow big enough to maturely and magnanimously handle the truth when it comes your way, no matter how much it hurts, bothers or scares you.  Trust is built on truth-telling, truth-hearing, truth-sharing and generally dealing from strength.  Mistrust is built on weakness, deception, inability to accept and compassionately, lovingly deal with truth.  So, build your psychological strengths, especially those having to do with love and you will be able to handle your trust challenges far better.

As always – Go and Grow in Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

♥ Love Success Question Are you as love trustworthy as you want the people you love to be?

Other Ways to Say I Love You

Synopsis: Why say “I love you” in different ways; a dozen other ways to say the “I love you” message; creating and improving your own love expressions.

Why say “I love you” different ways?

The simple words “I love you” are wonderful and in love relationships it’s great if they get said quite often, even daily.

However, variety can be the spice of both love and life.  Having some different ways to get this basic love message across can add that bit of spice or variation that makes expressing your love a bit more artistic and impactful.  Verbally conveying love well is a good skill to develop and having variations helps that.  Having lots of different ways to say “I love you” can help those you love feel extra special and better loved.  It can show that you have given them extra thought and when it comes to love skills you may have more interesting things to offer.  So, I suggest you study the following list and add your own special ways of conveying the “ I love you” message.

A Dozen Other Ways to Say the “I Love You” Message

    1.   I love you sooooooooooo much!
2.   Every day I love you more!
3.   I could not, not love you!
4.   Loving you is the most joyous thing I do!
5.   My whole being loves your whole being!
6.   I love you is my grandest and most glorious truth!
7.   The very core of my being loves you so incredibly much!
8.   I know I will love you even more tomorrow than I do today!
9.   Loving you is such a fabulous blessing!
10. I am in amazing, fantastic, marvelous love with you!
11. Every time I see you I love you bigger!
12. I can’t find big enough words to tell you how much I love you!

Creating and Improving Your Own Love Expressions

With a little work you can create your own, improved “I love you” messages.  One way to do this is to use the name of the person you’re talking or writing to.  Another is to use terms of endearment like sweetheart, darling, honey, beloved, dearest, etc..  Still another way is to use special nicknames.  One caution here, be sure that nicknames don’t have any negative or put-down quality to the person you’re saying them to.  Some couples go through the meditation exercise of discovering what is known as their special, spirit names and using them with each other, which is said to add great power to one’s “I love you” messages.

Alliteration is sometimes helpful. “ Loving you, Barbara, is beautiful” and “I am crazy in love with you Carol” are examples.  Of course if you can be poetic that helps too.  In any case why not see if you can vary the way you get your “I love you” messages across and, thereby, make your love expressions a little more interesting and able to have a little more impact.

As always –Go and Grow in Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

♥ Love Success Question
Have  you given thought to and expressed to your loved ones how they might best tell you of their love or you?

Related posts:

1. How to Talk Love Without Words 

Gratitude As a Love Skill

Synopsis: Are you a “thanking” person, good at the love skill of gratitude?; how to develop gratitude awareness; how gratitude improves your physical, mental and relationship health; how to grow your gratitude love skill, and healthy, real love via gratitude.

Are You a ‘Thanking’ Person?

A month after our most loving and appreciative guests left we were still finding little Post-it notes secreted away in different hiding places telling us about different things our guests were grateful for during their stay with us.  Each note came as a tangible, little, friendship-love surprise gently touching our hearts.  It endeared them to us even more than they already were.

This is an example of highly love-skilled people who found a special way to express their gratitude.  True thankfulness grows out of gratitude.  Gratitude, let me suggest, is a highly worthy sub-classification of love behaviors related to the larger major category of ‘affirmational love’.  To have gratitude one must have awareness of what one can be grateful about.  This takes a mind-set focused on the good things coming one’s way.  Then one must have at least a minimum amount of healthy self-love and confidence to risk showing appreciation.

It is amazing how many people fear that if they show their gratitude it will be unwanted, or they fear they will do an inadequate job of showing gratitude.  Some fear their way of showing gratitude will be regarded as silly or somehow inferior and, therefore, they stop themselves from the full expression of their gratitude.  Some people think that their show of gratitude must be done in some large and impressive way and if that can’t be accomplished they don’t show it at all.  Notice in the above example of the Post-it notes the people doing this could have thought such notes might be annoying or regarded as cheap or insignificant.  I suppose people poor at ‘receptional love’ indeed might be so inclined.  I hope you’re not among them, but if you are remember help is available here and at other love-focused places.

Gratitude Awareness

Let me suggest you have more to be grateful for than you will ever be able to be aware of, let alone give thanks for.  To start with, you were born as a great, amazing bundle of miracles.  Even a rock is miraculous but you are so incredibly more than a rock.  Be grateful!  When you were born you were loved enough to keep you alive.  Many are not and they die of marasmus and other ‘failure to thrive’ diseases of infancy.  Be grateful!  Then you began the incredible, miraculous process of maturing and discovering the incredibly miraculous world you were born into.  Some who are born cannot do that, so be grateful!  You were at least minimally loved, laughed with, played with, and taught something of the world.  Be grateful!  You also were able to learn on your own and that learning ability was a gift some do not have.  Be grateful!

Then there were the people of your life, some of whom were not so great.  Others, however, probably influenced and guided you better than you are aware of.  If they had not you never would have learned to read what you are reading now, nor would you be able to think about it as well as you can, and probably you wouldn’t be able to grow from what you’re thinking as well as you can.  Be grateful!

Gratitude Improves Your Health

Recent research shows that those people who actively feel and show gratitude improve their physical health in a number of ways as they do so.  Mental health also is advanced by loving gratitude which triggers neurochemical improvements in our brains.  Longevity also has been linked to gratitude and, as might be expected, those who are good at gratitude are measured as having significantly better interpersonal relationships.  Those who are poor at gratitude are measured as less physically, mentally, emotionally and relationally healthy and they live shorter lives on average.

Undervalued Gratitude

There are dangers to not feeling, showing and receiving expressions of gratitude.  Some people shrug off showing gratitude as a waste of time and an unnecessary action.  There are those who are embarrassed when gratitude or thanks is shown to them.  Sometimes that’s because they don’t quite know how to receive it or reply but that can be learned.  Then there are the people who have been trained to quickly dismiss expressions of gratitude so as not to seem egotistical.  This may discount the gratitude-giver which might harm the relationship with that person.

There are those who don’t show gratitude for egocentric reasons, believing themselves to be somehow superior rather than just different from others.  Some overly power-oriented people think showing gratitude demonstrates weakness.  That can lead to fear and away from love.  Then there are those who are suspicious of gratitude, thinking it is merely a manipulation setting them up for some sort of misuse.  All of these people who undervalue gratitude miss out on the health benefits mentioned above and on the very real joy that results from truly being grateful.

One of the more interesting findings in gratitude research has to do with people becoming thankful for something, and then showing that gratitude which then appeared to open the door to solving a life problem they were having.  Research also has shown people good at gratitude get through hard times easier than others.

Did you know that Gratitude Groups are being experimented with in some prisons, nursing homes and certain schools.  Groups discussing what they have gratitude for and how they will demonstrate that gratitude are producing a variety of surprising, positive results.  Gratitude exercises in couple’s love education classes and workshops are resulting in couples more deeply bonding with each other.  Guided gratitude facilitation in family love education retreats and seminars show similar results for whole families.

How to Grow Your Gratitude

Of the people who have influenced your life who are you most grateful for?  For each decade you have lived can you think of some people you can genuinely say you were quite fortunate to have had in your life?  Of the people who are in your life now who most merits you showing gratitude to.  Are there people in your past who have passed away to whom you wish you had shown more gratitude?  Who are the people you would most enjoy showing gratitude to?  Who are the people who would be most surprised by you showing gratitude to them?  Perhaps you will want to spend some time thinking about these questions and you may want to make some lists.

Suppose you were to give some of the people you just thought of a call, or send them a note, or visit them expressing your gratitude for what they have meant in your life.  Then again you might do it in an anonymous way.  It is good to feel gratitude and that does you healthful good but expressing it may be even better.  The more you focus on and feel gratitude and then express it the more you are likely to grow your gratitude-giving competence as one of your love skills.

Love Via Gratitude

How soon can you genuinely thank somebody for something?  The sooner the better.  How soon will you pay attention to something someone has done for you, or that benefits someone you care about, and lovingly tell them of your gratitude?  As you encounter people today and tomorrow will you make yourself aware of at least some small thing they do that you can appreciate.  Will you then be at least a little grateful.  Some think our world leads us to notice the things we don’t like more than the things we can like.  Many people’s families or a sub-society they grew up in taught them mostly about griping, complaining, whining and being ungrateful.  This anti-gratitude way of going about one’s life approach now is seen to be surprisingly stressful and to shorten life.  Train yourself in appreciation-awareness and to feel and give gratitude as part of ‘affirmational love’ giving and your life will be a happier, healthier place to live in.

Large numbers of people just don’t have much of an awareness of gratitude and the good it does.  Especially our love relationships can be benefitted by people who feel and frequently show genuine gratitude for the love acts of others.  So today and tomorrow and the next day too, I want to dare you to be grateful for something you would not have otherwise been grateful for and then show your gratitude in one fashion or another.

Gratitude can be shown with a pat on the back, a hug, a smile, just a few words of thanks, a note, a gift, doing a favor for, public bragging on another person and in a host of other ways.  I want to challenge you to challenge yourself to make yourself good at the love skill called gratitude.  Hopefully this little love lesson will assist you in that endeavor.

As always – Go and Grow in Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

♥ Love Success Question The concepts of healthy self-love suggest that you give gratitude to yourself for having helped yourself live as well as you have.  So, are you doing that?

Related posts:

1. Gratitude – As a Love Skill
2. Dining with Heart – A Love Skill
3. Checking It Out – As a Love Skill
4. Intimacy Creation – A Love Skill
5. Respect – As a Love Skill 

Throuple Love, a Growing Worldwide Way of the Future?

Mini-Love-Lesson #213

Synopsis: What throuple love is; its legality, offspring, sexuality; who desires it; and the question “Is it a real love?” are all briefly presented and explained here.

How Throuple Love Happened to Alice, Betty and Charlie

It all started sometime after Alice’s policeman husband was tragically killed in the line of duty.  Her best friend, Betty, and Betty’s husband, Charlie, began looking in on Alice and her two young daughters then taking them places like shopping, the movies and the park along with their own children.  Later they all watched TV and did other ordinary stuff together.  It was obvious to all of them that they were growing quite close, including the children.  One day Betty said, “Suppose we all move in together, after all, it would save money and we have become like one big family”.  That led to a lot of talk and spending experimental weekends together which went quite well.

One day Alice said she had a problem with the suggested all live together idea.  She confessed she was both romantically and sexually attracted to Charlie and, truth be told, sometimes also a bit attracted to Betty too.  She went further saying she felt sometimes like she was falling in love with both of them.  Betty surprised herself as well as the others by saying she loved Alice and didn’t think she would really mind sharing her husband with Alice, sort of like they had seen on a TV show about Mormon sister-wives.  Charlie then related he had love feelings for both Betty and Alice, truth be told, he revealed he had sexually fantasized about having threesome sex with both of them.

Cautiously one weekend with all the kids away at the grandparent’s homes, they started a very loving, three-way, sexual relationship.  At first they laughed together at their awkwardness, then got really amazed with how turned-on and passionate they all got with one another.  All three were quite certain they would want to do it again and they did.

One thing that just evolved was all three of them enjoying spending more time before and after sex, non-sexually cuddling and caressing one another.  It was after one such very loving three-way experience that Charlie, kind of awkwardly proclaimed, “I think we three are creating a marriage with each other.”  Alice and Betty soon agreed.  After some parent guidance and blended family counseling which included all the children to make sure that they carried this off in the best way possible, they bought a big house and moved in together.  That was years ago and except for some problems with outside family members their love-filled, very psychologically real, three-person marriage/union has gone quite well.

Another surprise came when they discovered lots of people around the world were doing pretty much the same thing and there was a name for it, along with websites, support groups, an app and a whole bunch of other stuff.   The name for it, similar to the word couple, is “Throuple”.

What Is Throuple Love?

To understand throuple love, just think of the term couple love and add a person.  Throuple love is a love-mate or spouse-type love for two people simultaneously instead of just one.  A throuple love relationship is where spouse-type love goes back and forth rather equally between three people as they have and live in a committed, love-based, three person, psychological marriage.  Sexuality is a part of that but not the center of it, as likewise it is in a healthy, love-centered marriage.

Throuples are to be differentiated from threesomes who usually are more temporary and more about sexuality than love.  They also are different from couples who have a third person, friends with benefits type relationship, although probably that is closer and might turn into a throuple relationship at some point.  Technically a throuple could be considered a form of polygamy or polyandry but those terms more often reference a one gender dominance situation.  Throuple usually is a classification within the subcategories of plural marriage, group marriage, polyamor relationships and alternative lifestyles, all of which are encompassed by the larger category of marriage-type relationships ( see “Poly Love” and “Multiple Sex Partners and Love”).

Some people also use a term like throupling to refer to actions and states of mind involving or going toward throuple love and relating.  Throupling, throuple love and throuple marriages can occur between one man and two women, one woman and two men, three women, three men, one or more bisexuals and one or two others of either gender, one or more transsexuals with one or two others and may include other gender oriented categories (see “Other Genders Love” and “Does Sexual Preference Influence Love?”).

What About Throuple’s Legality?

The first legal recognition of a throuple union occurred in the country of Columbia in 2017.  Three men were granted family law, legal union status with the same rights as couples.  When challenged, their legal union was upheld by that nation’s constitutional court.  Worldwide, supportive compliments came from other throuple relationships around the globe as well as from various libertarians, liberal religious groups, alternative lifestyle supporters and relational freedom advocates.  Condemnation, death threats, hate messages and other legal challenge attempts came from a wide variety of other conservative, traditionalist, reactionary and regressive groups apparently mostly in South America but also in some parts of Africa.

In most parts of the world, throuples just are not dealt with legally or, at worst, are arrested and imprisoned with some even endangered by the death penalty.  In countries rated as more democratic, throuples tend to be accepted and some legal support is able to be obtained through contract law and broadening family law.  In countries rated as more non-democratic or anti-democratic, severe problems can be encountered.  In various places, the safety of those in a throuple relationship where laws against polygamy, homosexuality and other forms of alternate lifestyles exist are a concern, as they are in lands heavily influenced by various conservative religious laws.

What about Children of Throuples?

Throuples make the argument that three parents can be, and often are, much better than two or one parent households.  What little research evidence there is suggests this may be true.  One of the possible reasons this may be valid is that when a child needs comfort, information, support or any parental help, there may be more loving adults available.  Certain testimony from those who have grown up in three parent, throuple type, homes seems to be quite positive about it so far.  Contrary comments from throuple offspring, to date, are uncommon.

Definitive, long-range studies have yet to be completed.  Harmful and destructive throuple influences on children have been postulated by some, but not proven or objectively confirmed as having any real frequency of occurrence.  The preponderance of available, though meager, evidence to date, suggests throuple love correlates well with good, healthy, parental love and subsequently children who turn out quite well as they mature.

What about Throuples and Sex?

King-size beds apparently are rather popular with throuples.  One reason is because three people being sexual with each other simultaneously is not so easily done in smaller beds designed for couples.  As commonly proclaimed, throupling is not primarily about sex but rather about love, or at least the attempt at modern, egalitarian, three-way love.  Three lovers cuddling together as they go to sleep with love in their hearts for one another is more the prototype image than three people climaxing together (see “Sexual Love Laces”).

Some throuples take turns or do one at a time sex, some occasionally bring in a fourth person, usually a dear friend and a few go about things in the open marriage sort of way but, so far, the evidence suggests not many.  Throuples usually seem to emphasize they are going about their relationship in very democratic ways including what they do sexually.  Democratic equality and mutuality, along with a willingness to experiment with what each other wants, seems to be the standard.

Who Wants Throuple Love?

Quite a few bisexuals seem to see a throuple love relationship as a real boon to their natural desires and proclivities.  One bisexual said, “I no longer have to cheat, have affairs and feel guilty now that I’m in throuple love”.  Bi’s have related that in a three-way love and sex relationship they no longer have to deny or try to suppress half of their true selves.  Some married lesbian and gay men also have related that the throuple way has allowed them to stay married and continue as full-time parents, so it is way better for the children.

Throupling homosexuals being sexual is more with a same gender partner but it can occur in the threesome way.  Some report becoming a bit more bi themselves and getting turned on by seeing their two other throuple partners enjoying each other.

It is surprising to many that a fair number of older, retired people seem to have formed throuple-type, love relationships.  Cases of widows and widowers becoming friends and then developing multiple person, marriage-type love for one another and finally living in a three-person marriage arrangement might possibly become somewhat common.

Transgender and mixed gender people of various types also see throuple love as a form of living married that is well-suited to their particular needs and wants.  One trans person said it was wonderful not to have to get a divorce like happens to so many married transgender people when they make the transition.  “I started in our throuple as a biological male with a male and a female spouse.  For a time, I was sort of a half-and-half but was just as loved by my other two.  Then I got to my real self as a full female and was still pretty much loved just the same way I was when we started.  Even better, all three of us pretty much are just same except my female clothes take up more room now”.

There are those who grew up in happy, big families who find the throuple way of doing love relating to feel like being home again.  Others admit to being bigamist at heart and there are still others who enjoy having a sort of brother or sister spouse.  A very small number are known to have grown up in throuple household and just see it as what they are used to and like.  Others who have had bad experiences with two-person marriage are willing to try a throuple love approach.

In short, a growing number of people all around the world either want a throuple relationship or are willing to give it a try to see if it works for them.  It is too early to tell but some analysts suspect throuple love is going to keep growing and eventually perhaps become common.

Is Throuple Love Real Love?

You can’t really love two people at once, can you?  At least one person’s love for one of the others will be fake love, won’t it?  And if you love one better than the other, won’t that break up the throuple?  Doing this throuple love thing isn’t natural, is it?  All sorts of questions arise and those in throuple love relationships give some pretty interesting answers.  To the question about loving two people comes the reply “lots of people love two children, two parents, two siblings, two friends etc. so why not two romantic or marriage type partners?  To the second question comes to the reply “throuples have less fake love and false love problems than do couples because they have to examine everything more carefully, and three minds work better than just two or one”.

The third question about loving one better than the other gets the answer “people may unequally love two children, two siblings, two parents, etc. differently at different times and it all works out fine, so why not two lovers?  To the issue of what’s natural comes the social psychologist’s and cultural anthropologist’s answers showing millions of people living and having lived in multiple person marriages and done so quite sufficiently and successfully.  Monogamy actually may be in the minority throughout cultures and over long time periods.  That certainly is true in the animal world.

If you measure real love by the behaviors and operations that exhibit it, and by the operations that differentiate it from false love, or by what the limbic system in the brain does neurochemically and neural electrically with love, or by the social biological correlates of those who strongly report feeling love after years of love relating, then we have no reason to think that throuple love could not be just as real as couple love.  However, it will take a lot more good, solid research to support or contradict this much more fully than is currently evident.

Could throuple love be right for you, or members of your family, friends, etc.?  Again, emphasis on love.

One More Little Thing

Who might you want to talk all this over with, and maybe tell them about this site and its FREE 200+ mini-love-lessons?

As always – Go and Grow with Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

♥ Love Success Question: If you knew a throuple, would you invite them to dinner at your home and, yea or nay, what does that tell you?

Related posts:

1. Transcendental Love: Mysteries and Wonders for Your Future?
2. Growing Closeness – A Love Skill
3. What about “Bi” Love?
4. All or Nothing Love – The New Way of Marriage
5. Poly Love