Love It Is Not Boastful/Pretentious

Mini-Love-Lesson  #239

Synopsis: We start with conflicting interpretations that lead to broader understanding of what this tenet of St. Paul’s may have hoped to convey; followed by related issues of psychological dynamics; real and false self-love; self-confidence and end with the harm of self-debasement and it’s avoidance.

Translation Troubles That Help

Since we are working from Paul’s list of what love is and is not (First Corinthians 13) in the New Testament, we must enter into the translation puzzlement of what he meant exactly when in Greek he wrote love is not “perpereuetai”.  Various translations of the Bible have used quite a few rather different English words in translating this.  Some scholars suggest we may not have a sufficiently accurate equivalent word in English for this Greek word.  Hence, some translation confusion and controversy exists concerning what is meant here.

To get a broad sense of what Paul probably was meaning to convey, look at these scholarly based interpretations.

Love ... “vaunteth not itself” (King James), “dealeth not perversely” (Douay-Rheims Catholic Bible), “makes no parade” (Moffatt), “does not put on airs” (American Complete Bible), “is not pretentious”(New Catholic Bible), “doesn’t brag” (Common English Bible), “does not strut” (Message Bible), “is not conceited”, (Good News Edition), “Is Never Boastful or Proud” (Living Bible), “is not boastful” (Revised Standard Version).

As you can see there is similarity but also differences among these translations as well as with a the many others that exist.

If today Paul were writing in English he might be inspired to write something like love is not egocentric, self-aggrandizing, narcissistic or braggadocios.  Of course, those terms and their particular definitions did not exist in his day so he had to use what was available.  For help with original biblical linguistics check out Truth in Translation by Dr. Jason BeDuhn.

I have chosen to use boastful which is a common interpretation in Protestant translations with the more Catholic translation pretentious.  To me, that seems to make a decent bridge between what is coming to be understood about the nature of healthy, real love and recent biblical linguistic research findings.

What Does Boastful and Pretentious Mean Psychologically?

Boastful means excessively showing off, bragging and presenting oneself or one’s achievements, qualities etc. as superior, more excellent and more worthy of merit than is accurate or necessary.  Pretentious means pretending to have greater standing, skill, importance, sophistication, status, qualities, worth, etc. than is accurate or merited in a situation.

Psychologically, boasting and pretentiousness behaviors suggest a person who may be in need of greater self-love and more inner self worth.  Such a person also may need to find, own and/or develop their own talents, qualities, attributes, etc. so as not to need pretense.  Such a person also may be too outer-dependent and insufficiently able to be interdependent, co-functioning or team functioning which can be quite detrimental to successful love relating (see Recovering Love by this author).

Real and False Self-Love

Those who have healthy, real self-love tend to brag briefly.  Those of false self-love go on and on.  Those of real self-love tend not to do much politically correct, socially adept humility and self depreciation talk.  They avoid modesty-dishonesty as they also avoid over self-glorification because with healthy self-love they do not need it and it takes too much time and effort.  Thus, the healthfully self-loving in a close love relationship can see pretending to be more and less than they really perceive themselves to be, as deceitful and a poor way to treat loved ones (“Unselfish Self-Love”).

In false love, there is often a lot of pretense, phony manipulation, fake intimacy and a plethora of small to large deceits.  Hiding the truth about many things and other forms of secrecy frequently are common.  Many who secretly see themselves as somehow not enough attempt starting toward a love relationship with a lot of overt or covert, boastful falsehoods.  They may fake to impress and then work to hide what they have faked.  This usually turns out to be a very poor way to grow true love, trust or anything else that can be called real (“False Love Awareness”).

There is an old, silly story that says, on their wedding night she said, “I have to confess something dear” and took out the falsies from her very padded bra.  He said, “I too must confess” as he got 2 inches shorter after taking out the lifts in his shoes.  She said, “There’s more” and removed her girdle.  He remarked, “Me too” and tossed his toupee away, which was then followed by her wig.  They then continued that way until there was nobody there.

In a symbolic way, this is a true story about some marriages especially those of the trophy spouse type.  Being brave enough to present the truth about yourself, including brief bragging about the good parts along with the not so good, has been known to pay off two big ways.  One way is to either garner admiration for self-disclosure and brave, self sharing or the second way, to more quickly screen-out those who cannot relate or deal with honest self-disclosure and probably would not have worked out anyway (see “Growing Closeness – A Love Skill”).

Healthy Self-Love and Self-Confidence vs Boastful and Pretentious

Superiority syndromes or complexes long have been known to hide inferiority syndromes and complexes.  Neither of these are to be confused with healthy self-love and its strong, self-confident characteristic.  Being overly boastful and pretentious, suggests the dynamics of a person who frequently is attending to and finding importance in how others see them and how they can influence that.  Usually, the healthfully self-loving and self-confident attend to and find importance in how their world is functioning and what to constructively do with it.  This frequently is confluent with the dictum “love others as you love yourself” and, therefore, is not just focused on self gain, as are boastfulness and pretentiousness (see “Self-Love and Its Five Healthy Functions” and Real Love False Love by this author).

Avoiding the Harm of Self Debasement

Don’t ever be boastful, proud, brag, think too well of yourself, like yourself overmuch or care for yourself too much.  Instead, always be humble, modest, meek, self-sacrificing, acting with humility, put others first and self last.  For many people these concepts and others like them have been the connected and extended interpretation of the “love is not boastful or pretentious” tenant.  Add docile and obedient for a possible in between the lines meaning.  From a mental health point of view, all that has turned out to be anti-natural, unhealthy, self-destructive and really not good for the well-being of others.

This self-effacing understanding goes against the win-win understanding of the great, core teaching “love others as you love yourself”.  Those who healthfully love themselves do sufficient self-care, along with care of others, and end up doing better, longer, more creatively and more good for others than the de-powered self-sacrificing and self demeaning.  Being accurately self proud turns out to be a good thin.  Sharing what you are proud of is self-disclosure – a love action in intimate love relationships.  Socially, a brief, one sentence brag often is positively viewed as refreshing, honest and winsome self-confidence.  Three or more sentences, not so much.

One More Thing

You might want to talk all this over with others and, in so doing, create a positive, sharing experience.  If you do, please mention this site and its Mini-Love-Lessons along with the free subscription service. Thank you!

As always – Go and Grow with Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

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?

Here And Now Love

Synopsis: Mindsets that miss out; examples; here and now "distracters"; those good at here and now love; giving here and now love; now for the future; a helper test; Joy and sorrow in the now; training yourself.

Love is best experienced with a "here and now" mind-set.  That takes focusing your awareness fully in the present while love is being given and received.  It is surprising how difficult this is for some people.  So many miss out on full, love experiences because their mind is focused on something from the past or the future and, therefore, not in the "now".

Let’s look at a few examples.  She gives him a loving kiss but his focus is on problems at the office so he does not fully feel the love coming to him.  He, ever so lovingly, smiles at her but her mind is on making sure their children clean up their room so her subconscious sense of loneliness grows a bit bigger.  Out of love the small child puts heartfelt effort into making a picture present then gleefully hands it to the parent.  However, the parent’s mind is on the issues of tomorrow and barely looks at the gift and quickly dismisses the child’s special made, love gift and the child.

The parent misses the feeling of love coming from the child and the child misses out on the receptional love the parent could have given in return.  Plus, the child may learn disappointment is what comes from trying to give love, and they might be being ‘taught by example’ how to not receive love offerings fully.  A friend gives a loving compliment but the intended recipient almost doesn’t hear it at all because that person is focused on whether or not they did the right thing about yesterday’s difficulty.  I bet you can think up your own examples and personal experiences.

So often people grow "love starved" because they are inexperienced at living in the here and now.  Lots of people need and want more love and, in fact, demonstrations of love may be coming their way.  However, they’re missing out on the nourishment of that love because they’re not good at switching into a "here and now" focus.  So many are so occupied with anxieties about the future or painful incidents from the past they don’t see the enriching, strengthening love available to them in the present.

Many have love opportunities surrounding them and all they need do is ask for a hug, or a smile, or to be lovingly listened to for a bit and they would get the love that’s available.  Then they could go about life a little better because love well received usually helps counter pain from the past and anxieties of the future.  Of course, there are appropriate times for making plans for the future, and acceptable times to be learning from the past, and busy times too.  But if love is available, or being offered, don’t miss out on it even if soaking it up needs to be brief.  This is where the "quality of reception" is more important than the "amount of time" spent.

Some people are really good at"here and now" love.  They see loving looks coming their way and fully absorb and are nourished by those looks.  There are those who delight in a lover’s hand as it warmly slips into their own, and their mind is on that and that alone.  Well loved are the ones who don’t give a rapid, perfunctory “I love you too” reply to an “I love you” statement.  Rather, they allow themselves to feel the love just sent their way and in essence digest and are nourished by it before they make a heartfelt reply.  They are more likely to say something like “Thank you, that feels so good, and I’m really glad you do” rather than giving an automatic statement without much feeling.

For some, getting and giving loving hugs spark and spice up their lives.  For others hugging is a quick, empty ritual because their focus is away from the here and now.  Here’s a question.   Do you think those who are really good at really focusing their mind on each love event, as it occurs, live better?  And if you aren’t already doing that do you want to be one of them?

Another part of  "here and now"  love has to do with not missing out on here and now opportunities for giving love.  I like to recommend demonstrating your love often and much.  Love is one of those things that the more you give it away the more you have to give, so long as you remember to give enough of it to yourself too.  To give love often and much you have to work at not letting too many distractions from the past or about the future get in the way.  Say words of love with loving tones, give looks of love, touch with love, and frequently do all the ways of demonstrating love and I’m betting you’ll be so glad you live that way.  Watch out that you don’t let the fear of doing it poorly, or the fear that it will not be well received, or things like that stop you.  When it comes to love it usually is better to make a mistake of commission rather than one of omission.

Do you know how doing well with "here and now" love improves your future and how that works?  First, when you really soak up love and allow yourself to fully ‘get it’ you change your brain chemistry for the better.  Then improved brain chemistry changes your body chemistry for the better.  This means your immunity mechanisms fight off infections better, and fewer stress hormones are produced and your aging process is slowed.  Also your improved brain chemistry produces more good feeling neurochemistry, generally helping to make you happier and more positive about yourself in life.  All this means you are more likely to live longer and enjoy life more.

That’s not all.  When you get really good at "here and now" love you store up good feeling memories that later you can draw upon to help you get through bleak and bad times.  Those who only ‘sort of’ feel loved when it’s coming their way may be much more likely to experience depression, despair, hopelessness, etc.

Those who do really well at encouraging"here and now" love to come their way are usually better at giving love.  This makes for more generating of mutual love and cycling of love in relationships.  The more love generated in a love relationship the better and healthier the relationship is likely to grow, and the closer the participants are likely to feel toward one another.  That means you and those you love will be more bonded and are likely to experience being more energized and also more loyal to each other.

Here is a little helper test.  Wherever you are right now, look around and see something you can feel, at least a little positive about, that you might not have really noticed before.  Now listen closely and try to hear some sound you didn’t notice until right now; especially listen for sounds that you can be at least a little interested in.  Now touch something, preferably pleasurable, and feel its texture more fully than you have before.  In every environment there always is more you can notice and at least mildly like in a "here and now" way.  Now, think of doing the same things with someone you love.

See something more, hear something more, and feel their textures more.  Be aware that as you do this you are more fully perceiving precious parts of your valued loved one.  With that awareness you might want to tell your loved one that you are enjoying and appreciating them right now.  After that do the same with yourself as an act of healthy self-love.  Notice that if while you’re doing this your mind goes anywhere else, to the past, future, far away, etc. yank it back.  You can force your mind to be in the here and now when finding things to be at least a little positive about and, therefore, to enjoy.

One of the best and greatest joys in my work happens when I hear couples, family members, friends, etc. say things like “I feel so loved right now”, “We are really doing our love and it’s great”, “I just have to hug you right now because I’m overwhelmed with feelings of love”, “Finally we’re all really loving each other in such good ways, and it’s the best thing in the world”, “At long last I love myself, and I know I’m really okay”.

One of the saddest parts of my work as a psychotherapist comes with those who lost a loved one like a child, spouse, family member, dear friend, etc. and I hear “I wish I would have told them I loved them more”, “We didn’t spend enough time loving each other”, “We never took enough time out of our too busy lives to love each other like we could have”.

With some work you can train yourself to pay attention to the love coming your way in the here and now and really get it.  With repeated effort you can notice your here and now opportunities to give love and you can do so.  You purposefully can yank your mind away from the future (and get back to it later) when you have a ‘here and now’ love opportunity.  Likewise, you can yank your mind away from the past when there is a "here and now" opportunity to do love, grow love, experience love, etc. (and later return to whatever you were thinking about from the past).  With some work we all can be better ‘here and now’ lovers.

Hopefully with these thoughts in mind you will do "here and now" love a bit better and a bit more often.  As you do that remember to tell yourself here and now “Good for me” and other healthy, self love statements.

As always – Go and Grow with Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

♥ Love Success Question In the next 10 minutes who will you show some love to, and how will you do that?
Remember, it’s OK if your love target is yourself.

Related posts:

1. Listening with Love
2. Kissing with Love
3. Love Complaints Versus Love Requests
4. Bull Wrestling, Bull Dancing and Love Quarrels
5. Do You Start and Part with Love? 

Thinking Love to Improve Love

Synopsis: This mini-love lesson presents ways to improve love with your thinking in, about and with love.

Do you know how to ‘think love’?  Many do not.  ‘Thinking love’ simply means thinking in, with and about love – especially healthy, real love.  The more you ‘think love’ the more likely you are to do well in love and then in life.  Here are a dozen ‘helpers’ to assist you in improving your ability to ‘think love’.

A Dozen ‘Think Love’ Helpers

1.    Love thinking is appreciative!  How often do you think appreciative thoughts about those you love?  How often do you think to look for and find things to appreciate about those you love?  Is your positive, appreciative thinking more than your negative, critical thinking?  Do you give thought to how to express your appreciation of your loved ones?

2.    Love thinking is caring!  How well and often do you think caring thoughts about what your loved ones are experiencing, feeling, involved in, and what they find important?

3.    Love thinking is sharing!  Do you ponder what and how to share yourself with your loved ones?  Do you think about how to help your loved ones share themselves with you?  Do you think about what your loved ones share with you?

4.    Love thinking is kind!  Are the thoughts you have of your loved ones filled with kindness?  Do you give thought to how to show kindness?

5.    Love thinking is affirmational!  Do you focus your thoughts on what is good and admirable about your loved ones.  Do you value not only what your loved ones do but their essence as well?  Do you think about how to convey that you highly value and cheer for the success of your loved ones?

6.    Love thinking is appropriately protective!  Is safeguarding those you love part of your concern and contemplations?  Is thought given to not being overly protective?

7.    Love thinking is thankful!  Concerning your loved ones are you frequently thinking thankfully about what they do and are?  Are you good at thinking about how to express your thankfulness?

8.    Love thinking is emotional!  Do you give thought to the many emotions love brings into our lives?  Do you try to understand the emotions of your loved ones as well as your own emotions?  Are you good at figuring out the -guidance messages’ in yours and others’ emotions?  In relating with love does your thinking work well with your emotions?

9.    Love thinking is joyous!  Do you just simply enjoy thinking about your loved ones?  Does it cause you happiness to simply notice your loved ones’ way of being them self?  Do you think pleasurably about your loved ones’ idiosyncrasies, oddities, and uniqueness?

10.    Love thinking is studious!  Do you study how to grow love, make love work, improve with love, give and get love better?  Do you study your loved ones and how to best do love with them?

11.    Love thinking is inspiring!  Have you had the experience of being inspired, enriched and deeply benefited by thinking about love in the ways just described? (If not keep thinking about love and we bet you will.)

12.    Love thinking is intimate!  Do you think about love in deeply personal, emotionally close and very private ways?  Do you frequently and healthfully mix your love thinking with your sex thinking?  Can you also connect thoughts about the  passionate and the erotic with thoughts about spiritual love?

People who really think more about love often automatically do more about love.  Unless their thinking is mistaken and inaccurate, those people are the ones more likely to experience and achieve more in the arenas of love.  The reverse is also likely to be true. Those who don’t give love much thought are less likely to get good love results.  So we encourage you to think a lot about love and especially how healthy, real love can be made to work, grow and improve lives.

As always – Go and Grow with Love

Dr. J Richard Cookerly

♥ Love Success Question
With whom will you share and discuss this ‘think love’ mini-love lesson and exactly when will you do that?

Independence with Love

Ted said “I’m finally in a marriage that helps me be more independent, not less”.

Judy replied “I don’t think that’s possible.  When you love someone don’t you always become dependent on them and have to sacrifice your independence for the relationship?”  Gloria responded with, “Not in my love relationships.  Love helps me be who I really am and how I want to be me.  Without love I wouldn’t get to be the real me”.

Qi-shi remarked, “That is not my experience.  My lady friends always want to restrict me, hold me back and get me to be dependent on them, and keep me that way.  That’s why I am not with anyone right now.  I like my independence and for me love gets in the way” .  Sally with disgust commented, “You all know that’s the way it always works out for us women.  Men just don’t want to give you any independence at all”.

Jeremy came back with, “It’s not just men, you women may be more subtle but in my experience every woman wants to ‘break and tame’ her man.  That takes away every bit of every poor guy’s independence”. “I totally disagree,” said Mark.  “Before Jan and I hooked up I was so love-starved I couldn’t do anything but look for love and affection.  Once I started really loving and being loved it set me free to be more independent than I’ve ever been”.  Then Judy jumped in with, “José and I would never dare interfere with each other’s independence.

The whole basis of our relationship is allowing and helping each other live independently. That’s how we do love.  For us it wouldn’t work any other way”.  Sharon then asked, “Doesn’t independence sort of imply being separate and alone.  I never have felt comfortable with the words independent or dependent.  They both sound like things I don’t want to fully embrace.  What about interdependence and self-dependent?   Shouldn’t we consider those also”?

This energetic discussion continued on for quite some time between the participants at a Love Advancement weekend workshop.  As you can see in their discussion there are many differing viewpoints when it comes to the subject of ‘Independence and Love’.  No small number of couples, families and even friendships break up when there are clashes over independence versus dependence issues.  And to the contrary many relationships maintain their health by assisting their participants to have a high degree of independence.

When commenting on love, independence and marriage the great Middle Eastern poet/philosopher, Kahlil Gibran wrote:

“… let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.
Love one another but make not a bond [prison] of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
… Sing and dance together and be joyous,
but let each one of you be alone,
Even as the strains of a lute are alone though they quiver
with the same music.
Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together, yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.”

Indeed, among relational professionals it is generally thought that in healthy, real love the love relationship is carried on in a way that promotes, assists and nurtures independent individuality.  Love-based actions which help each person grow their self-dependent abilities and help them act in interpersonal, independent teamwork result in healthy, mutually beneficial love relationships.  This means shared independence and democratically chosen interdependence are a significant part of well functioning love relationships.

One of the prime ways to identify a real, healthy love from an unhealthy, false love has do with examining dependency issues.  Those relationships that promote shared independence tend to be far healthier than those relationships that suppress and restrict independence and individuality.

Relationships that are too dependent and too anti-independence promote stagnation.  Stagnation leads to deterioration, and deterioration leads to death (of the relationship and sometimes of a person in that relationship).  It is generally thought that to grow your independence means to grow your selfhood.  Dependency makes you less, not more.  Being less seldom, if ever, helps ‘the team’ that is a love relationship.  The team is strengthened by its members being ‘all they can be’ as independent individuals who share their strengths and unique abilities in interdependent teamwork.  This is one of the most important dynamics which make up ‘the teams’ we call couples, marriages, families and strong friendships.

Let’s look at what the most famous and very independent seagull of all time told us about love with freedom and independence.  Jonathan, the seagull, was reported to have said:

“If you love something set it free.  If it comes back to you, it is yours.
If it doesn’t, it never was.”
-Jonathan Livingston Seagull, according to Richard Bach

If, in the name of love, you try to possess someone, own them, capture and confine them, make them yours alone, deprive them of independent free choice, it is likely if you dare to set them free there’s a good chance they won’t return.  But if you encourage free, independent choice that is an act of real love.  Real love cannot be done as slavery.  If they choose you day after night, after day, after night and you choose them also, then together you can own and operate a growing, ongoing love.  If when giving someone the freedom of love’s partnership they leave you, then the relationship, in all probability, would never have worked out anyway.  That is because only a love operating with ongoing mutual choice and desire seems to be able to sustain itself healthfully.

Healthy, real love promotes independence and sick, anti-freedom, false love promotes dependency.  This is the contention of many who study love and its dynamics.  To investigate how all this may have influenced your life let’s look at the ways Western world society has taught people to talk and think.  The following sentences are ‘supposed to’ represent the dynamics of love, as many people understand them, but do they really?  “I need you”.  “I can’t live without you”.  “You’re mine”.  “You belong to me”.  “I’m totally yours”.  “Let me be your slave”.  “I totally surrender myself to you”.  “Do what you want with me”.  “I love you so much I will do anything you want”.  “You’re my everything”.  “I’m completely under your control just like I want to be”.  “I can’t go on without you”.  “Because I love you I will become whatever you want”.  “Use me, abuse me, dominate me, control me utterly and then I will know you love me as much as I love you”.

To the mental health professional all of these statements suggest an underlying drive to retreat into infancy where a person is totally dependent on a parent/caretaker.  A lack of wanting to become self-directed, mature, and growing, improving and becoming increasingly responsible as an adult is infantile and regressive; it’s not what real love is all about.  Healthy, real love promotes growth toward independence, freedom and being more, not less.  So why do many people confuse the desire to regress into infantile dependency with love?

There are a number of interwoven reasons.  One part is what our culture teaches us to think.  Another part involves the freedom from the stress of having to make decisions, and choices and experience the consequences of our choices.  Seemingly that can be achieved by turning your life over to another who will play the ‘parent-like, lover/mate’ role in your life.  However, that seldom turns out well.  More frequently it leads to abuse, neglect, misuse and eventually either rebellion or destruction.  Debilitating dependency on a lover is no better than debilitating dependency on a drug.

There are a fairly large number of people who fear independence because they don’t think they have what it takes to handle it.  They often are attracted to, and join with, very dictatorial, dominating types of people.  There are three big problems with this strategy.  First, dictators are usually secretly weak, fear-based people hiding under a mask of pseudo-strength.  The second problem is the weak person who wants to have the safety of being governed by the strong often slowly grows their own strength.  Then they rebel or break free from their dominator.  The third problem is the dominator may slowly grow real strength and become disenchanted with the weak person depending on them.  They then often become attracted to stronger, more dynamic, self-dependent others.

There are those who are strong, decisive leaders most of the time but want to take a break from the stress of decisiveness and let others run the show, at least for awhile.  That sometimes gets acted out in various sexual scenarios where the usually powerful leader gets to be submissive and dominated.  Then there are those that have been brought up to believe dictatorial leadership and domination are masculine and submissive masochism is feminine.  This too may occur only in sexuality but sometimes it involves a total life position.  When that happens it is very hard to arrive at a democratic, partnered, love relationship of equals.

Having someone be overtly, strongly dependent on you and on your love at first may have the strong appeal of a seemingly safe relationship.  It also has the appeal of being in control and being able to get whatever you want from the person who is dependent on you.  Later, not having an equal partner with which to share burdens, not having the input of ideas that are different from your own, not having another’s creativity and not having an equal, adult companion tends to get old, less functional and lonely.

Lots of insecure, underdeveloped men want a dependent, weak woman for their mate.  Later, as they grow in maturity and ability, they start to get bored with the weak woman at home and are attracted to highly competent, independent females out in the world.  Lots of insecure, underdeveloped females want a ‘big daddy’ to take care of them and treat them like a princess.  Later as they grow in maturity and confidence they want out from under ‘Daddy’s’ control and to associate with more challenging, stimulating and independent equals.  Of course, these are stereotypes and gender specific but they help to demonstrate the concepts here.  Human beings act in all shades of stereotypes and usually not completely like any stereotype.

Sexually lots of couples like to ‘play’ with one being a ‘sex slave’ while the other is the dominant, ‘erotic master’.  However, doing a total relationship in that format seldom gets healthy, lasting results.  Be aware that many couples who play at ‘sex slave and master’ often trade roles.

Here is a challenging thought to consider.  If you want to control, dominate, be in charge, etc. instead of being equal partners, and if you tend to think only one person can be in charge, that someone has to be the boss, have the final say, etc. then maybe you’re not strong enough or mature enough to operate in a democratic love relationship of adult equals.

Likewise, if in your love relationships you want to avoid or lose your independence, be dominated and governed, be lost in dependency and be someone else’s well-controlled puppet then healthy, real love is likely not to be in your future.  However, if a love-filled partnership of democratic equals who work to do life together is your aspiration then healthy, real love has a real chance of filling your romantic and other kinds of love life.

As always – Go and Grow with Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

♥ Love Success Questions
Do your love relationships tend to lead you to an ‘I want you’ rather than ‘I need you’, ‘I choose you’ rather than ‘I am stuck with you’ or ‘I am more free with you’ rather than ‘I am enslaved to [or with] you’ relationship dynamics?

Related posts:

1. Is “I Can’t Live without You” Real Love?
2. Validation Love Stamp Giveaways
3. Healthy Real Love -or- Toxic False Love