Passionate Love vs. Compassionate Love

Table of ContentsView AllTable of ContentsWhat Is Passionate Love?What Is Compassionate Love?Influential FactorsKey DifferencesPassionate Love ScaleInfluence on RelationshipsHow to Rekindle Passionate Love

Table of ContentsView All

View All

Table of Contents

What Is Passionate Love?

What Is Compassionate Love?

Influential Factors

Key Differences

Passionate Love Scale

Influence on Relationships

How to Rekindle Passionate Love

Close

As anyone who has ever lived and loved can confirm, not all types ofloveare the same. The love you feel for your partner during the early stages of a romance can feel much different than the love you may feel years later into the relationship.

Psychologist Elaine Hatfield has described two different types of romantic love:compassionate(also known as companionate) and passionate. Compassionate love involves feelings of mutual respect,trust, and affection while passionate love involves intense feelings and sexual attraction.

At a GlancePassionate love and compassionate love are both important and tend to take center stage during differentrelationship stages. Passionate love often emerges during the earliest time in a relationship, when that early spark helps people forge a connection. As a relationship matures, passionate love diminishes somewhat, and more compassionate love takes hold.While passionate and compassionate love are different, they are both vital to the health and stability of a relationship.

At a Glance

Passionate love and compassionate love are both important and tend to take center stage during differentrelationship stages. Passionate love often emerges during the earliest time in a relationship, when that early spark helps people forge a connection. As a relationship matures, passionate love diminishes somewhat, and more compassionate love takes hold.While passionate and compassionate love are different, they are both vital to the health and stability of a relationship.

Passionate love and compassionate love are both important and tend to take center stage during differentrelationship stages. Passionate love often emerges during the earliest time in a relationship, when that early spark helps people forge a connection. As a relationship matures, passionate love diminishes somewhat, and more compassionate love takes hold.

While passionate and compassionate love are different, they are both vital to the health and stability of a relationship.

Hatfield defines passionate love as “a state of intense longing for union with another.” This type of love tends to be more common at the outset of a relationship. It’s commonly referred to as thehoneymoon stageof a relationship.

People experiencing passionate love tend to experience very powerful feelings for each other. They need to be near the other person, may think about the other person constantly, and experience extreme distress when separated.

Types of Passionate LovePassionate love also comes in two different forms:Requited loveoccurs when two individuals share mutual attraction and feelings for one another.Unrequited love, on the other hand, can occur when only one person feels passionate love or if the two are prevented from being together for some reason.

Types of Passionate Love

Passionate love also comes in two different forms:Requited loveoccurs when two individuals share mutual attraction and feelings for one another.Unrequited love, on the other hand, can occur when only one person feels passionate love or if the two are prevented from being together for some reason.

Passionate love also comes in two different forms:

Requited love results in two people forming a relationship and being together, while unrequited love results in feelings of despair, anxiety, andloneliness.

Characteristics of Passionate Love

Some of the key cognitive, emotional, and behavioral characteristics of passionate love include:

5 Psychological Theories of Love

In a long-term relationship, passionate love typically simmers down to compassionate love within one to two years.

People who are in compassionate love still feel passionate about one another, but the intensity typically feels less overwhelming and urgent. This type of love involves caring deeply for the other person, truly knowing the other individual, and is committed to the other person through both good times and bad.

Even when disagreements take place, people who share compassionate love remain in love and dedicated to one another.

Characteristics of Compassionate Love

Some of the key cognitive, emotional, and behavioral characteristics of compassionate (companionate) love include:

Factors That Impact Passionate and Compassionate Love

So what determines whether people end up in passionate or compassionate love? According to Hatfield, some of the factors associated with passionate love include:

Timing

Being “ready” to be in love with another person is essential. If you are at a stage in your life where you are not sure you want to be in a relationship, you will also be less likely to experience falling in love.

If the timing is off, you might feel like you’ve met theright person at the wrong time. In this case, you might feel passion but not be able to pursue the relationship for a variety of reasons.

Attachment Styles

Earlyattachment stylescan also play a role. Securely attached individuals tend to form deeper, longer-lasting love while those who are anxiously attached tend to fall in and out of love quickly.

Those who are securely attached may still experience passionate love, but this love is also more likely to eventually grow into compassionate/companionate love.

Those withinsecure stylesare more likely to experience intense passionate love that then fades without growing into something more intimate and lasting.

Similarity

Hatfield and Rapson note that we tend to fall passionately in love with people who are relatively good-looking, personable, affectionate, and similar to ourselves.

Compatibilityis also an important factor that helps passionate love grow into compassionate love. Whileopposites may attractat times, people are typically more likely to stay in love if they share things in common.

Passionate Is Fleeting, Compassionate Love Enduring

One important thing to remember about these two types of love is that passionate love is usually briefer, while compassionate love may be more likely to stand the test of time. Passionate love is intense, but it is generally very fleeting.

Researchers have looked at how relationships progress among new couples, newlyweds, and those married for a longer time and found that while passionate love is more intense at the beginning of relationships, it tends to give way to compassionate love that is focused on intimacy and commitment.

Passionate love may be quick to fade, but compassionate love endures.

One study comparing passionate and companionate love between newlyweds and long-term marriages also found that both newlywed men and women tended to feel equal levels of passion. However, the researchers also found that newlywed women were more likely to love their partner compassionately at a greater level than their partner expressed in return.

What Is Unconditional Love?

The Passionate Love Scale

Hatfield and Sprecher developed thePassionate Love Scalethat has been used worldwide with people of every age. It asks questions based on:

Respondents are asked to think about the object of their affection, and then answer questions similar to the following:

Do you feel like your emotions have been on a roller coaster since you have been involved with this person?Would you experience great despair if they left you?Do you ever feel like you cannot stop thinking about this person?Do you feel like you would rather be with this person than anyone else?Do you enjoy studying this person’s body or movements?Do you feel a powerful attraction to this person?Do you feel depressed when things don’t go right in your relationship with this person?

If you can answer yes to some or most of these questions, then it is probably a sign that what you are experiencing is passionate love.

How Compassionate and Passionate Love Affect Relationships

While it is one thing to understand what these two types of love are conceptually, how might these concepts play out in your real-world relationships?

Early in a Relationship

In reality, you may be more likely to experience passionate love in those early stages of a new relationship. As your infatuation grows, your passion for the other person may build and eventually peak.

As your relationship continues, this passion may eventually be tempered and grow into a more compassionate/companionate form of love.

As a Relationship Progresses

Once you have established a more compassionate form of love, this does not mean that you will not experience great passion from time to time.

Research suggests that the strongest and most lasting relationships may be those in which people are able to find a balance between companionate and passionate love.

So, what can you do to rekindle feelings of romantic love, even if you are in a long-term relationship where it feels like the flames of passion have long faded? Look for ways toget out of your rut. Strategies that can help include the following:

The key is to find activities that foster trust, intimacy, and even romantic passion.

What Are the Five Love Languages?

Summary

While research on love has flourished over the past 20 years, Hatfield’s early research on this topic was not without critics. During the 1970s, U.S. Senator William Proxmire railed against researchers who were studying love and derided the work as a waste of taxpayer dollars.

Others defended Hatfield’s and other researchers' important work, noting that if psychologists could understand patterns of human love, then perhaps they could also understand divorce and failed relationships.

6 SourcesVerywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.Aykutoğlu B, Uysal A.The relationship between intimacy change and passion: A dyadic diary study.Front Psychol. 2017;8:2257. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2017.02257Bode A, Kushnick G.Proximate and ultimate perspectives on romantic love[published correction appears in Front Psychol. 2021 Jun 24;12:694913].Front Psychol. 2021;12:573123. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.573123Neto F, Wilks DC.Compassionate love for a romantic partner across the adult life span.Eur J Psychol. 2017;13(4):606-617. doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1204American Psychological Association.The eternal question: Does love last?Hatfield E, Pillemer JT, O’Brien MU, Le YCL.The endurance of love: passionate and companionate love in newlywed and long-term marriages.IJPR. 2008;2(1):35-64. doi:10.5964/ijpr.v2i1.17Langeslag SJ, van Strien JW.Regulation of romantic love feelings: Preconceptions, strategies, and feasibility.PLoS One. 2016;11(8):e0161087. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0161087Additional ReadingAcevedo BP, Aron A.Does a long-term relationship kill romantic love?.Review of General Psychology.2009;13(1):59-65. doi:10.1037/a0014226Hatfield E, Bensman L, Rapson RL.A brief history of social scientists’ attempts to measure passionate love.Journal of Social and Personal Relationships.2012;29(2):143-164. doi:10.1177/0265407511431055.

6 Sources

Verywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.Aykutoğlu B, Uysal A.The relationship between intimacy change and passion: A dyadic diary study.Front Psychol. 2017;8:2257. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2017.02257Bode A, Kushnick G.Proximate and ultimate perspectives on romantic love[published correction appears in Front Psychol. 2021 Jun 24;12:694913].Front Psychol. 2021;12:573123. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.573123Neto F, Wilks DC.Compassionate love for a romantic partner across the adult life span.Eur J Psychol. 2017;13(4):606-617. doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1204American Psychological Association.The eternal question: Does love last?Hatfield E, Pillemer JT, O’Brien MU, Le YCL.The endurance of love: passionate and companionate love in newlywed and long-term marriages.IJPR. 2008;2(1):35-64. doi:10.5964/ijpr.v2i1.17Langeslag SJ, van Strien JW.Regulation of romantic love feelings: Preconceptions, strategies, and feasibility.PLoS One. 2016;11(8):e0161087. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0161087Additional ReadingAcevedo BP, Aron A.Does a long-term relationship kill romantic love?.Review of General Psychology.2009;13(1):59-65. doi:10.1037/a0014226Hatfield E, Bensman L, Rapson RL.A brief history of social scientists’ attempts to measure passionate love.Journal of Social and Personal Relationships.2012;29(2):143-164. doi:10.1177/0265407511431055.

Verywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.

Aykutoğlu B, Uysal A.The relationship between intimacy change and passion: A dyadic diary study.Front Psychol. 2017;8:2257. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2017.02257Bode A, Kushnick G.Proximate and ultimate perspectives on romantic love[published correction appears in Front Psychol. 2021 Jun 24;12:694913].Front Psychol. 2021;12:573123. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.573123Neto F, Wilks DC.Compassionate love for a romantic partner across the adult life span.Eur J Psychol. 2017;13(4):606-617. doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1204American Psychological Association.The eternal question: Does love last?Hatfield E, Pillemer JT, O’Brien MU, Le YCL.The endurance of love: passionate and companionate love in newlywed and long-term marriages.IJPR. 2008;2(1):35-64. doi:10.5964/ijpr.v2i1.17Langeslag SJ, van Strien JW.Regulation of romantic love feelings: Preconceptions, strategies, and feasibility.PLoS One. 2016;11(8):e0161087. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0161087

Aykutoğlu B, Uysal A.The relationship between intimacy change and passion: A dyadic diary study.Front Psychol. 2017;8:2257. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2017.02257

Bode A, Kushnick G.Proximate and ultimate perspectives on romantic love[published correction appears in Front Psychol. 2021 Jun 24;12:694913].Front Psychol. 2021;12:573123. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.573123

Neto F, Wilks DC.Compassionate love for a romantic partner across the adult life span.Eur J Psychol. 2017;13(4):606-617. doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1204

American Psychological Association.The eternal question: Does love last?

Hatfield E, Pillemer JT, O’Brien MU, Le YCL.The endurance of love: passionate and companionate love in newlywed and long-term marriages.IJPR. 2008;2(1):35-64. doi:10.5964/ijpr.v2i1.17

Langeslag SJ, van Strien JW.Regulation of romantic love feelings: Preconceptions, strategies, and feasibility.PLoS One. 2016;11(8):e0161087. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0161087

Acevedo BP, Aron A.Does a long-term relationship kill romantic love?.Review of General Psychology.2009;13(1):59-65. doi:10.1037/a0014226Hatfield E, Bensman L, Rapson RL.A brief history of social scientists’ attempts to measure passionate love.Journal of Social and Personal Relationships.2012;29(2):143-164. doi:10.1177/0265407511431055.

Acevedo BP, Aron A.Does a long-term relationship kill romantic love?.Review of General Psychology.2009;13(1):59-65. doi:10.1037/a0014226

Hatfield E, Bensman L, Rapson RL.A brief history of social scientists’ attempts to measure passionate love.Journal of Social and Personal Relationships.2012;29(2):143-164. doi:10.1177/0265407511431055.

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