Difference between Compassionate and Passionate Love

Is the passionate style of love different from compassionate love? How are they different? Well! We all have experienced it in our lives, yet, it requires to be defined more precisely for common understanding. This post elaborates on passionate love and compassionate love and also differentiates between the two on various parameters. So buckle up and navigate through this post until the end to get a fresh perspective on passionate and compassionate love.

What is Passionate Love? 

 

According to Hatfield (a renowned psychologist), passionate love is a state of intense desire for union with another. Passionate love is common in the beginning days. Couples in love experience strong feelings for each other. Passionate love has some common behavioral symptoms. They always crave the intimacy of the other person, may think of the other person constantly when not together, and experience severe distress when apart. The passionate style of love has two common forms – Requited and Unrequited love.  

 

Requited love is a state wherein two individuals share a strong bond with each other and strive to be together. Contrarily, unrequited love is a one-sided feeling of passionate love that often evokes feelings such as depression, anxiety, or loneliness.

 

Characteristics of Passionate Love

 

To understand passionate love better, let’s throw a look at its common characteristics:

 

Idealizing the Partner or Relationship

 

Two people sharing a feeling of passionate love often tend to idealize each other and perceive each other as flawless. They lack the eyes to see the flaws in each other. Furthermore, they also believe that their relationship is perfect and no relationship can be so perfect as this.

 

Constant Thoughts about the Partner

 

People in a passionate love state keep thinking about their partners around the clock. It fills them with immense joy and pleasure. These thoughts can be intrusive and hard to skip, even when someone deliberately attempts to avoid them.

 

Desire to Tell and Know More

 

Another emotional characteristic of passionate love is a yearning desire to know and be known to another partner. People in love, especially in the initial days, can spend the whole day telling and knowing about one another without getting bored.

 

Strong Feelings like Never Before

 

No feeling is simple in the people sharing a passionate bond. They feel extremely happy when things go well and feel devastated when adverse things happen in the relationship. There are no intermediate feelings.

 

Craving for the Physical Intimacy

 

Physical attraction is one of the most common yet strongest feelings people in passionate style love can easily develop for each other. They desire to come close to each other physically, and this feeling is really intense.

 

What Is Compassionate Love? 

 

Now that we have discussed passionate love let’s relate and compare it with compassionate love. Passionate love is mainly characterized by intensity, whereas compassionate love is depicted by the level of intimacy. Compassionate love can be perceived as the later stage of a relationship when feelings such as trust, commitment, intimacy, and affection become dominant. It takes time but makes a relationship more beautiful.

 

Passion also exists in a compassionate relationship; however, the intensity may alleviate with the development of other feelings, such as care and compassion. This form of love is more meaningful. Wherein, people tend to genuinely care for each other, understand each other, and remain committed at all times, be it good or bad. Disagreements happen, but compassionate love remains unaffected by the arguments and disagreements.

 

Characteristics of Compassionate Love

 

Compassionate love can be understood by its common characteristics as stated in the below-given list:

 

Unshakeable Trust

 

Compassionate love is marked by unshakeable trust in the other partner and their deeds.

Disagreements can occur in situations; however, people in compassionate love find a way out of the arguments towards a more agreeable solution.

 

Deep Intimacy

 

Compassionate love liberates people from sharing their deepest darkest secrets with each other. This level of intimacy and reliability strengthen the bond over time.

 

Long-Term Commitment

 

The commitment shared in compassionate love can endure the toughest situation and moments of mistrust. Compassionate love has the ability to bring things back on track even when nothing goes well in the relationship.

 

Genuine Affection 

 

Partners who are in a long-haul relationship journey learn to show affection and understand it’s important to make the bond stronger. It is a crucial part of compassionate love.

 

What Are the Influencing Factors?

 

Taking the above-given points as common characteristics, you can’t ignore the external factors that can affect a relationship:

 

Timing

 

The phase of life wherein you are developing a bond decides if it will shimmer into a compassionate love or develop the feeling of boredom.

 

Way of Attachment

 

The way people attach together also depicts the future of the relationship. If you attach it securely, the bong will grow stronger with time. On the other hand, an anxious attachment led to a short-lived relationship.

 

Compatibility

 

Compatibility is also one of the most important factors that let a passionate style of love thrive into compassionate love.

 

Summing up!

 

The factors discussed here can differentiate passionate love from compassionate love. In a nutshell, you can understand that passionate love is often briefer, but compassionate love can withstand the hardest situations of life and remain there for one another.