What is Passionate love definition and meaning?

Almost all of us in one lifetime have experienced passionate love, which you can’t get within when someone in a relationship is a long distance.


With tension created by passionate love, you desperately feel you want to give love and take it at the same time. Unfortunately, your feelings are going to hurt when you don’t get the return, and your mind is unsettled whenever they are in the distance and worse when you take long without talking or seeing them.


It’s that intense longing where you want to feel connected to the person.


Concurrently, passionate love definition is the state of intense longing for union with another person, according to the social psychologist Elaine Hatfield, a specialist in relationships and love matters.


Other psychological descriptions also define the type of love attraction as the “obsessive featured with the intrusive thinking and mood swings”. The type of love is marked to work well at the beginning of the relationship but is said to become disadvantageous in the long-term relationship.  


Like passionate love, attractions come in many forms. Some come with burning feelings, and others begin slowly and catch fire slowly in the middle. However, the way in which passionate love keeps momentum differs, yet the first stages of passionate love are universal.


Passionate love is worth interest in navigating because the particular type of love and attraction speak much about how the love will thrive over time. Additionally, passionate love impacts the decisions we make.


 It’s worthy, therefore, important to note that passionate love could benefit us in a positive way, but conversely, it can trigger malicious intents in ourselves, which could lead to aggressive behaviours.


To clarify the stressful impact of passionate love, the story Romeo and Juliet is a good indication.


The Shakespearian romantic story of Romeo and Juliet clearly indicates what passionate love entails, and it is manifested when Romeo meets Juliet for the first time. Romeo instantly expresses his love to his mistress at first sight, and he goes forward and discloses his intentions to marry her the next morning if she accepts the proposal.


Romeo, however, is quoted saying that things will change if his mistress Juliet displeases him. Romeo proves he is truly passionate in love with Juliet and “baptized”, implying that he might change if he doesn’t get what he wants.


One of the dangers of passionate love, though, is it might sometimes fade just in few moments after it has created tension. Despite this fact, the tension with some of the actions, once applied, can re-ignite the passionate love and be able to thrive for a long time which makes a difference to compassionate lovers where partners are trustworthy to each other with lasting commitments.


Passionate Love vs Compassionate Love


Everyone who has ever experienced love in the first stage (passionate love) can feel the intensity of its powerful force. Well, though, passionate love is mentally abusive, while compassionate love is healthier but boring and dry in the middle without the catalytic passion tensions. Arguably, there are other distinct differences that will, of course, indicate demarcations.


Here are those major differences:


Compassionate love | trust


Albeit passionate lovers, compassionate lovers are instead attributed with facets of trust, long-term commitments and mutual affection, while passionate love is known for its strong desire for sex and requirement of too much cultivation.


One healthy indicator of compassionate love is that the partners will feel a deep trust in each other to the extent that the relationship will remain unshaken even amid strong winds of life stressors and challenges.


Deep intimacy


Due to the deep intimacy shared with compassionate love, mutual sharing and strong attachment during disagreements will, of course, people with this kind of love to remain undisturbed for a long time.


Passionate love | strong emotions


As compassionate love is known for trust, passionate love is all about strong emotions, fights and negative disagreements, especially when challenges arise.


Need for physical closeness


Passionate lovers are strongly attached to each other and are trying to maintain closeness among themselves due to the intensity of love.


Passionate love scale


Some call it a love calculator, but the truth is this scientific love measure or love scale will demystify whether you are a passionate lover or compassionate. It’s the scientific scale that the majority of psychologists who try to understand whether their patients are mentally suffering from passionate love will usually engage or try to measure the stress of passionate love. 

One of the questions asked during the passionate love scale measurements consists of questions such as those that ask the respondents to know how they feel when they see their lovers in their eyes or if they would like to love their intimate friends forevertheir reaction if they are separated from them for a long time.


With the passionate love scale, respondents are interviewed via questionnaire so to understand their levels of passionate love by measuring cognitive, emotional and behavioural intimacy.


Final thoughts


The final thought is the hotness in passionate love can rarely succeed for a long period of time. But it will also require efforts and energy for the compassionate love to keep it afire. 

Unfortunately, the passionate love which has hotness in it is tensely preoccupied with the strong desire to show love and get loved; the feelings, though, are deeply hurt whenever there is a failure of reciprocation.


Importantly, there is no need to worry whether you will lose the spark, but it’s important to keep the love fire burning.


We must keep a note that long-lasting relationships should remain intact and flawlessly moving forward without necessarily too much tension. Needless to say, trust and commitment must not be lost, and a must with some passion along the way.


Note that without nurturing the embers of passionate love, the attraction between the lovers will become mechanical.


 One way method is not to give up when hot romances seem to wane out as time goes on.