Theoretical framework
" Relationships at their core are not rational: They are stories. Accepting this fact means moving away from notions of who's right and who's wrong, and toward notions of understanding and changing stories that are neither right nor wrong, but very, very real. We can understand and change relationships only if we accept them for what they are, rather than what some might wish them to be in a hypothetical world" ...
"People usually are not consciously aware of their stories. ... [They] tend to end up with partners sharing similar profiles of stories. ... Stories can facilitate happiness, but compatible stories facilitate happiness without guaranteeing it. ... In general, the extent to which people will experience lasting love will depend on the extent to which partners can fulfill the roles in each others' stories. Most important of all, the more discrepant the profiles of stories of the couple were, the less happy the couple was in the relationship" ...
"If we see our love stories as the dominating force in our relationships, what the couple believes to he the cause of the dissolution may actually be the effect. In other words, it is the story that gives rise to destructive behavior, rather than the behavior itself that is the cause of the dissolution. ... What matters is not only the action per se, but how it is interpreted through our stories and realized in the context in which we live." ...
..."Wish lists" that we carry around with us are not worth much. They are as likely to be based on what we feel we should want as on what we really want. But we can figure out what we really want only if we understand our ideal story ... Relationship books and guides are not optimally useful, because they list attributes people should look for if everyone were perfect and the same, rather than lists of what people actually want, based on who they are. To figure out what we want, we need to consider all of our past relationships. We need to ask ourselves what attributes the people to whom we feel most attracted have in common, and what attributes are shared by those to whom we were once attracted but are no longer. ... Sometimes the ingredients are all there in our partner, and our old partner can come to be our new one" ...
From: Love Is a Story: A New Theory of Relationships/ By Robert J. Sternberg.
I like this framework, it seems sound, comprehensive and in line with the way we generally think.
"People usually are not consciously aware of their stories. ... [They] tend to end up with partners sharing similar profiles of stories. ... Stories can facilitate happiness, but compatible stories facilitate happiness without guaranteeing it. ... In general, the extent to which people will experience lasting love will depend on the extent to which partners can fulfill the roles in each others' stories. Most important of all, the more discrepant the profiles of stories of the couple were, the less happy the couple was in the relationship" ...
"If we see our love stories as the dominating force in our relationships, what the couple believes to he the cause of the dissolution may actually be the effect. In other words, it is the story that gives rise to destructive behavior, rather than the behavior itself that is the cause of the dissolution. ... What matters is not only the action per se, but how it is interpreted through our stories and realized in the context in which we live." ...
..."Wish lists" that we carry around with us are not worth much. They are as likely to be based on what we feel we should want as on what we really want. But we can figure out what we really want only if we understand our ideal story ... Relationship books and guides are not optimally useful, because they list attributes people should look for if everyone were perfect and the same, rather than lists of what people actually want, based on who they are. To figure out what we want, we need to consider all of our past relationships. We need to ask ourselves what attributes the people to whom we feel most attracted have in common, and what attributes are shared by those to whom we were once attracted but are no longer. ... Sometimes the ingredients are all there in our partner, and our old partner can come to be our new one" ...
From: Love Is a Story: A New Theory of Relationships/ By Robert J. Sternberg.
I like this framework, it seems sound, comprehensive and in line with the way we generally think.