Love and affection: what’s the difference?

In couple relationships, Feelings have an important influence on your stability.. “I just don’t love him anymore”, “I don’t feel the same way about him anymore”, “he doesn’t make me feel like before”, “he doesn’t love me”, these are some expressions that we can hear. But what is love? What is it to want? What is the difference between love and affection?

People in a relationship can take different paths, in part, because of what each member feels for the other. When you love someone, your decisions do not have the same implications as if you only feel sympathy, attraction or affection. Would you marry someone you only feel affection for? Would you give your life for a person you don’t love?

Love

People tend to confuse attraction or affection, when they are manifested intensely, with love.. On the other hand, many associate love with the emotional intensity that can exist in the first moments of a relationship. Although this intensity may not originate from genuine love, but from dependence or lack.

The association between love and emotional intensity with which many people operate practically condemns them to constant dissatisfaction. So if love doesn’t necessarily correspond with intense emotions, what is it?

It is a behavioral, cognitive and attitudinal pattern of being and being in the world with the other person, and of allowing that other person to be and be in the world as they are. It is, in essence, as Erich Fromm would say, freedom.

Love is care (being attentive and interested in the well-being of the other), responsibility (responding to the needs of the loved one), respect (seeing the person as they are in their individuality), knowing (accepting the inner world of the other, with the purpose of knowing him). In couple relationships, Love is the synergistic interaction between connection, respect, trust and attraction.

Love is self-transcendence, while in affection the self does not transcend.

Affection

It’s a feeling is the expression of an affection felt for another person. It is related to the inherent desire to be with someone, not wanting to lose them or be separated from them. Affection also entails care for the other. In it, pleasant emotions emerge in relation to the loved one.

Affection can be more or less intense and is expressed through caresses, hugs, gestures and words.. It is giving affection, respecting and caring for the other person. When there is affection, the emotions are more explicit, the joy and pleasure of being with that person are more noticeable.

Affection is related to appreciation, to “loving.” The connotation of wanting implies a desire to possess or have what one wants. Thus, although in affection there is an affective manifestation, there is also a desire to possess the other – not necessarily to dominate them -, to have them for oneself.

Differences between love and affection

Love and affection are not two opposite poles, rather they are two complementary conditions.. If you look at what we have said about affection, you can easily notice that in love you can also find a manifestation of affection: hugs, caresses, kisses…

The division between the two is difficult to make, since they are generally intertwined. Next, we will review some notable differences between the two.

1. Transcendence

Love goes beyond what we feel and the boundaries of the self. Love is self-transcendence, that is, it is an invitation to leave oneself, seeking to find the object of that love. In this context, the other person is valuable, but at the same time important.

Affection does not transcend, the self does not lose its place of privilege.

2. Deliver and receive

Love is a surrender, it is giving, it is being with an open heart. Affection revolves around receiving what is given, that is, “I give to you hoping to receive.”

Love gives and gives itself without expecting any change, without expecting to be reciprocated. Be careful with this, because love does not imply that you must then endure any affliction that the other person causes you. Remember that love is a two-sided coin: self-love and love for others.

3. Freedom and possession

Love is freedom. In it there is no place for possession or domination. There is no room for behaviors that subject others to one’s own whims, since there is a genuine respect for freedom.

In affection, possessive and dominant tendencies are more commonalthough this is not always the case, of course.

4. Emotion

Although there are underlying emotions in love, these are not its central axis. Love is above emotions and is not reduced to them. On the other hand, affection is an emotional manifestation in which what one feels for the other is expressed through gestures, words and actions. In love there is also an expression of this type, only it is not everything.

5. The link

The bond that exists in love is deeper than in affection. However, although there is a strong bond, there is no dependence, because love is also love towards oneself. Remember that love is freedom in essence, so a pathological dependence distorts it.

6. Trust

In love there is trust in the other person, there are no doubts. When love is mutual, there is no room for mistrust, since it is known in advance that the other person would not do anything that could intentionally harm or hurt.

In affection, there is room for mistrust in the relationshipbecause it does not have solid bases in virtue, as love does.

Trust is one of the most important pillars of love, while it does not have to be that way in affection.

7. Intimacy, passion and commitment

In true love, intimacy, passion and commitment are present. On the other hand, in affection, there is a more notable tendency towards passion, that is, towards the intense desire to be in union with the other person, and there is not necessarily a long-term commitment to the relationship and its development.

To finish, we can say that love is broader, deeper and more transcendent than affection. The latter can perfectly be a part of the former.. Love implies not only sympathy, but also a series of attitudes and behaviors that seek the well-being of the other, while at the same time the person is honest and vulnerable.

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