ABSTRACT

LOVE STORIES: A NARRATIVE LOOK AT HOW COUPLES JOINTLY CONSTRUCT LOVE IN ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIPS

The goal of this thesis was to understand how love in romantic relationships is constituted through the stories couples tell. Two research questions were asked: How do couples co-construct love? And, how do couples narratively define love? The stories were collected through open-ended dyadic interviews with 15 heterosexual couples. Couples ranged in ages and relationship length and some were dating, some were married. Narrative theory was used to understand how couples make sense of their love through the stories they told together.

Amanda Elizabeth Rowen May 2018

LOVE STORIES: A NARRATIVE LOOK AT HOW COUPLES JOINTLY CONSTRUCT LOVE IN ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIPS

by Amanda Elizabeth Rowen

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Communication in the College of Arts and Humanities California State University, Fresno May 2018 APPROVED For the Department of Communication:

We, the undersigned, certify that the thesis of the following student meets the required standards of scholarship, format, and style of the university and the student's graduate degree program for the awarding of the master's degree.

Amanda Elizabeth Rowen Thesis author

Falon Kartch (Chair) Communication

Kathy Adams Communication

Jennifer Randles Sociology

For the University Graduate Committee:

Dean, Division of Graduate Studies AUTHORIZATION FOR REPRODUCTION OF MASTER’S THESIS

X I grant permission for the reproduction of this thesis in part or in its entirety without further authorization from me, on the condition that the person or agency requesting reproduction absorbs the cost and provides proper acknowledgment of authorship.

Permission to reproduce this thesis in part or in its entirety must be obtained from me.

Signature of thesis author: ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Thank you to my always loving and supportive parents, Mary and Tim Rowen. You have always pushed me to pursue my dreams and have supported me every step of the way and I can never thank you enough. Thank you to my husband, Austin. You always cheered me on when I began to give up. Your love always inspires me. To all of my family and friends, your kind words of encouragement over these past years has not gone unnoticed. Thank you! Last but not least, thank you to my committee. Dr. Kartch and Dr. Adams, you have taught me so much throughout this process and I am grateful for your wisdom, patience, and guidance. Dr. Randles thank you for your encouraging and insightful comments along the way. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION/LITERATURE REVIEW ...... 1

Introduction ...... 1

Literature Review ...... 3

Prominent Theories and Scales ...... 7

Narrative Theory: An Interpretive Look at Love ...... 25

CHAPTER 2: METHOD ...... 33

Methodology ...... 33

Method ...... 35

CHAPTER 3: RESULTS ...... 53

RQ 1: How do couples co-construct love? ...... 53

RQ 2: How do couples define love? ...... 67

CHAPTER 4: DISCUSSION & CONCLUSION ...... 83

Discussion ...... 85

Discussion of Method ...... 106

Limitations ...... 109

Future Research ...... 111

Conclusion ...... 113

REFERENCES ...... 115

APPENDIX: INTERVIEW PROTOCOL ...... 122

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION/LITERATURE REVIEW

Introduction For years, researchers, philosophers, and even writers have been trying to define love. As Brehm (1985) stated, “Social scientists have had as much trouble defining love as philosophers and poets. We have books on love, theories on love, and research on love. Yet no one has a single, simple definition that is widely accepted by other social scientists” (as cited in Fehr & Russel, 1991, p. 427). We have such a difficulty defining love because it is an amorphous emotion, behavior, and concept (Fehr & Russel, 1991). Love is culturally bound and closely intertwined with other emotions and behaviors (Kelley, 2012; Myers & Shurts, 2002). This is why love is always evolving and morphing; as cultures progress and change and as emotions change, so does love. In this thesis, I set out to understand how love is co-created in romantic relationships by each partner weaving together a narrative of what love means to them and how love is brought to life through their relational narrative. Using narrative theory as a lens to understand love will help capture the uniqueness and processes of how couples create love together and how it evolves throughout the relationships. Duck (1980) discussed why communication scholars should care about the uniqueness and fluidity of emotions in interpersonal relationships and I believe the same care and consideration should be given when researching love. Duck (1980) warned communication scholars of the difficulty of measuring emotions in interpersonal relationships and trying to define them into concrete, stable variables. Not only was he pointing out the difficulty of defining emotions, but also the danger of not being aware of their fluidity (Duck, 1980). If we do not see emotions, such as love, as being fluid then we miss out on understanding 2 2 certain aspects of romantic relationships, like why couples seem to be infatuated with one another one moment and then years down the road break up. If we were looking at emotions and love as stable components, then couples would not break up because they would always be in the same constant state of emotions; but that is not the case. As researchers, we need to be cognizant of the fluidity of love and its uniqueness within each relationship. If we forget this, then we “fail to capture its living significance” (Duck, 1980, p. 118). We miss out on the process of how the relationship unfolds and is created when we do not attempt to understand the living essence of the relationship. By understanding the living essence of a relationship, we can begin to understand how love is created in conversations between couples and how narratives told by couples constitutes their understanding of love. It is also dangerous to assume that people in romantic relationships are always aware of these emotions, or know exactly what they are doing with their own emotions, as well as with others (Duck, 1980). Quite often we act within relationships without knowing how we are affecting the other; which is why it is necessary to understand relationships are co-constructed. Using narrative theory as a lens to understand love will reveal how couples make sense of their emotions together and how they interact together to craft a story about their relationship and how they are feeling. Relationships are composed of actions by each partner and between partners, shared activities, and the emotions that each partner feels and displays (Duck, 1980). Despite the difficulty of studying emotions, many communication and psychology scholars have set out trying to make sense of the love phenomenon by studying love as an attitude or style that each person possesses (e.g., Hammock & Richardson, 2011; Levine, Stryzewski Aune, & Sun Park, 2006; Sheets, 2004). 3 3

There has been a void in the communication literature about understanding how love is co-constructed between romantic partners. Scholars have been focusing on pinning down a definition for love and focusing on how the emotions of love are felt. But, like relationships, love is constantly being negotiated day to day between the couple and is not something that stays the same throughout the relationship. Scholars have been missing this negotiation process of how love is constructed through acts and conversations by couples. Through the co- construction process is how love becomes defined and re-defined. Narrative theory and joint interviews with couples will help to make sense of how love is co- constructed and how each couple uniquely builds their love story. In the following literature review, I will discuss past research that has focused on relational culture, defining love, prominent theories and scales used in love research, love languages, and narrative theory.

Literature Review In review of past literature, I will start off broadly looking at how romantic relationships are constituted by communications and take on an essence of their own, called relational culture. Then, I will review theories that have been popular in love research and how they have been used in past research and what scales have been developed to measure love. The theories that will be discussed are: Sternberg’s triangular theory of love, Lee’s love styles, and the prototype perspective of love. A critique of these theories and research will be discussed and then a proposition of using narrative theory in this thesis. Narrative theory and the interpretive paradigm will also be discussed. 4 4 Relational Culture In order to begin understanding how love fits into relationships, we need to take a step back and first understand how romantic relationships are constituted in the first place. By 1982 researchers realized there was a phenomenon about relationships that they seemed to take on a life of their own, but researchers had not agreed on a term to describe this phenomenon. This led Wood (1982) to name this phenomenon, relational culture, and to point out that this on-going relational phenomenon was created, sustained, and contested by communication between couples. Communication is how couples define themselves and their relationships and throughout the relationship (Wood, 1982). Relational culture arises out of communication and is sustained through communication. Wood (2000) specifically defined relational maintenance as “processes, structures, and practices that create, express, and sustain personal relationships and the identities of the partners” (p. 77). Partners in romantic relationships create meaning together for their experiences through these processes and structure and in turn those processes and structures act back upon their meaning-making. Relational culture has five properties: unique content, systemic character, processual nature, reciprocal influence, and health (Wood, 2000). Each relationship has its own unique relational culture. The partners act in relation to one another and their interactions create unique content for the relationship (Wood, 2000). Unique content is formed over time and does not stay the same throughout the relationship because relational culture is processual by nature; it forms and changes over time through communication (Wood, 2000). Relational culture is also reciprocal. Couples jointly create relational culture which builds structures and rules; and these structures and rules act back upon them and influence future communication (Wood, 2000). Lastly, relational culture is not 5 5 inherently healthy or unhealthy. The communication between couples is what builds healthy or unhealthy structures within the relationship, which creates a healthy or unhealthy relational culture (Wood, 2000). These five properties describe the characteristics of relational culture. There are three central dynamics which create and sustain relational culture. Relational cultures are created and sustained through processes, organizing structures, and symbolic practices. Through these dynamics couples create patterns of communication and definitions for their relationship (Wood, 2000). The first dynamic, relational dialectical processes, refers to the contradictions and tensions that couples feel throughout their relationship. Couples will constantly feel a pull between wanting to be connected to one another and to be their autonomous selves; enjoying the predictability of their relationship, but also wanting novelty and change; and wanting to be open with each other, but also wanting privacy (Wood, 2000). These dialectical tensions are something that are felt throughout the entirety of the relationship and are never resolved. Each tension is expressed internally (between the couple) and externally (with friends and family). How couples deal with dialectical tensions impacts their intimacy and shapes the structure and rules of their relational culture. The second dynamic of relational culture is organizing structures. Relationships are structured by rules and symbolic practices that are defined by the couple and are always being renegotiated throughout the relationship (Wood, 2000). The structuring of relational culture is built upon power and interdependence between a couple. As couples progress throughout their relationship and new milestones happen or changes happen to their relationship, their structuring will change (Wood, 2000). At one point couples may share equal power and be highly interdependent, but at another point the power could be 6 6 distributed more towards one partner. Power structures and interdependence are shaped through the couple’s interactions and then act back upon the couple, dictating their future interactions. Rules also dictate how couples should act throughout the relationship. Usually these rules are implicitly agreed upon through interactions, rather than explicitly stated (Wood, 2000). Constitutive rules define what counts in the relationship—like what counts as commitment or affection. Regulative rules define appropriate patterns of behavior (Wood, 2000). For example, what are a couple’s appropriate actions for affection? Both types of rules help partners understand how to act in the relationship and how not to act. The last of the relational culture dynamics is symbolic practices. As discussed earlier, relational culture is a made up of dialectical processes and structures and these processes and structures are communicated through couples’ symbolic practices (Wood, 2000). Because relational culture is reciprocal, these symbolic practices are performed by the couple and in that performance, are also generating and re-generating meaning for the relationship. Symbolic practices include: daily rituals, special routines, placemaking, and expression of memory (Wood, 2000). Daily rituals are the day-to-day symbolic practices that take place in relationships and create scripts for couples to follow (Wood, 2000). For example, couples may have a script for how they discuss their days together over dinner. These kinds of rituals may seem mundane, but they are uniquely important to the relationship because they communicate intimacy. Special routines are scripts for how couples operate around special events, such as getting married or spending the holidays together (Wood, 2000). Larger cultures also influence how couples understand and create meaning for special routines; like how the Western culture values love in marriage. The physical space couples share is also important and holds symbolic meaning. How couples share space, mark their territory in 7 7 rooms or homes, and how places can symbolize a memory, is known as placemaking. Lastly, expressing memories is a symbolic practice of bringing in memories from the past and weaving them into present day. How couples recall and discuss memories help to define the relationship. These recollections are mostly told in the form of stories and the stories are what keep the past alive in the relationship (Wood, 2000). Through symbolic practices couples build their relational structures and processes that sustain their relational culture. Relational culture is unique to every relationship. The rituals, rules, memories, and more are specific to each couple and are constantly being renegotiated throughout the relationship; maintained by organizing structures and processes. How the relational culture is maintained determines whether it is healthy or unhealthy for the relationship. And we must always remember that relationships are not static and the relational culture is reciprocal. The couples create rules and structures and symbolic practices which create meaning for the couple and act back upon them. Understanding this relational dynamic will be helpful in understanding how relational culture influences couples’ definitions of love and how they jointly create and understanding of love. Relational culture gives us a broader understanding of relationships; next, we will narrow down into theories about love specifically and how love has been studied in past literature.

Prominent Theories and Scales There are three theories that have set the groundwork for understanding love: Sternberg’s triangular theory of love, Lee’s love styles, and the prototype perspective of love. These theories have been used the most throughout social scientific research on love. Each theory has its own way of identifying variables of love and looking at love through these variables. For example, the triangular 8 8 theory of love looks at love through the three variables: intimacy, passion, and commitment; Lee created different styles in which couples seem to love one another, and the prototype theory which created a hierarchy of different types of love (familial, friendship, etc.). The following sections will offer an in-depth explanation about what each of these theories entail: the theoretical framework and variables, how the theories have been used in past research, and any scales or measurements that have been used with the theories. First to be discussed is Sternberg’s triangular theory of love.

Triangular Theory of Love Sternberg’s (1986) theory uses the model of a triangle as a physical depiction of how couples move between three points that represent variables of love. These three variables are: intimacy, passion, and commitment. Intimacy represents affection, warmth, and closeness; passion represents the motivation for attraction and sex; and commitment represents the cognitive decision to stay with someone (Sternberg, 1986). The combination of the three variables represents what type of love a person has for his or her partner. For instance, just intimacy means there is a liking and fondness for another individual; just commitment is empty love (i.e., lacking the romance part of passion and intimacy), but a combination of intimacy and commitment is classified as companionate love (Sternberg, 1986). Companionate love is typical of couples have who have been in a long term, committed relationship and still have a fondness for each other (Sternberg, 1986). Romantic love is considered a combination of intimacy and passion, while just passion is a short-lived, fatuous type of love (Sternberg, 1986). The kind of love that incorporates all points of the triangle is what Sternberg referred to as consummate love. This is the kind of love that most couples strive 9 9 for because it is considered the ultimate kind of love that has passion, intimacy, and commitment (Sternberg, 1986). This kind of love may seem somewhat of a fairytale, but it can actually be more easily attained than it is maintained (Sternberg, 1986). Couples may reach this type of love early on in their relationship, but over time the passion may decrease and they may fall into a more companionate type of love.

Intimacy. Although intimacy and love can be closely intertwined in romantic relationships, both can exist without the other (Kelley, 2012). A couple may share intimacy without love and have love without intimacy. It is important to understand that intimacy and love can be two separate concepts because otherwise, they may become confused as being one in the same; and the same can be said for passion and commitment. Intimacy is reciprocal; in order to have intimacy in a relationship, each individual in the couple has to share vulnerable parts of themselves (Kelley, 2012). Love on the other hand, can be one sided. An individual can love someone without the other loving them back (Kelley, 2012). Love can also exist within a relationship without there being any intimacy; this could be an infatuated love, empty love, or fatuous type of love (Sternberg, 1986). Understanding how intimacy exists in a relationship on its own and along with love, helps scholars understand different types of relationships where intimacy and/or love may be existent or nonexistent.

Passion. Passion is often one of the variables that is measured as a part of love. Passion is often described as the sexual attraction partners have towards each other and is usually the initial pull between people (Sternberg, 1986). It is also closely linked with intimacy. Couples are usually brought together through passion and then as they become closer, they develop intimacy (Sternberg, 1986). 10 10

A portion of intimacy is self-expansion (Sternberg, 1986). Self-expansion is a need all individuals seek to meet in relationships by gaining resources, identities and knowledge from our partners (Sheets, 2004). While couples are still learning new things about each other and expanding themselves from new information from their partner, passion flourishes in the relationship. Once self-expansion has been met, is usually when the passion leaves (Sheets, 2004). A relationship can still exist without passion; in fact, most long-term relationships are sustained with intimacy and commitment (Sternberg, 1986).

Commitment. Commitment is also a component of love that is intertwined with passion and intimacy, but differs from the other two because there is a choice to commitment (Sternberg, 1986). When thinking of love in terms of intimacy and passion, it seems to be more of an emotion than anything else. But, the commitment aspect of love depends on mutuality and the interdependence of the couple (Weigel, 2008; Weigel & Ballard-Reisch, 2014). Commitment is developed throughout a relationship based on how one partner expresses his or her commitment and how the other partner receives and interprets those expressions and vice versa (Weigel & Bullard-Reisch, 2014). These expressions of commitment come in different forms and are communicated in every day acts such as: being supportive, leaving reminders or notes, creating future plans as a couple, or working on the relationship (Weigel & Bullard-Reisch, 2014). The interdependency of commitment often works in a cyclical format; one partner will enact an expression of commitment, the other partner will interpret that act of commitment and then enact their own expression and the cycle continues to reinforce the mutual feeling of commitment between the couple (Weigel & Bullard-Reisch, 2014). Therefore, the level of commitment within a relationship is 11 11 contingent on the expressions of commitment and just as importantly, the perceptions of the expressions. Commitment, intimacy, and passion are pillars of Sternberg’s triangular theory of love and have proven to be useful in understanding love through these three characteristics. Sternberg’s theory has been used and continues to be used through much research on love.

Sternberg’s triangular theory of love in past research. Sternberg’s theory simplifies love into these three categories making it easier to measure love in these three areas and identifying what type of love an individual has based on the measures in each category. This is useful in predicting what type of love a couple will have based on how each person scores in each of the three points of the triangle. In Sprecher and Regan’s (1998) study, the data collected on passion and commitment were used to understand why couples in passionate and companionate type relationships differed in satisfaction and commitment and why emotional experiences and time affected the relationships. They assumed that passionate couples were more volatile with fluctuating emotional states and companionate couples were more stable and experienced mostly positive emotional experiences. Negative emotional experiences were less likely to occur for couples that felt a stronger sense of companionate love; and although passionate love was also negatively correlated with negative emotions, it was measured less negatively than companionate couples. So, although the results showed that passionate love is not as volatile as the researchers predicted, it still experiences more negative emotional experiences than companionate couples. Overall, companionate love was more strongly associated with satisfaction than was passionate love. 12 12

Measuring the three points of Sternberg’s triangle against time has also been helpful in understanding how love fluctuates over time. Sprecher and Regan’s (1998) study and Sumter, Valkenburg, and Peter’s (2013) have both observed the effect of time on love and their results echo part of Sternberg’s theory: couples will also fluctuate in each of these areas over time and the combination of these components may change (Sternberg, 1986). Couples in the Sprecher and Regan (1998) study demonstrated that passionate love decreased with the relationship over time; but time did not affect companionate love as negatively (Sprecher & Regan, 1998). As couples change within the relationship and develop through different relational stages, that will cause their love to fluctuate over time as well; love is constantly in flux because of these changes. In the study by Sumter et al. (2013), these three components of Sternberg’s theory were studied across different age groups to understand how they fluctuate throughout people’s lifespan. Thousands of Dutch participants from different age groups ranging from 12-49 years old were surveyed about their romantic relationships and their results were measured using the triangular love scale. As hypothesized, intimacy, commitment, and passion did fluctuate throughout the different age groups. For couples who were currently in a relationship at the time of the study, passion and intimacy consistently increased from ages 12-29 and then took a decrease from ages 30-50+ (Sumter et al., 2013). Commitment though increased in the same way but only slightly dipped and then leveled out again after the 18-29 age group. As demonstrated by these results, the three major forces motivating love as laid out by Sternberg, fluctuate independently from one another, each impacting love and the relationship in different ways. The analyses from both of these studies support the argument that as the relationship changes, love fluctuates as well. Each 13 13 of these dimensions of the triangle impact the way love is expressed and felt within the relationship. The type of love a couple has will depend on how intimacy, passion, and commitment are woven together in their relationship. The type of love they have will also change throughout the relationship as each variable of the triangle increases or decreases. While intimacy, passion, and commitment can be categorized as components of love, they are also their own relational concepts. When we can understand each component as its own relational construct, then we can better understand how it impacts love.

Scales and measurements used with Triangular Theory of Love. Born out of his own theory, Sternberg’s Triangular Theory of Love scale is comprised of 45 items that measure the three variables he laid out as components of love: passion, intimacy, and commitment (Sternberg, 1997). Each item is phrased as a statement and the answers are rated on a Likert scale from 1 (not at all) to 9 (extremely). The statements assess feelings and actions related to the three points of the triangle. Sternberg tested the scale for validity shortly after it was devised. The first study surveyed 84 participants (men and women) about a close relationship with someone the loved—it could be a best friend, spouse, parent, etc. Participants were given a booklet that included questions from Sternberg Triangular Love scale, the Rubin Love scale, and the Rubin Liking scale (Sternberg, 1997). The last two scales were used to test external validity. As expected, the results showed different levels of the three components of the triangle based on the type of relationship the participants were describing in their survey—this demonstrated the usefulness of the theory and scale. External validity was also demonstrated by the high correlation between Sternberg’s scale and Rubin’s scales (Sternberg, 1997). The second study incorporated even more participants (101) and focused solely on 14 14 romantic partners. The scale was revised after study 1 by deleting some statements from the scale to fix some issues from study 1. Internal and external validity was also found present in study two, making the Sternberg Triangular Love scale a strong way to measure the theoretical concept that love is comprised of three points that fluctuate differently depending on the relationships.

Lee’s Love Styles Lee’s love styles are also beneficial in understanding each person’s love style and what they prefer in love and understand love to be. The term “love style” was born out of his research of 200 men and women’s stories about their experiences with love; the love styles emerged as patterns throughout these stories (Lee, 1976). Lee (1976) identified three primary love styles and three secondary love styles. A person can have a mixture of any of the primary loves to compose the secondary styles. The three primary styles are: eros, ludus, and storge; and the secondary love styles are: mania, pragma, agape, and ludic eros. The eros style of love consists of intense, emotional “love at first sight” type of love; these people become quickly infatuated with their love interest and are highly sexual (Lee, 1976). The ludus love style describes a person who sees love as a game and usually has multiple partners at once; the ludus lover does not commit to one person and sees sex as fun and pleasurable (Lee, 1976). Storge is the affectionate type of love that can be compared to the love of best friends, with little passion (Lee, 1976). Pragma, also known as the practical lover, is a mixture of storge and ludus; this type of love usually comes to fruition because the lover is looking to settle down or needs someone who will be a good parent (Lee, 1976). Couples who have a pragma type of love are usually in committed relationship and are compatible. 15 15

Mania is a mixture of eros and ludus and is the obsessive jealous type of lover. There is a sort of love and hate relationship with a mania lover; they are obsessed with having their lover love them but sometimes do not even like the person that much. (Lee, 1976). Agape is the type of love that is selfless and the agape lover feels a duty to their partner; it is a mixture of eros and storge (Lee, 1976). The final secondary love style is the ludic eros lover; this type is very specific about what they want in an ideal partner and can be intense and detached. This typology of love is helpful in understanding what type of lover one may be and what type of lover they would match well with in a relationship.

Lee’s love styles in past research. Lee’s love styles have been used in studies to understand how love styles influence what type of romantic partner one might seek and how love styles influence how one acts throughout different stages of a relationship (Hammock & Richardson, 2011; Levine et al., 2006;). Results of these studies have reinforced how Lee described each of the love styles. For example, in one study (Levine et al., 2006), ludic lovers were most interested in attractiveness and less interested in finding someone with a good personality; and the opposite was true for storge lovers who looked for intelligence, personality, and compassion. Also, certain intensification strategies were used by different love styles to move relationships to the next level. Similarly, to other results, the ludus love style was associated with sex and affection as ways to intensify relationships and on the other end of the spectrum, the agape love style was associated with many different intensification strategies such as relational negotiation and sexual intimacy (Levine et al., 2006). In another study, we learn that each love style also influences how a person will act during each stage of a relationship. 16 16

In Hammock and Richardson’s (2011) study, men and women were given personality scales and questionnaires developed to measure initiation, maintenance, and dissolution experiences of their own relationships. During the initiation stage, pragma lovers looked for characteristics in their potential partners that they felt were valuable, such as: good marriage potential, accepted by friends and family, physical attractiveness, and more (Hammock & Richardson, 2011). For ludus lovers, the initiation stage of a relationship is very different; to them these characteristics were much less important and they did not worry about their new partner being good marriage material. In regard to relational maintenance, the agape, manic (males), and storge love styles reported long lasting relationships; ludus reported shorter relationships. Their contact with partners and discussion of feelings and other maintenance behaviors also differed according to love style. In the dissolution phase, of course to no surprise, ludic lovers had a positive association break-ups because they live in short relationships. Seeing how each love style reacts during each relationship phase helps solidify Lee’s original information about the love styles and adds even more depth. With information from studies like these, profile for each of the love style types can be created and people can make pretty good assumptions about their personalities, what type of romantic partner they look for, and how they will act throughout the different stages of relationships. Lee’s profiling of love styles became so popular, it was picked up by a contemporary author that formed his own love profiles similar to Lee’s. Gary Chapman’s 1992 best-selling book about five love languages became very popular among couples. Chapman’s premise was that people have their own love language preferences and work better in relationships with people who speak the love language they prefer. This is similar to Lee’s love styles, but different in 17 17 the way that the love languages focus more on actual acts and how couples express their love, rather than their attitudes towards love. Chapman (1992) recognized five different love languages: words of affirmation, quality time, receiving gifts, acts of service, and physical touch. Words of affirmation refers to compliments or even words of encouragement. Those who have this love language like to hear that they are appreciated and kind words. The second love language, quality time, is mostly self-explanatory: spending time with your significant other by giving them your undivided attention and having quality conversations. An example of this would be sitting down on the couch and having a thoughtful conversation with one’s partner without any distractions, like a cell phone or T.V. Others conceive of love in a more tangible aspect, through receiving gifts. Some people need to see love visually, which is why some have the love language of receiving gifts. The gifts do not need to be the most extravagant or expensive, but the thought and visually of the gift is what is important. Another love language is acts of service. Those who have this love language feel loved when their partner helps them with chores or does things for them that they value. The last love language is physical touch. Everyone in a relationship likes some form of physical touch, but for those whose love language is primarily this, touch is very important. It is also important to know what kind of touch your spouse wants; some want a back rub, while others just want to hold your hand. Chapman found throughout his years of being a marriage counselor that most of the time married couples are speaking different love languages and it was hurting their relationship. Those who were speaking the wrong love language were hurting their relationship because their partner was not comprehending any love. Chapman also argued that love is a choice and couples can choose to learn to speak each other’s love languages. 18 18

Egbert and Polk (2006) tested Chapman’s love languages for validity and reliability in comparison to other established research. Egbert and Polk (2006) saw these love languages as being relatable to relational maintenance behaviors: assurance, openness, positivity, sharing tasks, and social networks. In order to compare these maintenance behaviors with Chapman’s love languages, the relational maintenance scale developed by Stafford et. al. (1992) was used as the model to measure the love languages against the maintenance behaviors. The results yielded data that suggests the love languages model is close to fitting with other models and could produce valid results if a larger sample were used. There were also relationships found among some of the relational maintenance behaviors and love languages. This led Egbert and Polk (2006) to believe that the love languages were like a gateway leading up to relational maintenance behaviors. Therefore, love and relational maintenance behaviors are not so far off from each other. Love languages and relational maintenance behaviors may be helpful in this study to understand the narratives that couples tell them-selves and each other about their love. How couples interpret and receive and give love according to their love language may influence their narrative. Since the majority of a relationship is spent in a state of maintenance (Canary & Stafford, 1992), it would make sense that there is some sort of connection among maintenance strategies in romantic relationships and love. Stafford and Canary (1992) originally organized different maintenance strategies into five categories: positivity, openness, assurances, networks, and sharing tasks. These maintenance strategies drive a healthy and positive relationship and are usually related to equity. Equity in a relationship helps to determine what maintenance behaviors are used in relationships and equity and maintenance behaviors influence the overall satisfaction of the relationship (Stafford & Canary, 19 19

2006). When studying Stafford and Canary’s (1992) original categories of maintenance strategies, they emphasize positive behaviors that take place in the relationship; but as we know, these are not the only behaviors that take place in a relationship. To better understand what is related to negative maintenance behaviors, Goodboy, Myers, and Members of Investigating Communication (2010) questioned participants in romantic relationships to find out if certain love styles could predict the use of negative maintenance behaviors. According to their results, four out of the six love styles predict negative maintenance behaviors (such as spying, jealousy, etc.); especially the ludus and mania lovers. The ludus lover is described as the player and the mania lover is one who is obsessive over their partner. These unhealthy types of love lead to negative maintenance behaviors, which lead to tumultuous relationships. Being able to understand how love styles are connected to relational maintenance can help predict the types of behaviors one is likely to have in a relationship.

Scales and measurements used with Lee’s love styles. When Lee proposed that love is multi-faceted and many different styles exist, he created a test that was incorporated into his original book about love styles (Lee, 1976). The self-test was designed for readers to take while thinking about their romantic partner. At the end of the twenty-question test, readers can score the test to see what type of love style they prefer; it’s even mentioned that readers can compare their results with their partners to see if their love styles align. Although this is an easy way for every day couples to figure out their love style, it was not validated with other love research. Hendrick and Hendrick (1986) built their own scale, the Love Attitudes scale, as a more in-depth way of measuring Lee’s love styles. Their scale is comprised of 42 20 20 items that are related to each of the love styles and each statement is measured from 1=strongly agree to 5=strongly disagree. Later on, a shorter form of the scale was developed into 24 items. Hendricks and Hendricks’ Love Attitudes scale has been a popular way to measure people’s attitudes towards love and offers a deeper exam of people’s love experiences than Lee’s original self-test.

The Prototype Perspective of Love Another theory, developed by Fehr and Russel (1991) is the prototype perspective of love. Looking at a concept through the prototype perspective means that there are certain features more central to that concept than others and that can help you define said concept. For example, fruit is a concept and features that would be central to fruit would be apples and pears; not carrots. Unlike other theoretical ways to define concepts, prototype takes into perspective the grey areas. Like with the fruit example, tomatoes would be in the grey area because people typically think of them as a vegetable, although they are technically a fruit. Therefore, tomatoes would not be one of the features central to the fruit concept. But, the prototype perspective helps us organize concepts into boxes based on certain features and understanding where the grey areas are. Fehr and Russel (1991) set out to see if love could be defined prototypically through six different studies by giving questionnaires to participants. Looking at love prototypically means picturing a hierarchy and at the top of this hierarchy would be emotion and under that would be love, then under love would be the different types of love. Results of the six studies showed that there were many different prototypes of love identified by participants. Some of the most common prototypes were parental love, romantic love, friendship love, and sibling love (Fehr & Russel, 1991). Participants also identified many characteristics that were shared among 21 21 these categories. Some of the most mentioned characteristics were: “caring, helping, establishing a bond, sharing, feeling free to talk, understanding, respect, and closeness” (Fehr & Russel, 1991, p. 434). Fehr and Russel, as compared to the other studies, allowed their theory to be developed based on the language of their participants. This is one of the benefits of using prototyping; the concepts are defined based on the features that participants recognize as being important to the concept. Although some of the characteristics of love mentioned by the participants could possibly be condensed into the components of intimacy, passion, and commitment, it shows that people see love as much more complex and by labeling love as more than just these three components.

The prototype theory of love in past research. The prototype theory of love has been used in past research to understand different kinds of love and how love is communicated (Fehr & Sprecher, 2009; Schoenfeld, Bredow, & Huston, 2012; VanderDrift, Wilson, & Agnew, 2012). In a long-term study on 168 married couples, the prototype theory was used to understand how men and women show love differently (Schoenfeld et al., 2012). Researchers wanted to understand if the popular belief that men and women love differently was accurate or not. The participants of the study began within a couple months of being married and the study continued throughout the next 13 years. Extensive interviews over the phone and diary entries were used to collect data from each person separately in the marriage. Interviewers would ask questions about what the couples did together, how they showed affection, and how they understood love. These data were collected in four stages: one, at the beginning of their marriage, two and three at yearly intervals and then the fourth 13 years later. The qualitative data were then categorized prototypically and separated between the 22 22 men and women for comparison. By organizing the information prototypically, the researchers determined the type of love the married couples shared was companionate love—just like Sternberg had mentioned in his theory (Schoenfeld et al., 2012). When comparing how women and men show love, there were only subtle differences. For women, they showed love by focusing on the climate of the relationship, by giving compliments and showing less negativity. For men, they were more likely to initiate sex and sharing activities with their spouses was how they showed love. Although there were those small differences, men and women were equally expressive of love through affection. Using the prototypical theory of love helped Schoenfeld et al. (2012) categorize qualitative data to conceptualize companionate love. The theory has also been used to understand other types of love, like compassionate love. In a study by Fehr and Sprecher (2009), six studies were conducted as part of a larger study to see if compassionate love could be understood from a prototype perspective rather than just as a singular meaning. In the first part of the study, 180 participants generated features they believed were a part of compassionate love (Fehr & Sprecher, 2009). The second part of the study had another group of participants rate the features generated from the first part, on how well they thought the feature matched with compassionate love. Typical with prototype definitions, in study 1 there were many different features generated and in study two, the top-rated features were: honesty, caring, trust, and support (Fehr & Sprecher, 2009). In the third part of the study, researchers wanted to know what types of relationships were more central to the understanding of this type of love. Somewhat obvious, based on ratings by participants, people who had closer relationships to them were more likely to be the targets of compassionate love versus a stranger. This adds to the validity that compassionate love can be 23 23 understood as a prototype; that closer relationships fit better into the definition of compassionate love rather than strangers demonstrates that some features fit better than others. The last three studies tested the validity of the features that were identified as compassionate love and overall were able to determine that compassionate love can be defined prototypically. There is no single definition of compassionate love; instead, there are some features that are commonly identified by most people to be at the heart of compassionate love, but there are also some features that fall into the grey areas. Unlike Sternberg’s triangular theory of love and Lee’s love styles, the prototype theory allows definitions to be framed by the participants. Now that each of these three theories have been explained, I want to examine their contributions and limitations on studying love.

Critiquing Sternberg’s theory, Lee’s Love Styles, and Prototype theory In Sternberg’s triangular theory, he defined love as being comprised of three components: intimacy, passion, and commitment. By identifying these three features, researchers can understand how they affect love and fluctuate throughout time. As demonstrated in past research (Sumter et al., 2013; Sprecher & Regan, 1998), Sternberg’s theory has been exceptionally useful in understanding how love changes over time and throughout the life of the romantic relationship. Intimacy, passion, and commitment are major pillars of love and it is of great importance that Sternberg and the research using his theory has pointed out that each of these increases and decrease at different rates over the course of the relationship. As helpful and insightful as this theory is, there are some limitations. With only three characteristics featured in Sternberg’s model, much is being left out of the characterizations of love. There has also been some confusion among researchers about the interplay between intimacy and love. Sternberg treats intimacy as a 24 24 component of love, but one can have intimacy without love and love without intimacy (Kelley, 2012). Intimacy and love are closely intertwined, but it’s important to understand that intimacy is reciprocal and goes both ways between partners, while love can be one way (Kelley, 2012). According to Kelley’s (2012) research on a fuller model of love, intimacy is the vulnerability between partners and love is what creates the safe space for that vulnerability. It is clear by the fact that there is no single definition of love, that love is a very complex phenomenon; therefore, narrowing it down to just three characteristics leaves a lot out of the definition and a lot out of the research. Lee’s love styles take a different perspective by looking at love as a personal style. This perspective adds more depth to Sternberg’s model by creating multiple different styles that mix and match, showing more complexity to how we love. The prototypical theory is different than Sternberg’s triangular theory of love and Lee’s love styles because it does not have pre-determined parameters or definitions of love. The prototype theory is most closely related to how this thesis is conducted; by allowing participants to structure their own definitions and recognizing that every participant and their data is unique. As for the quantitative scales that have been commonly used in love research (Passionate Love scale, Triangular Love scale, etc.), they have produced meaningful results in the past, but as researchers continue to use them, we may be lacking fresh results. Graham (2011) took these scales to task in a meta-analysis to see if these constructs are accurate, independent measurements, or if they have any overlap between them. Graham looked through 40 years of research, including 225 studies and focused on the most prominent scales (which happen to be the ones discussed above): the Love and Liking scale, Love Attitudes scale, Passionate Love scale, and the Triangular Love scale. He found that most of the studies were quantitative 25 25 only and depended on self-reports. Among the hundreds of studies, the results seemed to categorize love into three categories: love, romantic obsession, and pragmatic friendship. Most of the scales measured love in very similar ways instead of different ways like they intended. One major limitation he noted was that a lot of these studies are set in a Western framework where we value love in romantic relationships. In his final thoughts, Graham called for more qualitative work to be done to get more in-depth results. While these prominent scales and theories have been useful to communication scholarship, there is a need for a new perspective that includes a qualitative analysis. All of the studies reviewed above have utilized quantitative methods and relied on concepts operationalized by researchers. Narrative theory and couple interviews can help fill this void in the research by examining how both people in the relationship create their narrative of love together. In the following section, the narrative theory will be discussed and how it is applicable to this thesis.

Narrative Theory: An Interpretive Look at Love This thesis is set in the interpretive paradigm which means it is set in the context of certain beliefs about ontology, epistemology, and methodology. As an interpretive researcher, these beliefs include: there are multiple realities in the world, the researcher and the participant work together to create understandings, and we gain knowledge by observing the world around us (Denzin & Lincoln, 1994). Interpretivists take a nominalist or social constructionist ontological position, looking at the world as having multiple realities (Miller, 2005). All realities are seen as being equally meaningful and can be best understood by understanding the ongoing social and mental construction of social actors (Miller, 2005). Knowledge is seen as value-laden and therefore interpretivists believe in 26 26 subjective epistemology (Miller, 2005). Subjective epistemology proposes that researchers focus their research on understanding specific, less generalized events (Miller, 2005). Methodologically speaking, interpretivists gather their research through observation and interactions with participants and inductively theorize about what they are working to understand (Miller, 2005). An interpretivist believes in the uniqueness of the world and that we should learn about the truths of the world from the point of view of those who live it (Schwandt, 1994). Interpretivists find meaning by working to understand their participants’ perception of the world through their actions, symbols, and communication (Schwandt, 1994). Narrative theory is part of the interpretive paradigm and seeks to understand the meanings of the world through a narrative structure. Fisher, in the late 1980s, introduced a new paradigm that he described as having some similarities to Burke’s Dramatism—the narrative paradigm. Fisher (1987) took an ontological perspective in this paradigm and saw all of the world’s communication and knowledge as narrative. He described humans as natural storytellers and that all of humans’ symbolic actions and words form narratives and these narratives are assessed by their coherence and fidelity. Each person’s narrative is set within its own situation and within a historical narrative. Under Fisher’s narrative paradigm, he argued that people use narrative structures to understand the world around them and make sense of their experiences. A few years after Fisher coined the narrative paradigm, Bochner (1994) brought the sense of narrative theory to interpersonal communication. During the shift from empirical research within the social sciences, Bochner (1994) discussed the need for more interpretive research within the field of communication—in particular in interpersonal research. Instead of focusing on brute facts and predicting and controlling, there was a need for understanding how 27 27 humans communicate meanings and values. He explained the differences between paradigms as “causal social science emphasizes how we know about the world and tries to explain it; interpretive social sciences emphasize how we talk about the worlds and tries to deal with it” (Bochner, 1994, p. 29). Narrative theory is a way to do just that; to understand how people talk about the world around them and try to make sense of it. Narratives are a framework to help us come to know the world and also a way of telling about the world. For example, when we want to tell someone about ourselves, we usually tell it in the form of a story; where we grew up, went to high school, college, and so on. In that narrative, we are creating and managing our identity. The person I am telling the story to, uses the narrative framework to understand my narrative by looking at the timeline of events and following along with me from beginning to end. I am also using the narrative framework as a way of telling this person about myself. Some theorists believe in differentiating between narrative and stories while others use the two interchangeably (Koenig Kellas, 2008). Fisher (1987) believed that everything was part of a large narrative with historical context. Others look at narrative as being a larger framework that encompasses master narratives that influence society as a whole, and stories at much a smaller, individual level recounting some sort of noteworthy event—like your wedding day (Koenig Kellas, 2008). Bochner (2002) described looking at a story as a social performance: with people as characters, a climax or point of tension and resolution, told in a temporal order, and some moral to the story. The moral to the story is what helps the storyteller come to terms with or explain the event they are discussing. The act of telling the story is the process of creating meaning through interpretation between the teller and listener—or in the context of a study, the researcher and participant. 28 28

Unlike empirical research where the participant and researcher are seen as separate and independent parts, narrative theory welcomes connection between the two (Bochner, 2002). Bochner (2002) insisted that with this interpretive theory, the researcher’s voice and implications of his or her own narratives very much influence their research and it would be a disservice to ignore their own narratives and how they influence the research process. With a narrative writing, there is a relationship between the author, the reader, and the text. Just like the author of the text is expected to acknowledge their influence with the text by writing him/herself into the text, the readers are also expected to engage with the narrative they are reading. Bochner (1994) described narratives as “evocative” because they call readers to engage with the text (p. 31). Narratives are not just representations of the world, but are texts that are fluid and their meanings are meant to be negotiated among readers. With empirical research, the facts always point to a correct answer or some sort of truth; but with narratives, one is not considered more right than the others. Instead of judging for correctness or which narrative has more truth, researchers look for what readers do with the stories (Bochner, 2002). We should be asking ourselves: What do people do with these stories? How does a particular narrative impact their lives? It is also not the job of the researcher to judge whether or not the narrator of the story is correctly telling the story, but to understand that the narrator believes he or she is telling the correct story. Stories are fluid reproductions, which make the narrator re-live and re-negotiate meaning of their story every time it is told and re-told. Narrators will constantly be in the process of re-producing stories by revising and editing them throughout their lives. At one point, they may tell a story leaving out particular details based on who is listening and at other times details may be added. The process of the narrator(s) 29 29 telling the story is referred to as storytelling (Koenig Kellas, 2008). As part of interpersonal research, we can learn a lot from examining this process, especially when there is more than one narrator. When watching two narrators in conversation with each other trying to tell a story is one way to see into the relational culture of the narrators (Koenig Kellas, 2008). As in this thesis, watching a romantic couple telling about their life together is an act of negotiating meaning and co-constructing their relationship; performing how they “do” their relationship. Being able to watch a couple discussing their relationship allows researchers to analyze the content of their story and how the couple communicates the story. At the same time, since narratives are how we construct meaning in our lives, the couples are not only performing narratives for us, but also creating their relationship in the moment. Bochner (1994) discussed the important role of the researcher and how our presence, even though it seems minor, impacts the couple and their narrative. The interviewing process will change the couple because it will bring up questions that force the couple to re-negotiate and create meaning through their stories. Using narrative theory to understand couples’ stories about love will help add to the interpersonal field of communication by helping us understand how couples communicate love to one another and also how they use narratives to cope with their understanding of love and their relationships.

Narrative theory and past research. Narrative theory has already been helpful in past research when studying difficult family experiences and marital distress (Koenig Kellas, Willer, & Trees, 2013; Trees & Koenig Kellas, 2009). In one study (Trees & Koenig Kellas, 2009), family triads were asked to think of a time when they all experienced a difficult situation together and were then 30 30 observed while jointly telling the story of this difficult time. The observation of the joint story telling was more focused on how the family members told their stories rather than just the content of the stories. Trees and Koenig Kellas (2009) wanted to explore if positive “sense-making” behaviors (engagement, turn-taking, perspective-taking, and coherence) had an effect on family cohesion, adaptability, and supportiveness. The two sense-making behaviors that seemed to have the biggest impact on supportiveness and functionality among family members were perspective-taking and coherence. These seemed to be important because they demonstrated the attentiveness of family members as they each spoke and confirmation of other’s perspectives. Families who were more supportive of each other and satisfied with their family dynamic had more story coherence; this could be because families who are more in-sync will generate more coherent stories together. Narrative theory allowed researchers to examine how families tell stories together how certain behaviors can harm or boost family supportiveness which will aid in the health of the family overall. This study points out that not only is the content of narratives important to creating meaning and understanding of our lives, but so is the way we tell stories. When it comes to jointly creating meaning together through narratives, we must also pay attention to how each person contributes to the narrative process since that has just as big an impact on creating the relationship. The narrative perspective has also been used in couple interviews between husbands and wives (Koenig Kellas et al., 2013). In this study, the couples jointly told a story of a stressful time during their marriage. The couples were videotaped and the husband and wife watched the tape individually to interpret their spouse’s perspective-taking behavior. Perspective-taking behavior is when one can 31 31 cognitively put themselves in the shoes of the other person to try to understand their perspective of an event or idea. These researchers were looking for how couples communicated perspective-taking and if their partners would recognize those behaviors. When the spouses would go back and watch the video of them telling their story together, they would code for behaviors that they recognized as their spouses communicating that they were trying to understand their perspective. Perspective-taking behaviors that were noticed by most spouses were: agreement, attentiveness, relevant contributions, coordination, positive tone, and freedom. Negative behaviors were: disagreement, inattentiveness, irrelevant contributions, lack of coordination, negative tone, and constraining the spouse’s telling of story (Koenig Kellas et al., 2013). Understanding how spouses read their partners and decode their communication is another step in understanding how stories are jointly told and how stories create relational culture. Narrative theory applied to interpersonal research on love can help us better understand how couples jointly create meaning for their relationships through use of stories and use a narrative framework as a way to understand their love for one another. Since telling stories and creating narratives of our lives as a way to make sense of things, I journey to understand what types of stories couples tell about their love and how they create their love narratives. For this thesis, narrative theory along with couple interviews will be used to understand how couples co- construct love through the stories they tell themselves, with each other, and perform in front of me. It will be important to this thesis to understand how couples create meaning in love through their communication with each other and also in the telling of their own unique love story. The following research questions are proposed for the thesis: 32 32

RQ1: How do couples co-construct love in their relationships through narratives? RQ2: How do couples narratively define love?

CHAPTER 2: METHOD

This chapter will focus on the decisions I made to gather my data, the methods used to gather data and data analysis procedures. The chapter is split into two parts: methodology and method. I believe it is important to separate the two because the methodology explains what influenced me the researcher to make the decisions I made and the method is explaining the tools I used to carry out the data collection, interviewing, and coding processes. In the methodology section, I will discuss the quantitative methods that have been widely used in past love research and how they differ from qualitative methods and why those differences influenced my methodological decisions. I will then move into explaining the importance of couple/dyadic interviews and how they are needed in love research. In the second section, I will explain how I conducted my interviews, describe my participants, and discuss my coding/analysis procedures.

Methodology This thesis, as explained in chapter 2, uses narrative theory within an interpretive approach to reveal how couples communicate and understand love. In previous research, quantifiable scales were mostly used to gather information from one individual of the couple (Hammock & Richardson, 2011; Hendrick & Hendrick, 1986; Levine et al., 2006; Rubin, 1970). Quantitative measurements are used in post-positivistic approaches to explain, predict and control human behavior (Bochner, 1994). Research that comes out of the post-positive paradigm wants to explain why certain variables correlate to one another in order to illuminate the laws of human behavior (Merrigan & Huston, 2009). Quantitative scales and measurements are commonly used to measure these correlations. There are multiple scales that have been widely used in love literature and they mostly 34 34 stem from two prominent love theories—Sternberg’s triangular theory of love and Lee’s love styles (which were discussed at length in the literature review). The quantitative measurements are developed around the definitions of love that the authors choose, funneling the participants’ responses through that specific definition. Shifting the research on love to the interpretive paradigm will allow the definition and understanding of love to unfold from the participants. One assessment done by Myers and Shurts (2002) took many love scales— including the ones discussed above—and compared them and tested their reliability and validity. They found that overall the love scales were adequately reliable. The researchers did note though, that because of the differing definitions of love, qualitative research would be helpful to understand the construct of love from the people themselves (Myers & Shurts, 2002).The different love scales that have been used in the past few decades have been helpful and have given researchers a nice start to explaining love, but there is still much more room to understand its depths and complexities about how love is defined and uniquely co- constructed between couples. Interpretivist researchers seek to understand how meaning is created; knowing that participants’ definitions and meanings are contextualized in their relationships (Merrigan & Huston, 2009). Interpretivists do not believe in a universal objective truth, but multiple realities that are socially constructed (Miller, 2005). No reality is seen as more accurate than the other, but each reality can be understood through the social actor’s point of view (in this case, the couple’s point of view). Because reality and meaning are constructed by people, researchers observe and interview participants to gain an understanding from their point of view (Miller, 2005). Interpretivists value understanding of smaller, specific stories, over a generalized explanation. Gaining an understanding of 35 35 events takes place in the interactions between the researcher and the participants; together, they create meaning (Miller, 2005). As part of the interpretive paradigm, the researcher is not free of value because the researcher immerses him-or herself into the research. The researcher is aware of his or her own values and experiences that influence their research and embrace the joint construction between them and the participant (Miller, 2005). Interviewing couples will allow participants to jointly construct their own definitions of love (their reality and “truth”) with me the researcher. Qualitative tools are useful in studying how participants create their meanings of the world around them. Specifically, for this thesis, I want to understand how couples co-construct the meaning of love together and how they define love. Therefore, coming to this thesis with an interpretivist approach influences the choice of qualitative method over quantitative method. Qualitative methods help to answer the research questions of this study and offer a more in- depth understanding of how couples co-construct love. One type of qualitative method that has been helpful in other communication topics are couple interviews. I will first detail couple interviews as my method of data collection followed by descriptions of who the participants were and how they were chosen will be discussed. I will then detail my interview procedures, and the data analysis procedures.

Method Couple interviews were chosen as the qualitative method for this thesis. Couple interviews allow me to watch couples jointly construct what love means to them. Being able to watch their conversations unfold also allows me to watch them “doing” their relationship. My goal is to find the “relationship” in the 36 36 discussions that take place between the couples during the interviews. The interpretive paradigm dictates that knowledge is socially created through discourse; therefore, the couples’ relationship is created in and through their discourse (Miller, 2005). This method enhances the past research on love because it allows participants to tell their story of love in their own terms and together. The uniqueness of each couple’s stories will help add depth to love research and the couple interviews will demonstrate how couples jointly create important relationship stories and thus their relationship.

Couple/Dyadic Interviews A common approach taken in the research on love is to distribute surveys to one partner. These surveys measure a variety of aspects of love based on data from one partner. While this information is valuable, it only captures one side of the relationship and is not a cognitive representation of their interactive reality. For some research needs, one side may be all the researcher is interested in, but if we are looking for a broader and deeper understanding of how couples co-create meaning through their interactions and storytelling, then we need to look at the creation taking place between both people in the relationship. A simple solution to that may seem to just hand out surveys to each partner. Individual interviews have been used in past research on love and romantic relationships, like Olson’s (2003) research on males’ experience and expressions of love. In order to better understand the male’s perspective of love in romantic relationships, Olson (2003) interviewed 10 married men on their experience with love. In this case, interviews with just the men of the relationships matched the objective of the research. If the purpose of the research is to understand just one person’s perspective of the relationship, then interviews with that one person are justified. What is missing 37 37 from single interviews is the discursive construction of love that happens between couples. In this co-construction is where couples create and sustain the narrative and rules for what love looks like in their relationship. The co-construction of love is part of a larger relational narrative that is constantly being negotiated and created amongst the couple. The couples create their own relational culture through narratives, which includes stories about love. Each partner enters in a relationship with their own identity and once a relationship starts to take shape, the relationship becomes its own entity created by the couple; their relational culture (Wood, 1982). Through communicative acts a couple creates, maintains, and contests this relational culture by giving meaning to events, experiences, and conversations within the relationship. A relationship is not one stable entity, but a process that is socially constructed and formed through the discourse of the couple (Duck, 1995). As the relational culture is being created and re-created, it shapes and reshapes the rules and norms of how the couple acts within the relationship. The relational culture is an infinite loop of a creation by the couple and an influence that acts back upon the couple (Wood, 1982). Couple interviews can be used to understand relational culture because we can see their patterns of behaviors and experiences manifested in their responses as not just independent moments, but as a long line of strung together moments that have been influenced by the couple and in turn influence the couple’s future behaviors (Wood, 1982). The couple interviews themselves are a creation of the relationship in that moment in time based on how the couple talks about their relationship; “the ‘nature’ of a relationship may also be reported, described or characterized in different ways at different times to different audiences” (Duck, 1995, p. 536). Couples choose which information to share when, as per their relational rules prescribed by past discourse and enforced or contested by present discourse, 38 38 becoming a part of their relational narrative which then implicates their future interaction. As past relational rules influence the present discourse and are enforced or contested, then that current discourse re-constitutes the rules and influences future storytelling behaviors and the story itself. Relational culture has been studied to understand how it affects relational satisfaction. In a recent study, researchers measured relational satisfaction based on the couple’s relational culture by looking at the rituals and amount of privacy disclosure between the couple (Farrell, Di’Tunnariello, & Pearson, 2014). In an online survey distributed to 359 undergraduate and graduate students, participants answered questions from the Rituals in Dating Relationships scale and the Internal Family Privacy Orientation scale. These particular scales were used to understand what types of rituals and privacy boundaries the couple report using in their relationship. The results showed that the more time couples spent together and the more private information they shared, the more their reported satisfaction. But, there were specific rituals that yielded more relational satisfaction than others; these were specifically spending time with each other such as, reminiscing over the history of the couple, and participating in their favorite activities over and over again. These particular rituals positively maintained the relational culture and kept couples feeling satisfied. Symbolic communicative practices are integral to any relational culture (Wood, 2004) and are important to understanding which are important to a relationship and its maintenance. Since relational culture is built between the two partners, gaining an understanding from both partners is an important part of understanding how couples narratively make sense of their relational experiences. Couple interviews were conducted in the current study in order to collect couple, not individual partner data. Dyadic interviews are helpful in understanding 39 39 the relationship from a “we” perspective, rather than from each individual perspective (Eisikovits & Koren, 2010); in this case, the love experience. While interviewing the couples, they co-constructed their understanding of love within their relationship and how that is communicated between them. A dyadic interview gives us a “third version” of the relationship (Eisikovits & Koren, 2010, p. 1643); not one or the other’s but ours. This third version gives new insight into how couples co-create a story of their relationship. By looking at this co-created story, we can begin to understand how the formation of love in interpersonal relationships is co-constructed, maintained, and contested between the couple. Psychologists and therapists have realized the necessity of talking with both partners in the relationship in order to understand the co-creation of the relationship (Benson, McGinn, & Christensen, 2012). Couples’ therapy is a common way for therapists to work with couples on understanding turmoil or conflicts within their relationship (Benson et al., 2012). Although this thesis does not focus on conflict or relationship issues, couple interviews prove to be useful for the same reasons they are used in couple’s therapy. Therapists recognize that “both partners’ view of the relationship is objective, dyadic, and contextualized” (Benson et al., 2012, p. 26). This is why couple therapy is useful to understand conflicts and issues from not just both perspectives but the couple perspective to show how each partner separately and together contribute to the conflict. During therapy sessions, the therapist and the couples are able to see how they co- construct problems and contribute to the construction of their relationship. The same approach can be applied to the couple interviews included in this study. Even though love is a different concept than a relational conflict, it is still a part of the co-constructed relationship. Love is contextualized within the relationship and within each of the partners and being able to ask the couple 40 40 together about their love allows the interviewer and themselves to see how love is built and communicated between the two of them. By interviewing both partners simultaneously, the interviewer can see that while participants are co-constructing their interview answers, they are narratively making sense of their love. Narrative theory will be a helpful guide in understanding how these co-constructions can be understood as co-narrations. When we understand the conversations as co-narrations, we begin to see how the couples are jointly creating their reality of their relationship within the context of the interview. Not only is it necessary to hear both partners’ perspectives of the relationship for the purpose of this thesis, but conducting interviews with couples can also act as an interviewing tool. Unlike individual interviews, couple interviews allow the participants to “draw out” answers from each other and to remind each other of memories or other information (Morgan, Ataie, Carder, & Hoffman, 2013, p. 1276). In this way, couples can act as interviewing tools for the interviewer. The interviewer may ask the initial questions and then the participants prompt each other through discussion. Being able to draw out responses from each other allowed couples to build answers together. This interviewing technique has also been successfully used in studying long-distance relationships (Sahlstein, 2004). In this study, 20 couples that were in a long-distance relationship were given the opportunity to interview each other while audiotaping themselves (without the interviewer around). The researcher gave one of the partners a packet with all of the interview questions and information. Then, the next time the couple saw each other, they were to interview each other. The researcher argued that this would allow the couple to discuss the relationship in a comfortable environment and give more intimate responses that they would if there was an interviewer present. 41 41

Having the participants in conversation with one another is also important because it mimics how they may construct their story of love every day within their relationship (Morgan et al., 2013). This storytelling approach has also been used in studying family communication in order to understand how families make sense of difficult times and identity within the family and to see how families make sense of difficult experiences (Koenig Kellas, 2005; Trees & Koenig Kellas, 2009). Koenig Kellas (2005) observed family members to see how jointly told stories construct family identity. Observing this storytelling phenomena was important because jointly told stories are helpful in “understanding the communicative—and jointly enacted—construction of identity, as family stories often engender the possibility (or necessity) of joint storytelling” (Koenig Kellas, 2005, p. 366). As part of the study, there were 58 family triads that consisted of two parents and a child or two children and a parent. The family members came to a lab and were asked to think of a family story that they tell a lot and represents them as a family. The researcher then joined them in the lab and observed as the three family members told a family story together. By analyzing these family stories, the researcher was able to observe the family members’ storytelling behaviors, how the members collaborated together, the story themes, and the degree of their “we-ness.” This “we-ness” that Koenig Kellas (2005) was observing is similar to the “us” of romantic relationships. Family stories contribute to shaping the identity of the family as a separate identity from its individual parts, just like romantic relationships. Storytelling has allowed researchers to watch how family members communicate together; instead of asking one person to explain the communication, researchers can watch the communication unfold right in front of them. The interviewer can then analyze the 42 42 content of the interview and its patterns and how the partners tell their story together. Interpretive methodologies are grounded in a particular axiology (Bochner, 1994). Qualitative methods are value conscious not value free. Most importantly, the researcher is the research instrument (Bochner, 1994). What this means is that the researcher comes with their own values to the research and has to be self- reflexive of how those values create the conversation. Therefore, it is important to also understand the influence of the interviewer. Even though the couple is constructing most of the answers, I also aided in the co-constructing by assuring them, asking certain questions, and even simple gestures such as a head nod. In a study on co-habitating couples by Rogers-de Jong and Strong (2014), they found all of this to be evident during their interviews with couples. The researcher’s questions had a “reflexive influence” on the couples; making them re-tell and re- live stories of them being together brought them a feeling of closeness (Rogers-de Jong & Strong, 2014, p. 371). Couple interviews are a valuable tool to observe the storied co-construction that takes place between couples. Unlike individual interviews, being in conversation with a couple allows the interviewer to understand the “we” perspective of the relationship. In the following section, descriptions of the participants and how they were chosen will be discussed, followed by the interview procedures, and lastly the data analysis procedures.

Participants The participants in this study consisted of 15 heterosexual couples. Participants were recruited through snowball sampling (Tracy, 2013) after the University’s Institutional Review Board granted approval. I used my own 43 43

Facebook to post about the study and it was shared amongst friends. Using Facebook was a good way to advertise the study quickly and amongst large amounts of people. This was the most fruitful way of gathering participants because once I gained access to one couple, they were able to refer me to another couple. People tend to be hesitant to talk to a stranger about their personal lives, so having people refer their family and friends made the situation more comfortable. The requirements for participants were (a) each participant had to be at least 18 years old, (b) the couple had to self-identify as being in love, and (c) both people had to be present at the time of the interview. Each couple was given a $20 Visa gift card for participating. All of the couples were very unique and differed in age, race, relationship length, and family make up (kids, no kids, step-kids). Since each couple has their own unique story which contributes to their love story, I will list each couple below and summarize their characteristics. All of the participants’ names have been changed in order to protect their privacy.

Jack and Rose. Jack was 22 years old and Rose was 23 years old. Jack is White and Rose identifies as multiracial. They had been dating for 3 years and 2 months. They met through church and up until recently, their relationship was mostly long distance due to college. During their interview, they said they were actually having to get used to living in the same town now and that is new to how they function in their relationship.

Scott and Melissa. Scott was 26 years old and Melissa was 24 years old and both are White. They had been married for 1½ years and dated for 2 years before that. They spent a good portion of the beginning of their relationship long distance before eventually being in the same town again. 44 44

Paul and Stacy. Stacy was 23 years old and Paul was 24 years old and both identify as White. They had been dating for 2½ years. They were the couple with the shortest relationship length out of all 15 couples; 2½ years versus the longest, which was 61 years.

Ben and Olivia. Ben was 68 years old and Olivia was 69 years old. Olivia self-identifies as Hawaiian/Puerto Rican and Ben self-identifies as Hispanic. They had been married for 48 years and have actually been together since late high school. They grew up in the same neighborhood together and had mutual friends and that was how they began dating.

Tim and Sarah. Tim was 53 years old and Sarah was 51 years old and both self-identify as White. They had been married for 36 years and first met in high school where they soon began dating. Tim was Sarah’s only boyfriend her entire life and in their interview, she said she knew the first time she met him that she was going to marry him. They have two kids together.

Sharon and Jake. Sharon was 32 years old and Jake was 30 years old and both self-identify as White. They had been married for 2½ years and dated for a couple of years before that. Sharon has a child from a previous marriage.

Simon and Janice. Janice was 79 years old and Simon was 82 years old and both self-identify as White. At the time of their interview, they were just coming up on their 61st wedding anniversary. They met in college and as they mentioned in their interview, they fell in love with each other rather quickly and within 6 months of meeting and dating, they were engaged and married quickly after that. 45 45

Matt and Jennifer. Matt was 28 years old and Jennifer was 26 years old and both self-identify as White. They had been married for 2 years and were expecting their first child. They were high school sweethearts and it was interesting to hear in their interview how their love has changed during so many of their life changes and growing up.

Jessica and Kaleb. Jessica was 33 years old and identifies as White/Hispanic. Kaleb was 35 years old and identifies as White. At the time of the interview, they had been married for 13 years and dated for 5 years before that. They have two sons together. What is unique about Jessica and Kaleb’s love story is that Jessica became pregnant during her senior year of high school with their first son; and despite many challenges along the way, they were able to stay together and eventually get married.

Rebecca and Alan. Alan and Rebecca were both 35 years old. Alan identifies as White and Rebecca identifies as White/Mexican. They had been married for 14 years and dated for 1 year before that. One thing that the couple mentioned in their interview that was unique about their relationship was that they do not have children and do not plan on having children and they believe that they are able to focus more on each other and their relationship that way.

Steve and Diana. Diana was 46 years old and Steve was 53 years old and they both self-identify as White. They had been together for 19 years, and just recently married around the time of their interview. They each have a child from previous relationships and a child together. 46 46

Peter and Ashley. Ashley was 33 years old and self-identifies as Samoan/White. Peter was 39 years old and self-identifies as White. They had been married for 7 years and have two kids together.

Robert and Samantha. Robert was 24 years old and identifies as Burmese/English/Cicilian/Polish and Samantha was 22 years old and identifies as Mexican/Spanish. At the time of their interview, they were newly engaged and had been together for 3 years.

Connor and Lisa. Connor was 33 years old and Lisa was 37 years old and both identify as White. They had been married for 9 years and have two children. They started out as long-time friends, but Lisa was always in love with Connor. Finally, they decided to try dating and shortly after they became engaged and married.

Kelsey and Tyler. Kelsey and Tyler were both 23 years old. Kelsey identifies as White and Tyler is White/Mexican. They had been dating for 5 years and 8 months at the time of the interview.

Interview Protocol Most of the interviews (13 of the 15) were held at a Starbucks and the other two were held at the interviewee’s houses. One couple was elderly and it was difficult for them to travel and the other couple had their child care cancel on them last minute. Since Starbucks can be quite noisy at times, I always tried to find a table outside or in a corner that would be quiet enough for the recorder to catch everything and so the couples would feel comfortable speaking privately. Interview times lasted anywhere from 16 minutes to almost 2 hours, with an average length of 37 minutes. Times varied based on the flow of conversation 47 47 between each couple; some couples were very direct and to the point with their answers, some liked to elaborate, and others had one partner that did most of the talking and one that was shy, so that limited the amount of discussion as well. Once we sat down to begin our interview, I introduced myself again and discussed what the thesis is about and how the interview would unfold. I answered any questions the couples had about the interview or research and then once they were ready, they signed the consent form and I asked permission to turn on the recorder. Before we began the interview questions, the participants filled out a demographic form with their age, sexual orientation, relationship status, length of relationship, and race/ethnicity. Then, we would begin with the interview questions. The interview consisted of eight open-ended questions (see Appendix for interview protocol) and throughout each interview I asked probing questions or follow up questions as necessary. The first two questions focused on getting to know the couple: how they met and the story of how they began dating. These two questions often unfolded naturally together and were easy questions to get couples to think about their relationship and get comfortable talking in front of me. Then, I began asking them about love. I would use prompts to encourage them to talk about their love. Prompting participants is a way to start the conversation and to get couples concentrating on a specific story. This technique has been used in previous studies on family storytelling (Koenig Kellas et al., 2013; Trees & Koenig Kellas, 2009). In these particular studies, interviewers would have families focus on a particular story that represented them as a family, such as going through a tough time together. Having the families focus on a particular story and discuss allowed interviewers to observe how the families told the story (Koenig Kellas et al., 2013; Trees & Koenig Kellas, 2009). Most of the interview questions 48 48 in this thesis acted as prompts; I asked couples to give me a specific memory or emotion they felt the first time they realized they loved their partner (and usually probed with, how did you know this was love?). The couple discussed a specific memory and I watched the conversation unfold and analyzed their storytelling. This allowed me to listen to how they began to identify love in their relationship and watch how they told the story to each other since this was more of an individual question for each person. Their answers usually developed into my later questions. The next question asked how they defined love. This question is also really important to the core purpose of this thesis. Having the couples discuss their own definitions of love and co-constructing the definitions together allowed me to watch this unfold and did not constrict them to a pre-determined definition. The next question asked couples how their love changed over time to understand how love develops over the time of the relationship and how couples communicated their understanding of the changes. Lastly, I asked if there were any challenges with the couple’s love in their relationship. Sometimes this question caused confusion among couples and I rephrased the question to challenges in the relationship in general. The purpose of this question was to try to get at any negative experiences or feelings associated with love. The majority of the time couples naturally focused on positive feelings and experiences, so this was an attempt at understanding love from both sides. After the questions were discussed, I finished with asking if the couple thought there was anything else significant about their love or relationship that we did not discuss. Finally, the last stage of the interview consisted of leaving the couple alone with the recorder to discuss the first time they said, “I love you,” to each other. Talking about your love life and romance can be awkward for some people, so I 49 49 wanted to be able to capture a storytelling moment between the couple where they were not worried about me sitting next to them and listening in person. Even though they knew I would listen to the recording later, they did not have to feel awkward or embarrassed by telling me the story face-to-face. Therefore, I made the decision to leave the room and leave the recorder running while the couples discussed the “I love you” prompt. This interviewing technique has been used previously in Sahlstein’s (2004) study on long distance relationships where she sent couples a recorder and prompt for the couple to sit and discuss without the interviewer present. This allows the couple to speak more freely and hopefully get them into a more authentic discussion. I chose to do this with the prompt of: describe the first time you said, “I love you” to each other because that is usually a monumental moment in a relationship (Baxter & Pittman, 2001). I wanted to capture the couples telling this story together as if they were the only ones listening. After they were finished, they called me back into the room and we concluded the interview.

Transcription of Interviews I conducted each interview with a digital recorder and handwritten notes. I transcribed eight of the interviews myself and the other seven interviews were transcribed by a transcription company (Rev.com). The decision to split the transcriptions between myself and a transcription company was made in the interest of time. The transcription company chosen (Rev.com) is a reputable company that had been used by other graduate students and recommended as being thorough and accurate. While a transcription company is helpful, researchers miss out on the value of transcribing. Transcribing one’s own research is valuable for the researcher because it allows he or she to be immersed in the data. While 50 50 listening and transcribing, the researcher is able to hear inflections in voices, pauses, interruptions and other verbal acts that the researcher may find important to the data; whereas a transcription company may not take note of them (Tracy, 2013). Transcribing one’s own interviews also strengthens the researcher’s relationship with the data as he or she moves into the data analysis. Although I only transcribed half of the interviews myself, I still ensured the quality of the transcriptions from the transcription company. In order to ensure quality of the transcripts, I re-listened to the interviews while reading the transcript to correct any mistakes. This also allowed me to listen for any other important verbal utterances that I thought may be important to add. There was a total of 283 pages of data, single-spaced with an extra space transitioning between people.

Data Analysis An iterative approach was used to code the data. Multiple cycles of coding were used on each of the interviews individually and then I would cycle back through and between the interviews to find themes. Using the iterative approach to analyze the data, I was able to reflexively move back and forth between the data, making comparisons and making connections (Tracy, 2013). I preferred to use a manual approach to coding by printing out hard copies of the interview transcripts and highlighting, circling, underlining, and writing in the margins during the primary cycle of coding (Tracy, 2013). I chose this manual approach because I liked to be able to physically move the data around and organize it, versus having everything cluttered on a computer screen. As a personal preference, I found this to be an easier way of organizing and interacting with the data. I also used a whiteboard and post-it notes as a way to visually separate, organize, and move the data around to create codes and themes. 51 51

The whiteboard acted as my codebook where once my primary cycle coding was done on the pages of the transcripts and a notepad, I would write the codes and their definitions on the whiteboard. I would then place the corresponding Post-It note with data examples underneath its corresponding code. Each Post-It note would include the data excerpt, name of couple, and the page number where the data were found in the transcript. During this time, the constant comparative method was used to compare data under each code to make sure each data excerpt was compatible with the code (Tracy, 2013). The constant comparative method comes from the grounded theory approach which inductively explains and describes phenomena (Corbin & Strauss, 1990); in this case transcriptions from the interviews. During data analysis, the constant comparative method is used to compare codes and data to find which data matches with which code; or, if there is no match, to redefine codes to fit the data (Corbin & Strauss, 1990). Codes emerge from the data and change as the data change. The coding process happened in multiple cycles starting with the primary cycle, then the secondary coding, and finally hierarchical codes. This style of coding was used for both of the research questions.

Primary cycle. Previous review of the literature had sensitized me to potential themes in the interviewing data. Due to this sensitization, in the primary cycle coding I read through each interview highlighting, circling, and underlining words or phrases that seemed to match up with past literature. Then, I went back through again and wrote words in the margins that captured the essence of what was highlighted or circled. These phrases written in the margins became my first- level codes (Tracy, 2013). Some examples of these codes were talk of past 52 52 relationships, religious beliefs about love, infatuation, affection, choice, “honeymoon effect,” love grows, love notes, etc. After this was done through each interview, I used a sheet of paper and wrote the code at the top and list the couples who discussed this code; this gave me an idea of how frequently this was discussed and if it was unique to that couple or seemed to be a recurring theme. If it was a recurring theme, I went through and pulled out each excerpt of data and wrote it on a post-it. Then I wrote the code on the whiteboard, along with its definition and the corresponding post-it notes stuck underneath. After the primary-cycle of coding came the secondary coding, or focused codes (Tracy, 2013).

Secondary cycle. During the secondary coding, I organized, synthesized, and categorized the data into more focused codes. For example, the first-level code “talk of past relationships” became “comparing and contrasting narratives of past relationships;” “family” became “familial bonds and their importance to love;” and “religious beliefs” became “religious narratives influences understanding of love.” These secondary codes were then grouped together under an umbrella code, known as a hierarchical code (Tracy, 2013). The hierarchical code became the theme: Love stories exist within larger narrative contexts. This style of coding was used over and over until the data were exhausted and themes were determined for each research question. In the following chapter, I will discuss the resulting themes for each research question.

CHAPTER 3: RESULTS

The purpose of this study was to interview couples together in order to get a better understanding of how couples co-construct stories and communicate love to one another. This chapter consists of the thematic results from the interviews with 15 couples who participated in this study. Two research questions were explored in this study. RQ1: How do couples co-construct love through narratives? And, RQ2: how do couples narratively define love? Under RQ 1, two major themes developed along with multiple sub-themes for each. The first theme is love stories exist within larger narrative context. Within this theme are three sub-themes: comparing and contrasting narratives of past relationships, religious narratives influence understanding of love, and familial bonds and their importance to love. The second major theme for RQ1 is love is an action. Under this theme, three sub- themes emerged: quality time, gifts, and affection. Research question two consists of three themes with multiple sub-themes. The first theme is love is evolving, which has three sub-themes: love grows stronger, from lust to love, and love grows as the family grows. The second theme is love is a choice. Lastly, the third theme for RQ 2 is love is altruistic. Three sub-themes are a part of this theme: unconditional, selfless, and worthy of love. The results section will begin with the themes found in RQ 1 and then the themes for RQ 2.

RQ 1: How do couples co-construct love? This first research question examined how couples co-construct their love. For this research question, two major themes (love stories exists within larger narrative context and love is an action) with multiple sub-themes emerged amongst the dialogues of the 15 couples interviewed. The first theme is Love stories exist within larger narrative contexts. This theme consists of how the 54 54 couples’ relationships are influenced by larger narrative contexts, such as religion and past relationships. Those larger narrative contexts influence how each couple co-constructs love together. The second theme encompasses how couples communicate love with each other in their day-to-day lives: love is an action. The first theme looked at the couples’ love stories from a larger context and then moved into the more minute details of the love stories in the second theme.

Love Stories Exist Within Larger Narrative Contexts Throughout conversations with almost all of the couples (n=14), I discovered that their understanding of what love is and how they enact that in their relationship is not just between the two people within the relationship; each person in the relationship is influenced by their own life narratives. Think of a Venn diagram: the circle on the left is person 1 and the circle on the right is person 2. The circles are their narratives; the larger contexts in which they live and within each of the circles are their stories and their experiences. The middle of the Venn diagram is where their relationship happens and where the stories of person 1 and person 2 overlap. When each person enters into a relationship, they do not come as a clean slate; they bring in their own morals, beliefs, ideas, and past experiences that have had an impact on their life. Couples also bring with them social constructions of love. Within this theme are three sub-themes: comparing and contrasting narratives of past relationships, religious narratives, and familial bonds. These three sub-themes are larger narrative contexts that are important to couples and have impacted their way of understanding love and enacting love in their relationships. The first sub-theme addresses how stories of past relationships serve as points of comparison that influence how a person views their present relationship. 55 55

Comparing and contrasting narratives of past relationships. During my interviews, couples discussed past relationships (n=9). Every time the topic of previous boyfriends, girlfriends, or spouses arose, it was always organically. I never specifically asked about previous relationships, but most times during the answer of “How do you define love?” couples began discussing a previous relationship and compare and contrast how that relationship measured up to the current one. Couples focused on what was lacking in their past relationship and discuss how their current relationship was so much better in comparison. For example, Jennifer discussed her boyfriend before her now husband, Matt: I never feared for our future either. With this other guy I was like, “Is he going to break up with me?” That was the other thing. I had no feelings for this other guy at all. Like, none. To the point where it bothered this other guy. I could have saw him making out with someone in front of me and just been like, “Happy for you, man!” I didn’t care at all. My whole world from that point on was just Matt and it just felt comfortable. Jennifer made a clear distinction between how her previous boyfriend had made her feel: insecure and always worried about when he was going to break up with her next (she mentioned that they were on-and-off again multiple times). But, when she began dating Matt, he made her feel safe and secure, the exact opposite of her last boyfriend. The contrast of those feelings is a part of how Jennifer defines her relationship with Matt and how they define their love together. During the conversation of the past relationship, Matt would nod his head and agree with Jennifer on feeling safe and not having to worry about the other person. Their agreement on these concepts of “safe” and “comfortable” is a way of Jennifer and Matt co-create their understanding of what love is to their relationship. Matt also compared his feelings for his wife to other girls: “But then I met you it was just 56 56 like there’s just no way. I’ve never felt that way about this other girl, you know? This has to be love.” Matt and Jennifer both gave examples of past relationships and how their uncertainty in those relationships made them feel. Both of their experiences were compared to their relationship now and they both agreed that their present relationship together is much more stable than their past relationships. Comparing and contrasting their relationships contributed to their joint meaning making of what it means to be in a loving relationship. In another couple’s interview, their story about a past relationship actually directly influenced their story of their present relationship. During Rose and Jack’s discussion about how they started dating, the two brought up that during the early phase of them officially becoming boyfriend and girlfriend, there was a couple of days that Jack broke up with Rose because of a previous girlfriend. Jack’s ex- girlfriend had expressed she still had feelings for him, so Jack broke off his relationship with Rose momentarily because he wasn’t sure what to do. This girl (the previous girlfriend) was my high school sweetheart. The first girl I ever like really loved…she expressed that she still had feelings for me and I was trying to move on with my life but I still cared a lot about her…I was very confused and conflicted about what to do. Here I have this new relationship that’s blossoming and it’s going very well and I’m happy with it. Then I also on the other hand I felt like I had this option that had been taken away from me before, she broke up with me, that I know could be a really good thing and was a very good thing. When Jack was explaining to me his line of thought in ultimately getting back together with Rose a couple days later, he said the following about Rose: 57 57

We talked for 12 hours and we broke up in the first hour. There’s something to this. There’s something that’s real here and I need to continue to pursue and explore this at least for now and continue to see where it goes. Rose responded a few moments later in the conversation: “It was a good thing we broke up like in hindsight because I feel like once we got back together it was a lot better.” While trying to decide what to do about Jack’s ex-girlfriend and Rose, he went through comparing the fact that his ex-girlfriend had broken up with him and he had experienced what it was like to be with her, but when it came to Rose, it was something new to pursue. Jack and Rose’s conversation about the break-up became a part of their story about how they began their relationship and shows how they rationalized it. For Jack, he rationalized his decisions by comparing and contrasting the two relationships and in the end, chose Rose. Rose confirmed the experience by commenting that their relationship was even better than before once they got back together. During Steve and Diana’s interview they both discussed how their relationship together is much better than their past relationships. Steve mentioned what he thought when he first started to get to know Diana and Diana discussed how their past relationships impacted them: “She’s pretty cool, this is not what I’m used to.” Diana responded: We’ve both come from crappy relationships too and I think that’s helped our relationship immensely, especially when you’re fighting or you’re mad or you know you take a step back because you’ve already been through this and you don’t want to make the same mistakes. 58 58

Diana’s comment shows how both of their past relationships have influenced how they act within their relationship. Past relationships act as a marker in which we can measure our current or new relationships. Diana and Steve also recognized how their past experiences taught them what they wanted from a relationship and influenced their decisions in the present relationship with each other. Nine couples identified their past relationships as poor and articulated lessons they learned from those relationships when they compared them to their current partners, the relationships seemed much better. Past relationships do not die when couples break-up; the stories and experiences stay with each person as they move onto the next relationship. The next larger narrative that had an impact on the couples’ points of view is religion.

Religious narratives influence understanding of love. Religion is another larger narrative that has influenced seven couples and the way they co-construct love. To these seven couples, religion has taught them what love means and how love should be portrayed to others. Some couples (n = 7) mentioned how important church and God was to their relationship and others were very specific in how God and religion are a part of their relationship. For Connor and Lisa, God is the center of their relationships. Lisa shared: Something that also has been pivotal in our relationship is that we are both Christian and not that relationships can’t work that aren’t but putting God as the center and you know we definitely need to be… we want our love to reflect God’s. Lisa described how important Christianity is to their relationship, so important that she named it as the center of their relationship. Christianity is a huge part of how 59 59 they define and understand love, but also how they negotiate the rest of their relationship as well. Melissa and Scott also had similar statements about how God is where their definition of love stems from. According to Melissa: Well I feel like love first comes from God. He first loved us and he sacrificially you know died, he sent his son to die for us and him and he forgives us and so I feel like love on earth is modeled after how God loves us so I feel like love is unconditionally sacrificially you know him I guess being there for someone caring for them emotionally and physically seeing there for them and being loyal to them and I guess like unconditional care for them in different ways like how God loved us. Melissa described how the definition of God’s love which stems from a religious context, influences her own definition of love. Religious stories come from a larger narrative context which then influence the couple’s own personal story. Their meaning making is shared with this larger religious context. Tim and Sarah also found their definitions of love from Bible scriptures and in finding God. When asked how they would define love, Sarah quoted the Bible verse, 1 Corinthians: “Love is patient, love is kind, love does not boast…” And Tim discussed how Sarah influence his relationship with religion and how that influenced their relationship together: “I was raised Catholic. Okay… but then I met her, I met Sarah and then I found Christ. I found a relationship. And I learned a lot just…as far as love from Christ and how to love a person.” This is an example of two larger narrative contexts coming together from each of their lives and becoming a part of their relationship. Jack and Rose also discussed how religion has influenced the way they see love as an intentional choice (which also is a theme for RQ 2). When asked how 60 60

Jack and Rose defined love, they explained their definition stems from religion. Jack said: That comes from our religious tradition as well. That, at least, the way I understand it is your intentions, your motivations, the reason you do what you do matters perhaps more than what it is that you do. When you apply that to a relationship, when you apply that to somebody you choose to love, that intentionality is very important. Religion has a direct implication to how Jack and Rose and many of the other couples define love and treat love in their relationships. Religion taught them to be intentional with their actions and their love. This influences how they communicate love to one another and create meaning for their actions. These excerpts embody the discussions the seven couples had with each other about how religion has taught them about love. Religion is a larger master narrative that these couples subscribe to that then becomes a part of their narrative and identity. The couples live within this narrative and bring it into their relationship. The master narrative of religion influences how they defined love, chose love, and enact love. The last sub-theme for narratives as larger contexts, is focused on how families become a part of some couples’ love stories.

Familial bonds and their importance to love. A majority of couples (n = 9) also discussed their families as being an important factor in on how they understand love in their romantic relationships. For some, how their romantic partner interacted with their family made them love them or their family values attracted them. Since family is a part of these individual’s values and lives, it became important to them that their partner had the same values or were able to get along with their family. Participants who identified their families as important 61 61 to them also identified this as being impactful to who they choose to love and when their family approves of their partner, it increases their love for them. For Stacy, one of the first times she remembered feeling love for her boyfriend Paul was when he met her family: “I’m trying to remember… there were a couple moments. It was actually after you met my family and we had been hanging out a lot.” She also discussed in her definition of love as, “having the same morals…like familial value, that’s the big one.” To Stacy, those moments when Paul met her family and hung out with them, were defining moments for her and her love for Paul. Paul has the same ideals towards family as she does: “I think the biggest things for me were like I’ve always said, how family-oriented Stacy is and thinking yea this is someone I really really want to spend a lot of time with.” Listening to this conversation, I was able to watch Paul and Stacy connect and agree upon how they understand love. For both of them, family is very important and together they put this as a forefront in their relationship. Kelsey and Tyler had a similar discussion. One of Kelsey’s earliest moments when she realized she loved Tyler was when he met her dad: “I think maybe when I saw you and my dad on prom and my dad shook your hand and you laughed and I was really excited.” A simple handshake was a symbolic act that held much more meaning for Kelsey. Because family is an important value to her, seeing Tyler making a respectful gesture to her father and her father accepting that gesture, increased her feelings for Tyler. Kelsey’s ideal of family influenced how she viewed her relationship with Tyler and when she felt she loved him. For Sharon and Jake, family was even more important to their love story because Sharon had a young daughter before she met Jake. It was important to Sharon that her daughter and Jake had a positive relationship for Sharon and 62 62

Jake’s relationship to progress. Jake said he fell in love with Sharon early on in their dating relationship, but Sharon said her love was not until later: I knew that we clicked well and you complement me well but also I had a kid so I had that like extra component that I had to make sure worked so I think for me, the first like probably 10, 15 interactions he had with Vanessa, like kind of solidified that for me. Sharon had a family of her own by the time she met Jake which influenced the decisions she made in their relationship. Not only was it important that her and Jake worked well together, but also that him and her daughter worked well too. This is an example of how meanings of love are not exclusive to just the couple; but in some instances, they can include other relationships as well. Family was an important factor for these couples and impacted whether or not the relationships would even last. Family values are part of a larger narrative that gives context to how each person views family and brought those values to the relationship and held as a standard for their love. Viewing family as an important value is part of a master narrative that was passed on through generations and becomes a part of an individual’s narrative. This part of the narrative then influences how each person views love. Familial bonds, religion, and past romantic relationships all were important larger narrative contexts that influenced the love stories of many couples in this study. Relationships do not happen within a vacuum; they take place within many different contexts and are influenced by many other stories that have built up over a person’s lifetime. These larger narratives are very important to understand how these couples operate within their relationships and understand love. Along with the larger narrative contexts, how couples enact love on a day-to-day basis is also 63 63 greatly important in understanding how they co-construct love. The second theme within RQ1 is love is an action.

Love is an Action When I asked couples how they communicated love to each other, I received many different answers. But as I began making a list of all the different ways the couples communicated love, I began to see an over-arching theme between them: love is an action. Couples (n=12) described different ways they communicated love as being intentional and actions that took place in their relationships on a regular basis. These examples reflect how couples communicate love through the “doing” of their relationship. A total of eleven couples described their love as an action. Under this theme are three sub-themes: quality time, gifts, and affection.

Quality time. Couples (n=6) included spending quality time as a way they communicated love. Quality time did not mean just being physically near each other, but actually being present with one another. Matt and Jennifer talked about this in their interview. They both have actually read Chapman’s Love Languages and were aware of their own love languages; for Jennifer, she received quality time. She talks about how important this is to her in the interview: “I want to, let’s go to the beach together, let’s drive to the mountains together. That to me is quality time. Not like us sitting here and me reading a book and him playing video games.” Here Jennifer drew the boundaries on what quality time really means to her. She made a distinction between what is acceptable as quality time and what is not acceptable. What couples distinguish as not acceptable for quality time is just as important because this creates more distinct rules about what counts as quality time. 64 64

Jessica also talked about how sometimes she and her husband have to make time to spend quality time together: Well actually on Friday, I made time. I was like, ‘We need to go to dinner.’ I knew we hadn’t and you know, to me, it’s hard when the kids are always here and you have kids, it’s harder for us to make time for each other. Jessica’s quote is a good example of how quality time means there is intention behind making the decision to be with one’s spouse. She emphasized that they make time for each other outside of being with their kids. The intention and spending time just the two of them is what counts as quality time for them. Jack and Rose also addressed the importance of intention as they had to especially make the effort to spend quality time together because their relationship was long distance for years. Rose said that Jack would always set aside the time to talk to her on the phone every night. Jack also said: We’d rather do something fun than get each other gifts because it’s that quality time together that’s important, that’s memorable, that is valuable to us… that intentionality is there and I think that’s important and I think we both recognize that in each other. Jack and Rose pointed out how quality time can be a very important inaction of love; more so than other symbolic practices, like gift giving. Even when they are not in person, they still spend quality time by talking on the phone every night. This is an example of how each couples’ definition of quality time is unique to their own relationship. These three couples nicely summarize the discussions about quality time and how important it is to many couples. Quality time can be an important way of communicating love to each other, but the definition of quality time is unique to each couple. For some it is making time to go to dinner without kids, or making a 65 65 special trip together, or just a phone call for others. Whatever counts as quality time is distinguished between the couple and becomes a part of how they express love. The intent of purposefully choosing to be with one’s spouse is just one way of actively showing love on a daily basis. For other couples, they more tangible representations of love like gifts; this is the next sub-theme, giving gifts.

Giving gifts. The second sub-theme is giving gifts. Couples (n=5) discussed gifts as one way they communicate love. Gifts are not always monetary gifts; they can be writing love notes, making lunch for the other person, etc. Four of the five couples write love notes to their partners as a way of giving a gift. The little notes act as surprises and uplifting. Matt said this about giving his wife, Jennifer gifts: “Any time I want her to be happy I know exactly that that’s all I have to do is just leave her a note or bring her flowers.” Sarah does something similar for Tim; she makes his lunch for him every night and leaves a banana and “writes on his bananas every day.” This has become a norm in their household, but Sarah explains that she does it, “not because I have to but because I choose to.” Similarly, Diana also used to leave notes for her husband, Steve: “I used to leave him love notes all around the house all the time…I used to leave them on the fridge when the kids were little.” The gifts that the couples talked about were never anything lavish or extravagant, but they were meaningful and heartfelt. They were given because they knew they would make the other person happy. It had become a ritual in theses couples’ households to leave notes for their partner. These notes symbolize love for the couples. For other couples, love was understood through touch and affection. The next sub-theme is affection. 66 66

Affection. Couples (n=9) mentioned that one way they communicate love is through physical touch or affection, this ranges anywhere from holding hands, a kiss goodnight, or cuddling. For Janice and Simon, they have been together for so long, that they do not even tell each other “I love you” that often, but Simon said: “When I was dating her, I always kissed her goodnight. I can’t go to sleep without that kiss, still.” The same goes for Ben and Olivia; they also kiss goodnight every night before they go to sleep. Ben and Olivia and Steve and Diana both also mentioned they hold hands often. Diana mentions in their interview that, “[Steve’s] always holding my hand.” For these three couples, subtle affection became one of the ways they communicated love. Each time the couples would kiss or hold hands, they were cultivating feelings of love, without having to verbalize it. Kelsey also mentioned in their interview, that Tyler will use affection to make her feel better: “Like when I’m upset or something like you’ll come over and you’ll just like rub my back or something.” Physical affection for Kelsey is a way of evoking positive feelings for her. In their relationship, they have a joint understanding that affection is way of showing that they care for one another. These forms of affection described by each couple are just another way they enact love for one another. There is a mutual understanding between these couples that a kiss, a back rub, or holding hands are symbols of love. According to the couples of this study, love is communicated and co- created through larger narratives and everyday actions. Larger narratives such as religion and family, are the context in which the relationship lives. The everyday actions like making time for one another, giving gifts, and showing affection, are ways the couple communicate love to one another. 67 67

To answer RQ 1 (how do couples co-construct love?) two major themes developed: love stories exist within larger narrative contexts and love is an action. The first theme consisted of three sub-themes that described three master narratives that reiterate into their relationships. These master narratives give context to each individual’s life and how they co-construct their meaning of love with their partner. The master narratives discussed were: comparing and contrasting narratives of past relationships, religious narratives influence understanding of love, and familial bonds and their importance to love. The second theme was love is an action. This theme consisted of the everyday actions that were intentionally used to communicate love. Couples understood love as being something that they had to “do” not something that just existed. This theme was divided into three sub-themes as well: quality time, gifts, and affection. The following research question explores how couples define love.

RQ 2: How do couples define love? Love can be defined in many ways and as some couples in this study mentioned, it can sometimes seem impossible to think of a specific definition when love seems to be a totality of many different emotions and characteristics. It was important to this study to understand how couples define love in order to understand how the couples shape their relationship around their understanding of what love is to them. How love is defined in the relationship influences how couples enact love and operate in their day-to-day interactions with their romantic partner. The themes for RQ1 greatly influence the themes for RQ2. The larger narrative contextualizes, and understanding love as an action influences, how couples define love in the first place. 68 68

For many couples, they would concentrate on certain concepts or words that defined love to them. Common words that would pop up were: trust, compatibility, commitment, intimacy, humor, etc. There were also certain ideologies that were discussed over and over again, like doing chores for one another is important and love grows over time. Many couples explained they understood love is when their partner would do chores around the house for them, take care of their kids, surprise their partner with flowers and so on. All of these examples that the couples gave were different types of actions; which became the theme love is an action. These couples believed love is more than an emotion; it was the physical actions that take place on a day-to-day basis that make one another feel good. Most couples also recognized that their love for each other grew stronger over time, going from a liking to loving, and growing into a stronger love the longer they had been together. Three major themes and six sub-themes captured how couples defined love. The first theme is love is evolving and focuses on how couples recognize that love is not stagnant and changes over time. As part of this theme, three sub-themes were created: love grows stronger, lust to love, and love grows as the family grows. The second theme is love is a choice. This theme focuses on the belief that love is not so much an emotion, but an intentional choice. The last theme is love is altruistic. This theme consisted of three sub-themes: unconditional, selfless, and worthy of love. In this theme, couples defined their love as being other-centered and unconditional. All of these themes and sub-themes were how majority of the couples defined love according to their relationship. 69 69 Love is Evolving A majority of couples from this study (n = 11) discussed their love growing over time for one another. To them, love is not stagnant and has developed greatly over the span of their relationship. Three sub-themes that appeared during these discussions were: love grows stronger, love grows from lust into love, and having kids impacts their love to take on a different form. For all of these couples the changes to their love was a positive. There was always a sense that whether they had kids or had been together for 20 years, their love had endured and grew stronger from their experiences together.

Love grows stronger. As mentioned above, all of the couples in this theme believed their love has grown stronger, but for the couples (n=4) of this sub-theme in particular took notice of their love growing. Their comments were more general statements about their love developing over time. For Steve and Diana, they were not even sure how to describe this change, they just knew that it happened. Steve explained: “I don’t know if it’s chemistry or what it is but it gets stronger, I do know that…it definitely gets stronger.” Even though Steve and Diana are not able to fully comprehend or explain what it is that makes their love grow stronger, just having a joint understanding of their love growing stronger, is enough to become a part of their love story. By narratively telling about their love growing stronger, they make themselves believe that it is. Similarly, Jack and Rose discussed the notion of their love growing stronger over time and that it’s not something that happens in an instant. According to Jack, I don’t think love is anything like sort of you flip a switch and you just know at some point. It was something that happened, at least for me, gradually over time. The more and more time that we spent together I just 70 70

recognized every time that we were together that I cared so much about her and that I valued her so much. Jack pointed out an important point here, which is love doesn’t just happen in a moment, it gradually grows and changes as the relationship grows. Eventually for him, he began to recognize the feelings he was having over time and distinguished those feelings as love. As discussed in other parts of this thesis, love encompasses many different feelings and it is when a person or couple decides to label those feelings as “love,” is when it becomes love. Just as when Jack recognized his care for Rose and how much he valued her, to him that was love. Ben and Olivia also had the same experience of feeling the want to be with someone the more they were together. Ben claimed, “The more that we were together, the more I liked being with her, I wanted to be with her.” Over time, love grew stronger due to the amount of time Ben and Olivia spent together. For Connor and Lisa, their love grew from a place of friendship and grew into a stronger, more romantic love: Lisa shared: “Yeah I would say for lack of a better word, ‘brotherly love’ because I don’t know if it was necessarily he felt like my brother but that kind of friendship love was probably pretty quick.” Connor and Lisa had been friends for years and grew up knowing each other’s families so for them, they always had a strong friendship and that was the beginning of their love. There was a distinction for them between a friendship type of love that later grew into a stronger romantic love. For these four couples, they certainly noticed that their love had grown over time, whether that was from friendship or just a building of emotions that eventually became recognized as love. Similar to these couples, six other couples noticed that their love changed over time too, from lust to a stronger romantic love. 71 71

From lust to love. These next excerpts from different couples (n=6) demonstrate that the couples differentiated between lustful feelings in the beginning of their relationships and “actual” love. According to the couples, lustful feelings included a stronger want to be together, butterflies, the feeling of something new, and infatuation. The change that took place over time was that those lustful feelings dissipated and love grew stronger. Jack had an interesting way of explaining the lustful wanting to be with that person you have at the beginning of a relationship: I also feel like just at the beginning of any relationship that you try to spend as much time as you possibly can with the person. Not that we don’t do that now, I honestly think we do, but there’s just a different sort of sense of urgency. Even though Jack and his girlfriend Rose still spend plenty of time together, he explains that “urgency” one feels during the lust stage. When a couple is lusting after one another, it seems like you want to spend every moment you can with them, but over time that “urgency” fades. Just as the want to hang out all the time fades, so do the butterflies as Matt states: “People think it’s like, ‘oh it’s those butterflies. It’s those excited to see you’ and that fades away after two or three years.” This is another example of the infatuation and butterflies that begin at the start of a relationship and fade out over time. Matt even acknowledges that there is a general assumption among people that love is “those butterflies” but since it fades, that is more likely lust than love. Another participant, Tim, stated he did not even think love was possible when he first met his wife Sarah: “I personally don’t think at that age I loved her but I think it was…you know, lusting…there’s no way I’d know what love is. 72 72

Love is a commitment you know? Lover over time… love grows over a period of time.” Tim and his wife Sarah met when they were in high school and Tim discussed that he thought he was at a young age where it was impossible to even understand love since it includes commitment and is something that grows over time. Instead, he believed what he felt at that young age was lust. Janice and Simon also recognized that their relationship began with infatuation but grew to a stronger love: “I think love is something that grows. It’s something you start out infatuated and everything but it grows.” Simon responded: “We’re just part of each other as time goes on. I don’t know… that love is still there, very strong.” When Simon and Janice met in college, they believed they were just stuck in infatuation. But now after they have been married for over 60 years, they are just a part of each other and have a strong love for each other. Though most couples find that the butterflies and lust phase of a relationship is the easiest and happiest part, after that fades it can become more complicated. Just as these next two couples explain, a relationship may start out with butterflies but you have to work at the rest of the relationship. Sharon discussed the shift from the infatuation stage to a more serious stage of the relationship: Yeah ‘cause before it’s just, you know, you’re dating and you get to dinner, go to the movies, and barbecue and then when you move in and get engaged, you have jobs, bills, but I would say… I’d say stronger like I know that we can endure, I feel like everything that’s been added on, has kind of set a bigger foundation. As Sharon explained, during the lust and dating phase, most couples spend time doing fun things together and then once they settle down together, reality begins to set in. For her and her husband Jake though, they felt all of the realities and 73 73 struggles they faced demonstrated to them that they could endure those struggles and set a stronger foundation for their love and relationship. Lastly, Rebecca and Alan did a good job of summing up how couples deal with the lust stage fading: “It was something new.” And Alan responded: “To which you gotta find new ways because that isn’t exactly 100% there as much as it used to be… you gotta find new ways to just enjoy things together and fall in love with.” Alan’s comments speak to the concept that love is jointly constructed and constantly reconstructed by couples. They have to work together to build on their love and to sustain it throughout their relationship. As the past six couples have demonstrated, most couples experience a lustful stage in the beginning of their relationship and that all fades over time. I use Rebecca and Alan’s excerpt as the last because they explain well how couples deal with the butterflies and lust fading; couples have to find new ways to find those butterflies and ways to make them excited about their relationship again. Most importantly, because love continually grows and changes, couples sometimes have to find ways to fall in love with one another again because love does not stay at the same level forever.

Love grows as the family grows. As love grows from lust into a stronger love as the relationship goes, these couples (n=3) specifically mentioned their love growing even more once children were brought into the family. Having children added another special dimension to their relationship and changed how each spouse viewed the other. The couples described their love as growing more mature, stronger, and having to share love between the couple and their children. 74 74

Matt and Jennifer were a newly married couple and Jennifer was pregnant with their first child at the time of their interview; they were already experiencing a change in their love: Everything you [Jennifer] do now I think of how good a mom you’re going to be… I feel like our love is changing now. It’s not going to be us anymore. We’re going to gauge our love. Not only between the intimate, just you and me time, but also how you care for my child and how I care for your child. In this excerpt, Matt was turned towards Jennifer explaining how he already was experiencing seeing his wife in a different way and feeling his love grow in a new way with their child on the way. Connor and Lisa also explained that child birth was an important turning point in their love. Lisa said: Then each year we’ve been together… and once we had Luke and we experienced child birth together and we had this baby in our arms… that was my first blood relative that I know is Luke… and so that Connor was able to give that to me has changed my love for him too just like made it stronger. For Lisa, having their son Luke was even more special because she was an adopted child and he was going to be her first blood relative she knew. Not only did her love grow to include Luke, but also made her love grow stronger for her husband Connor. Jessica and Kaleb explained how having kids has made them more responsible: “Now there’s two kids, and you know, kinda show them maybe how a married couple should be type thing. Be an example. So I think it’s evolved in a more responsible and more love.” Children also functioned to deepen Jessica and 75 75

Kaleb’s love into a more mature, responsible sort of love and has made them consider how they love each other is an example for their children. Peter and Ashley discussed how having children also means you have to share your love. Peter said: My love’s grown greater. I didn’t love kids at the beginning at all in a way whatsoever. I gave them to her because I loved her and I was like oh, or I had kids with her because I loved her and I was like okay, I’m okay with this. Ashley responded with, “I think it’s different now because he has to share my love. Because I give them most of that.” Unlike the other couples, Peter explains that he did not want kids in the beginning of their relationship, but his love for Ashley was the deciding factor. Peter and Ashley’s dialogue also demonstrates that having children for them means reallocating their love. Ashley states that she gives most of her love to their children and has to share that love with Peter as well. Eleven couples out the 15 interviewed discussed the theme of love growing over time. Couples recognized that their love grew stronger the longer they had been together. They also distinguished a difference between lust in the beginning of their relationships—having butterflies, being infatuated—and a stronger type of love. Three couples specifically discussed children being another turning point for their love. Having children added a new dimension to the relationship; couples experienced more love for their partner, sharing their love between their partner and children, and their love becoming more mature. The next theme to be discussed is love is a choice. Couples in this theme discussed their intentionally choice to love their partner. 76 76 Love is a Choice There were couples (n=6) who discussed love as being a choice and commitment. In other interviews, there were nuances of love being a choice, but to not stretch interpretations too far, I only chose the six interviews that explicitly stated love being a choice and/or commitment. Choice and commitment are combined under this one theme because in order to be committed to someone, you have to choose to be committed; commitment takes work and involves the choice to stay with that person. This theme, love is a choice, represents the intentionality behind love. Throughout the interviews, love was also discussed in accordance with emotions and attraction, feelings that sometimes come without our control. In the previous theme—love grows from lust to love—participants commented on those attractions, butterflies, and other lustful feelings as being fleeting in long- term relationship; and they made a point to separate those from love. Lustful feelings come without much work, but after they are gone, choosing to commit and love someone takes intention. These couples discuss the intentionality that drives them to love one another. Jack and Rose said it best when explaining how they choose to love each other: “We both had to remind ourselves that we have chosen to love this person and we have to continue to choose that every single day… it’s something you choose and choose to extend to other people.” Jack explained during our interview that him and his girlfriend have discussed that they have chosen each other and in a broader context, we all choose who we extend our love to. His first sentence shows that making that part of making that choice also means having to remind each other about that choice. During Matt’s definition of love, he also listed choice as part of his definition: “I think love is when you choose someone. You choose someone 77 77 because of who they are…you can say ‘I’m going to choose to be faithful to you. I’m going to choose to be a better person for you.’” Matt points out that to him, when choosing to love someone, that choice also includes choosing to be faithful and a better person to his wife. Stacy and Paul were another couple who discussed the importance of being committed to each other. Stacey said: “Also commitment is huge, like, you can’t have love without commitment so I feel like you have to be committed to a person.” To Stacy, love and commitment are tethered together and love cannot exist without being committed to each other. Lastly, Sarah stated: “Love isn’t an emotion. Love is a choice… because we can have feelings for people… love is a choice.” Sarah’s statement simply points out the meaning behind this theme: we can have feelings for anyone, but loving someone is a choice that includes intention. So far love can be defined as growing stronger over time and being a choice and committing to loving one another. Participants also described love as being selfless, unconditional, and worth it; these three terms sum up the next theme, love is altruistic.

Love is Altruistic As I was reading through transcripts, I kept noticing words like: “unconditional,” “selfless,” and “worth.” The commonality among these terms is that participants are viewing love for their partner in an altruistic way. This notion of an altruistic love was defined by Lee (1976) in his Love Styles as the agape love style. Lee (1976) described the agape love style as a mixture between eros and storge (romantic and friendship) types of love that were focused on serving one’s partner. Lee (1976) wrote, “the truly agapic lover gives the kind of loving 78 78 which the beloved needs, regardless of the benefits or difficulties involved for the lover” (p. 151). In conversations with these couples (n=8), it was clear that many of them had an unselfish kind of love for their spouse. Under this theme, three sub-themes emerged: unconditional, selfless, and worth.

Unconditional. Of the eight couples who mentioned altruism, four (n=4) of them described their love as being unconditional. To them, loving unconditionally meant even if they or their partner messed up or times got tough, they would love each other no matter what. Jessica described her love with Kaleb as unconditional because they forgive one another: You don’t hold grudges. To me, it’s almost like you just, to a certain extent no matter how much wrong they do, you just forgive them…you’re not just gonna leave and give up the first time things get hard or if they continue to get hard. For Jessica, what makes her love unconditional is that she forgives her husband even if he does something wrong. Her definition of unconditional love also brings in the value of commitment; which was already discussed as part of the love is a choice theme. No matter how tough the relationship may get, Jessica makes it a point that they do not give up. Kelsey and Tyler shared the same sentiment about unconditional love. When discussing their definition of love, Kelsey told Tyler, “Being comfortable but like an unconditional love. Like, even though I like will mess up or piss you off or something, you still love me.” For this couple, part of loving each other unconditionally means loving each other even when they mess up or make each other angry. 79 79

Rebecca’s definition of love did not explicitly list unconditional love, but her definition does capture the same sentiment as the other excerpts in this sub- theme. She stated: “When you’re together you’re constantly growing and finding out who you are individually and so when you love someone I feel like you kind of take all of them.” She sees herself as accepting all of her husband Alan even as each of them grow throughout their relationship. To Rebecca, be accepting of Alan no matter how he may change, is a way of loving him unconditionally. For Tim and Sarah, they also believe in order to have a successful love, it must be unconditional. Sarah said, “You have to take your eyes off yourself…unconditional love. Being able to set aside those things and say well despite this no matter what, I’m going to love you unconditionally.” Sarah and Tim both discussed their love as being unconditional for each other and in Sarah’s statement she connects loving each other unconditionally to being selfless. In order to love unconditionally, the couple has to be selfless and agree to love their partner regardless of any differences or selfishness. Sarah’s quote is a good summarization of the meaning of unconditional love and also shows the connection between unconditional love and selflessness. Four couples defined their love as being unconditional and three defined their love as selfless. As Sarah’s quote shows, unconditional love could stem from being selfless, but not all couples that described their love as selfless described it as unconditional. Although they are similar, some couples defined their love as one or the other.

Selfless. The couples who defined their love as unconditional, described it as “I’ll love you no matter what” but the couples who define their love as selfless, describe it as “I’ll do anything for you.” As for the couples (n=4) who described 80 80 this selflessness demonstrate, selflessness in love is more about doing things and wanting certain things for the other person without being concerned about yourself. Simon described selflessness as being a big part of his marriage to Janice: “I think one of the best things in a marriage is not being selfish… I just wanted everything for her because she was somebody that I loved.” Being selfless is a positive in Simon and Janice’s marriage and something that happens because they love each other. Connor and Lisa described their selflessness as being willing to make sacrifices for each other: “When I think of love I think of being willing to do anything for that person, sacrifice anything and do anything for them. Connor’s discussion of his willingness to do anything for his wife shows that they believe love is being selfless and taking action in their relationship. Peter had a very similar definition to Connor’s: “My definition of love is I’ll do anything for them and I’ll be there for them anytime.” Peter believed that love also meant being willing to do anything for his wife and their children. These three couples described a willingness to do anything for and sacrifice for their spouses and families because they loved them. Selflessness is part of this altruistic meaning that couples believe is a part of love along with unconditional love. Differently than unconditional love, selflessness takes willingness to act and sacrifice. When reading these excerpts for unconditional love and selflessness, it makes you wonder how someone can love someone else this strongly to the point of wanting to do anything for them no matter what. Something that came up among a couple of interviews is the worth of their partner and this sheds light on why couples feel this altruistic type of love for one another. 81 81

Worthy of love. Among the eight couples who fit under this category of altruistic love, three of them (n=3) discussed why they love their partner or choose to be with them and it is because they believe their partner is “worth it.” They place value on their love and believe that their partner is worthy of that love. For Tyler and Kelsey, they live in separate towns, which means extra travel time to see each other and extra effort. Tyler explained that one of the ways he knew he loved Kelsey was that she was worth the extra drive: “And what makes it was because like in two different towns so like we like hang out like I had to know she was worth driving.” Kelsey and Tyler were also one of the couples to talk about their love being unconditional. Loving each other unconditionally became a part of their understanding of love, which grew from acknowledging that each of them were worthy of love. Matt and Jen discussed that they chose each other to be worthy of their love: “I feel like it’s choosing someone who even through tough times you’re worth it.” For Matt, he believes because he thinks his wife is worthy of going through tough times, he is willing to choose to love her. For Connor and Lisa, being willing to sacrifice anything for one another, demonstrates that they are both worthy of love. Connor said this in their interview: “When I think of love, I think of being willing to do anything for that person, sacrifice anything and do anything for them.” Connor believes in doing anything for Lisa because she is worth it. Sacrificing for each other becomes acceptable in their relationship because they tell each other they are worth it. The eight couples who described their love as altruistic, feel a selfless, unconditional love for their partner because they believe they are worth it. These couples make the choice to love their partners no matter what tough situation they 82 82 may encounter. For these couples, their love is centered around the other person and comes from a place of care and selflessness. To answer RQ 2 (how do couples define love?) three themes emerged. The first theme, love is evolving, explains how couples understand their love develops over time from lust to love (one sub-theme), love grows stronger (sub-theme), and love grows as the family grows (another sub-theme). The second theme focuses on how couples intentionally choose to love one another and negates the notion that love just happens; this theme is love is a choice. The last theme is love is altruistic. Under this theme, three sub-themes describe the other-centered type of love some couples described: unconditional, selfless, and worthy of love. These themes along with the themes from RQ 1--love stories exist within larger narrative (comparing and contrasting narratives of past relationships, religious narratives influence understanding of love, familial bonds and their importance of love) and love is an action (quality time, gifts, affection)—represent how the 15 couples interviewed understand their meaning of love and discursively create their love stories together. The following chapter will expand on these results with a discussion of a connection with other literature and the impact of these findings within communication scholarship.

CHAPTER 4: DISCUSSION & CONCLUSION

The purpose of this thesis was to understand how couples co-construct the meaning of love in their relationships. I was able to observe couples jointly discussing how they communicate and define love by conducting open-ended interviews with 15 couples and using narrative theory to understand the data. The first research question (how do couples co-construct love?) yielded two themes: love stories exist within larger narrative contexts and love is an action. There were three larger narratives that the participants discussed as providing context and influencing how they understood love: comparing and contrasting narratives of past relationships, religious narratives, and familial bonds. How couples discussed their understanding of love and how they express that love, has been influenced over time by what they experienced in past relationships. Usually negative experiences from past relationships are used as comparisons to current relationships as a way to understand that the current relationship is love or better love than the previous relationship. Religious beliefs also mold the definitions of love. Those who discussed having strong religious beliefs discussed how their definition of love stems from religious teachings. Lastly, the sub-theme of familial bonds demonstrates that a couple’s love is not limited to just the couple; having children and similar family values shaped how couples defined and communicated love. Their love was not just defined by how the two spouses or partners interacted, but how they interacted with their families as well. These three larger narratives created context for the relationship and were brought in by each partner and woven into the relational narrative. The second theme for RQ1 was love is an action. This theme focused on how couples communicate love in their day-to-day lives. The three actions that 84 84 were relevant to the couples were: quality time, gifts, and affection. These three sub-themes were summed up as intentional actions that the participants would enact in their everyday lives for their significant other. Spending time together, leaving notes, and holding hands were just some examples of how couples would demonstrate their love for one another. These small acts were how couples were “doing” their relationships. The themes for RQ1 demonstrate that the love narratives couples co-create are based on larger narratives outside of the relationship and on a smaller scope, everyday acts that communicate love and reflect back onto the relationship the rules for how couples communicate love. RQ2 asked how the couples defined love. Every definition of love is couple specific based on the larger narratives from RQ1 and their unique relational culture. Though each couple’s specific definition varied, there remained a number of similarities. These three themes were most common among the definitions of love: love is evolving, love is a choice, and love is altruistic. The first theme focused on how couples recognized their love fluctuates over time. For them, their love grows from lust to a stronger love over time and continues to evolve as their family grows. Many couples were also very adamant that they chose to love each other and continue to make this choice every day in their relationship—which became the second theme, love is a choice. The last theme, love is altruistic, was developed by couples defining their love as unconditional, selfless, and describing their partner as being worthy of love. In each of the interviews, couples would also define their love with words like “commitment,” and “trust” but these three themes were the most consistent throughout all of the interviews. There were commonalities between these themes and past love research as well as new, unique findings that add to this body of literature in important ways. In the 85 85 following paragraphs, connections with past research will be made and a discussion of a new perspective on love will be presented.

Discussion As this thesis is situated in the interpretive paradigm, the research questions were developed to understand how couples create understandings of love from the point of view of the participants themselves rather than exploring any causal relationships between love and relationship. Narrative theory is one interpretive framework that allows us to understand how participants make sense of the world around them and how they talk or narrate the world and their experiences (Koenig Kellas, 2008). In this theoretical framework “story” simply does not tell about everyday experience, story is everyday experience. Stories create personal identities and relational identities and narrative theory is used to examine how those stories construct, reject, and negotiate those identities (Koenig Kellas, 2008). I wanted to understand how couples jointly tell their stories about love and how they create their relational narrative about what love means to them (and that in turn dictates how they “love” each other) thus warranting my two research questions. In the results for RQ1, couples discussed how larger social narratives give context to their relationship and influence how they co-construct their love story. Everyday actions, like gifts and affection, also create and maintain their love. The results for RQ2 explain how couples build an understanding of what love means to them. Couples discussed their understandings of love as something that grows over time, is a choice, and is unconditional. Telling stories about personal relationships are two-fold: these definitions are how couples make sense of love and discuss it out loud, which then in turn talking about it recreates and adds to their narrative. The following sections will focus on discussing the use of 86 86 narrative theory to understand love and discuss the results of this current study and how it contributes to past and future research on relationships and love.

How Narrative Theory Helps Us Understand Love The nature of interpretivist work is to focus on understanding the unique, specific stories of people, rather than explaining why social behavior happens using law-like generalizations (Miller, 2005). This study focused on just that. While there are connections among the 15 couples’ stories, each of them produced unique stories about their relationships and how they love one another. Each of the couples created their own realities of their relationships through these unique stories. Narratives are used as a way to talk about the world around us to help us understand it and as the narratives are spoken they are in turn creating and recreating realities (Bochner, 1994). Narrative theory looks at how stories are used to perform and negotiate meaning (Bochner, 1994). Stories are used as a way of “telling” and “knowing” about the world around us (Bochner, 1994). Therefore, narrative theory does not treat stories as just a way of transmitting information about a given reality, but stories constitute our reality (Bochner, 1994). In this study, narrative theory is useful in understanding how the couples talk about their relationships in order to understand them and how their stories create the reality of their relationship. In order to understand how couples co-construct love (RQ 1) and narratively define love together (RQ 2), narrative theory allows us to examine how couples tell stories together and to pay attention to what types of stories couples choose to tell, and thus, create the reality of their love. Bochner (2002) stated that narrative theory should be used to examine what stories do for us. In this current study, the narratives told by the participants demonstrated how 87 87 narratives create a larger context for the relationship and smaller stories about events gave meaning to the relationship. Fisher (1987) described how narratives exist in a larger historical context. In the first theme for RQ 1 the couples described larger narratives which created context to their narrative about their love. These larger narratives created their realities and influenced how they understood love. Love narratives do not exist only within the relationship, but within the larger contexts of narratives that create couple’s reality. For the couples in this study those larger contextual narratives were religion, past relationships, and family. Within each of these larger narratives and the narratives about the couple’s love, were also smaller stories. Stories can be thought of as smaller parts of a couple’s narrative that focus on smaller, noteworthy events important to the narrative of their relationship (Koenig Kellas, 2008). Stories told by the couples create and sustain the narrative of who they are “as a couple.” Stories about when they first felt love for each other, first said “I love you” and stories about their everyday actions of love construct their relational culture. As Wood (1982) described it, relational culture arises out of communication and is sustained through communication. For example, when couples tell stories about how their love has grown stronger over time (theme for RQ 2) these stories reinforce that part of their relational culture, that they are a stronger, enduring couple now than when they first began dating. Also, when couples tell stories about how they enact love, like leaving love notes for each other or holding hands, those stories enforce rituals within the relationship. By telling these stories of acts or events in the relationship creates the relationship in the moment and helps to sustain the couple’s identity and understanding of their role in the relationship. 88 88

We not only use stories to describe our world, but we also use them to seek out and negotiate a morality—a reasoning or purpose to understand our reality. One theme specifically stood among the rest as a demonstration of how couples look for a moral to their relational story. The sub-theme comparing and contrasting narratives of past relationships was stories of couples comparing and contrasting past relationships with their current relationship. All of the couples who discussed past relationships talked about how bad their previous relationship was due to dissatisfaction, not being in a healthy relationship, and so on. Then the couples would talk about how they learned from that relationship and in comparison, how much better their current relationship is. For them, the moral of the story was not to be with a partner who treated them like their ex; and part of the reason why their current relationship is so much better is because they are with someone who is not like their ex-partner. Stories help couples make sense of their relationship and telling the stories out loud creates and sustains their relational culture. Other larger narratives, like religion and family, also contributed to couples’ negotiated morality about love. Religious and family values influence how couples jointly create moral reasoning about how they love each other. There are many, many stories that contribute to a couple’s narrative and therefore there are many to choose from when they tell someone about their relationship. So, not only is it important to pay attention to how they tell their story, but also paying attention to which stories they choose to tell and which not to tell. The themes of the interviews represent the most common stories that were told by all fifteen couples. Each story was unique in its own way and there were many other stories that were also told that were not listed in the results. The stories that the couples chose to tell me were the stories they felt were valuable and represented them as a couple. The stories told by the couples were 89 89 overwhelmingly positive. Even when asked about challenges to their love or to the relationship in general, couples would briefly discuss conflicts they have had but made the point to distinguish that those conflicts were not a part of their love. This demonstrates that couples may have an idealized version of their love that they choose to portray to certain audiences. Because they were in front of me, the researcher, they may have chosen stories about their love that saved face or represented their idealized version of love over stories that portrayed the darker side of love. Narrative theory allows us to look at how couples tell stories together to negotiate their relationship and to create and sustain love for one another, as well as contest understandings of love. Their stories about how they love each other adds to the overall relational narrative.

RQ 1: How do couples co-construct love?

Love stories exist within larger narrative contexts: How religion, past relationships, and family are part of story construction. The first theme under research question one is love stories exist within larger narratives. This theme developed after many couples discussed other aspects of their lives as being influences on how they understood love in their current relationship. Relationships exist within social contexts and are influenced by those social contexts (Kelley, 2012). Social networks are part of the social contexts in which relationships receive guidance and influence (Schmeeckle & Sprecher, 2004). Social networks include family, friends, extended family, and basically anyone who is a part of an individual’s life. Certain aspects of social networks—network density, network overlap, size of the network, and social reactions to the relationship—impact the relationship between couples (Schmeeckle & Sprecher, 2004). Social networks 90 90 can send couples messages of support, give them information, and even interfere in the relationship (Schmeeckle & Sprecher, 2004). Religion, past relationships, and family are all part of social networks for couples in this study. These social networks are a part of creating a larger narrative, which gives context to the relationships of the couples. Past relationships continue to be carried with us as we move through life (Baxter, 2010). Even though the relationship may have ended, the memories and lessons that may have been learned through that relationship stay with us. Past relationships become a part of our narratives, which continue to influence our present and future interactions. Baxter (2004) borrowed the term “chronotope” from Bahktin to describe how our language and narratives reflect time. Relational dialogue contains constraints from the past and in enacting the present, couples create implications for future behavior (Baxter, 2004). Clearly throughout the interviews of this study past relationships influence the couples’ current relationship. Couples discussed comparing and contrasting their past relationships to their current partners. Most of the couples discussed how bad their past relationships were for specific reasons and how their present relationship does not have the same negative characteristics. According to Merolla, Weber, Myers, and Booth-Butterfield (2004) solidarity and satisfaction in past relationships can influence couples’ current satisfaction and commitment in their subsequent relationship. The reasons for why couples break up can also affect future satisfaction and commitment. When couples break up because they grew apart or due to lack of satisfaction, there was a stronger correlation between past solidarity and commitment and satisfaction in future relationships (Merolla et al., 2004). Therefore, when couples end a relationship because they grew apart or because they are not satisfied, they are more likely to feel more satisfied and more 91 91 committed in their next relationship. Participants within the current study mentioned the dissatisfaction in their past relationship and how their current relationship (all of them were in the relationship following the break-up) was more satisfying. For example, Matt and Jennifer discussed how their relationship differed from their previous relationships, which were more volatile. For Jennifer, she described her previous relationship as being insecure and there was always the threat of her boyfriend breaking up with her. But with Matt, she felt safe and secure in their relationship. Matt also described his feelings for Jennifer as being something he had never felt with past girlfriends. These comparisons to past relationships are what first began their conceptualization of love in their relationship. Having such positive feelings and experiences within their relationship, in comparison to negative feelings and experiences with past relationships, helped shape how Matt and Jennifer understood their relationship. These results compliment Kelley (2012) and Merolla et al.’s (2004) research that relationships do not happen within a vacuum but are part of social context. Part of that social context is the relationships we have been a part of; whether that is in the past or present. As demonstrated by Matt and Jennifer’s interview, and by eight other couples, past relationships are carried forward into the next relationship and can even be used as a marker on which to gauge how the relationship is going. By comparing and contrasting present relationships with past ones, couples differentiated between what made the past relationship unsuccessful and dissatisfying and what was satisfying about the present relationship. The stories of past relationships for each partner converge together and become a part of their current relational story; guiding descriptions of how they fit together, how they 92 92 define love, and why their relationship is better than the last. Although past relationship partners are most likely not a part of the participants’ social networks now, they were at one time. The discussion of comparing and contrasting past relationships shows that even those who are no longer an active part in our social networks can still have influence on our future relationships. This is just one part of a larger narrative that produces context to relationships. Another part of the larger narrative for participants is religion. Seven of the 15 couples interviewed discussed how important religion was to their relationship. Connor and Lisa described their Christianity being “pivotal” to their relationship and others described how their religion influenced their understanding of love. Having religious beliefs can significantly impact partners’ outlook on relationships. In fact, people who are more religious report being three times more likely than those who are less religious to let their religion greatly influence them in deciding when and who to marry (Sigalow, Shain, & Bergey, 2012). There have also been findings that show people who are more religious are more compassionate (Sprecher & Fehr, 2005). Due to religious teachings and beliefs, those who are religious tend to focus more on caring and concern and support for other people (Sprecher & Fehr, 2005). When this caring and support is practiced, compassionate love evolves; thus, the study concluded that people who are religious experience more compassionate love (Sprecher & Fehr, 2005). This compassionate love emerged in the interviews with the couples from this study as well. As couples discussed their love manifesting from religious teachings about God’s love, they described it as being compassionate. For example, Melissa and Scott who described their love being an “unconditional care for them in different ways like how God loved us.” Tim and Sarah also used Bible scriptures, more particularly 1 Corinthians, to describe their love. The use of 93 93 words like “caring” and “kind” demonstrate a compassionate type of love that stems from their understanding of love from a religious point of view. The couples’ definitions of love support Fehr and Sprecher’s (2009) prototype definition of compassionate love: honesty, caring, trust, and support. The discussions around love and religion demonstrate that there is a connection between religion and compassion. The way the couples formed their definitions of love fit with the compassionate love definition from Fehr and Sprecher (2009), which informs us that what the participants are describing is in fact compassion. Their compassionate love definitions are described through the framework of religion, which is complimented by the result of Sprecher and Fehr’s (2005) study that concluded religious people are more compassionate. The present study adds to this body of literature by showing how couples talk about compassionate love. The couples were describing how religion shapes their definitions of love and how they expect themselves and their partner to enact love in the relationship. Understanding religion as a narrative in itself that then becomes a part of the participants’ own larger narrative, gives us a larger picture of what informs couples’ understandings of love and how that carries over into their relationships. Before, we knew how to define compassionate love and who is more likely to be compassionate, yet we knew little about what that love looks like in a relationship and how it is constructed by the couple. A good example of this construction process and the overlap of narratives can be found in Tim and Sarah’s interview. Sarah listed 1 Corinthians from the Bible as a way she defines love and Tim responded with, “I met Sarah and then I found Christ. I found a relationship. And I learned a lot just…as far as love from Christ and how to love a person.” This connection between Sarah and Tim happening in the interview shows how their understanding of love comes from the same larger religious narrative. Their 94 94 discussion of that is them jointly making sense of what love means to them and dictates how they will enact love throughout their relationship. Family values also became a topic of discussion amongst the couples when describing what drew them to each other and how they knew they were moving into love. Nine couples discussed how important family was to them. Seeing their partner positively interacting with their family and upholding the same familial values, solidified their feelings of love for one another. Social networks, discussed earlier, can have a strong influence on relationships (Schmeeckle & Sprecher, 2004); especially family. Families have been shown to have significant effects on newlyweds by shaping how they view marriage and how they affect marriage stability (Veroff, Young, & Coon, 2000). Interferences felt from family members during the early parts of a marriage can impact the stability of the marriage in later years (Veroff et al., 2000). Therefore, the meshing of families and their interactions with married couples is of high importance to the relationship. While Veroff et al. (2000) focused on married couples, data in the present study, illustrates the topic of family is important not just in marital relationships, but in other romantic relationships as well. For Stacy, one of the first times she remembers feeling love for her boyfriend Paul is when he met her family and they had a positive interaction. Network overlap and involvement affects the satisfaction of couples. Network overlap refers to the sharing of family or friends (Schmeeckle & Sprecher, 2004) and network involvement simply refers to how much involvement couples have with each other’s social networks (Schmeeckle & Sprecher, 2004). Couples who have overlapping family ties have higher satisfaction ratings than couples who do not; and couples who have more involvement with each other’s families’ report having a greater love for one another (Schmeeckler & Sprecher, 2004). Interactions with social networks is also 95 95 a relational maintenance strategy (Stafford & Canary, 1992). Relational strategies such as this help to keep the relationship feeling equitable and help to sustain the relationship. Families are an important part of our social networks and can greatly influence the satisfaction of romantic relationships. The couples that discussed their families during the interviews (n = 9) made it clear that family had an impact on their relationship and even their love. For these couples, one of the first times they realized they loved their partner was when they interacted with each other’s families. Discussing this with each other makes it an important point in their love story. Aligning love with family creates an understanding between couples that a part of their love between each other also includes their families. Family is part of one’s social network, which is part of a larger narrative that creates context for romantic relationships. According to past research (Veroff et al., 2000) and the participants within the current study, family is interwoven into their own relationship and is an integral part to how couples construct their love. Each person has their own life narrative that rests in the context of larger narratives. When two people enter into a relationship, these larger narratives give context to their relationship and are brought into the relationship. Specifically, in this thesis, three larger narratives became important contexts to their relationships: past relationships, religion, and family. Each of these became a part of their relational narrative and their story construction about love. In their telling about how they understand love and recognize love in their relationship, past relationships, religion, and family were all intertwined in their explanations. All three of these give context to the relationship and also act as building blocks to the construction of love built by both partners. These larger narratives are a way to look at love from a macro perspective; as larger contexts. The next theme for RQ1, 96 96 love is an action, is a way to understand love at a micro level; ways that couples jointly construct love on a daily basis.

Love languages, relational maintenance and love is an action. This second theme for RQ1 focuses on the day-to-day actions that couples perform to communicate love to one another. The compilation of these actions is how couples construct what love means to them and how they enact love. To them, love is a verb not a noun; it is an action that is chosen to be enacted on a daily basis. Three sub-themes were discussed: quality time, gifts, and affection. These have strong similarities with Chapman’s (1992) love languages and Stafford and Canary’s (1992) relational maintenance strategies. The intersections between love is an action and the love languages and relational maintenance strategies will be discussed in the following paragraphs. Chapman (1992) identified five love languages as the way individuals act out their love and prefer to have love shown to them. For example, if one’s love language is quality time, then the way they understand love is when their partner spends quality time with them; and one usually shows love in the love language they prefer. The five love languages include: words of affirmation, quality time, receiving gifts, acts of service, and physical touch (Chapman, 1992). The three sub-themes, quality time, gifts, and affection, all share similarities with Chapman’s love languages, quality time, receiving gifts, and physical touch. Results of the current study also compliment two relational maintenance strategies: openness and positivity (Stafford & Canary, 1992). Openness is the willingness to talk about the relationship and what each person wants from the relationship (Stafford & Canary, 1992). Positivity refers to treating each other with a positive, cheerful attitude that is not critical (Stafford & Canary, 1992). 97 97

Relational maintenance strategies are enacted in a relationship on a regular basis as a way to maintain an equitable and satisfying relationship (Stafford & Canary, 1992). When positive relational maintenance strategies are not a regular part of a relationship, the relationship begins to falter. These two relational maintenance strategies and three of Chapman’s love languages support the way couples talk about love as an action. The first sub-theme was quality time. Some couples prefer spending quality time as a way to express their love and feel loved over gifts or affectionate words. Chapman (1992) explained that quality time meant spending time with each other while giving your undivided attention and being in the moment. Couples from this study also discussed quality time as being a way they communicate love to one another; although, how that quality time is defined is a little different among couples. For Matt and Jennifer, their quality time meant going on a small trip together, not sitting around the house. Quality time was different for couples like Jack and Rose who were dating long-distance; for them, quality time was in the form of phone calls every night. Whether it’s in person or over the phone, quality time meant purposefully setting aside time to be one-on-one with each other. The way the couples discussed in the interview their understanding of quality time, demonstrated their use of the relational maintenance strategy openness. For example, when Jennifer made the distinction that quality time to her meant going somewhere outside of their home to spend time together. And Jessica’s description of her and her husband making dinner plans, saying “we need to go to dinner.” Setting time aside for one another, or couple-time, is also a relational ritual that enhances and maintains intimacy in the relationship (Kelley, 2012). In real time, during the interview, I was able to watch the couples use the strategy of openness to talk about what they needed and expected from the 98 98 relationship in terms of quality time. The use of openness and the love language of quality time is how some of the couples jointly enact their love on a regular basis. Another love language that appeared in the interviews was the discussion of giving gifts. Similar to how Chapman (1992) described gift giving, couples said gifts were a part of how they communicated love to one another. Most of the time the gift was given because the person knew their significant other would appreciate the gift. Couples talked about the gifts being something monetary, like flowers, or non-monetary, like love notes. Some couples would give gifts on a daily basis (like leaving notes on the fridge daily) or the gifts would come on a less regular basis. The importance of the gifts was the meaning and thoughtfulness behind them. It also showed that the partner giving the gift was able to recognize that is how their significant other understands love. Kelley (2012) described gifts as an idiosyncratic/symbolic ritual. Gifts were an important ritual that fostered intimacy among couples. Relational rituals like gifts and quality time are directly linked to time spent with each other; time spent gift-giving or being with each other, results in higher intimacy (Kelley, 2012). Chapman (1992) would describe this situation as the speaking their love language. Two of the couples have actually read Chapman’s (1992) book and have incorporated the knowledge of love languages into their relationships. The other couples may not have known that they were speaking each other’s love language, but they recognized that giving gifts made the other happy and was a sign of love. The act of giving gifts is also a relational maintenance strategy—positivity. The notes and flowers and other gifts were used to maintain feelings of happiness between the couple by communicating positive messages. Gift giving is not so much about the gift itself, but about enacting a gesture of love and positively maintaining the relationship. 99 99

Affection was the final sub-theme of love is an action that also connects to Chapman’s (1992) love language, physical touch. Couples discussed holding hands, giving back rubs, kissing goodnight, and cuddling as ways that they communicate love through affection. Again, this affection was discussed by the couples as something they did because they knew their partner appreciated it. Affection also acts as another form of positive relational maintenance (Stafford & Canary, 1992). Kisses, hugs, and holding hands all help to maintain a positive connection between partners. Affection, gifts, and quality time were discussed by many of the couples as daily acts of love. These acts are supported by and add to past literature on love languages and relational maintenance strategies. Chapman (1992) focused on how each person had their own preference of a love language and would teach couples how to speak each other’s love languages. Even though most of the couples in this study were not aware of the love languages, the couples discussed much of the same modes of communicating love. Here I was able to watch as the couples discussed amongst themselves how they think each of them communicates love, which becomes a part of their narrative. The notes, the kiss goodnight, are all important ways they keep enacting this narrative over and over. Chapman (1992) separated these actions into five separate categories for the purpose of differentiating how people communicate love. Results of the current study indicate continued support for these love styles. A commonality amongst these three themes (quality time, gifts, and affection) is a deeper theoretical idea: love is an action. Whether couples described their love as being communicated by spending time together or leaving love notes, everything was done with an intent. Love is an action-oriented piece of the relationship. In order to keep communicating love, each person has to continually 100 100 make the effort to communicate love. Based on the couples’ descriptions of these acts of love, love needs to be seen as a part of relational maintenance. Quality time, giving gifts, and affection all matched up with Stafford and Canary’s (1992) relational maintenance strategies. Love is something that does not stay static throughout the relationship, but has to be maintained. How that love is maintained becomes a part of the couple’s story. For Simon and Janice, every night they kiss goodnight and they have been doing that for the sixty-plus years they have been together and every night that they kiss, they are continuing the narrative of this is how we communicate love to one another and sustain our love. Just as couples can have multiple love languages and relational maintenance strategies, there were overlaps with these couples as well. Some couples give gifts and like to spend quality time—there is not just one way couples communicate love. Communication creates and sustains relationships through symbolic practices, such as the themes listed under love is an action. Acts like a kiss or a gift are designated as acts of love by the couple. The couple jointly creates an understanding of these symbolic acts and they become a part of their relational culture (Wood, 2000). As defined by relational culture, the meaning making process that happens between couples acts back upon them, influencing future interactions with their own “moral order” used to guide and critique the relationship and each other (Wood, 2000). How couples create meaning for their actions of love influences how they communicate love in the future and how each of them recognize love is being communicated. The acts of quality time, giving gifts, and affection are a part of the day-to-day communication which creates the relational culture of each couple. Social networks also have an impact on giving context to relationships and influencing the relational culture. As discussed in the first theme, love stories exist 101 101 within a larger narrative context, relationships do not happen within a vacuum. They are influenced by each person’s past relationship, religion, and family, which are a part of their social network. Social networks create a larger narrative which influences the couple’s relational culture. How couples talk about these larger narratives and acts of love, create their own unique love story. Watching couples talk about their love stories, allows us to watch how they narratively co-construct their understanding of love and jointly construct their relational culture. Larger narrative contexts and everyday actions influence couple’s stories and story- telling. Results for RQ1 contribute to our understanding of how couples jointly construct love in their relationships. RQ2 focused on how couples narratively define love.

RQ 2: How do couples narratively define love?

Love is evolving. These couples defined their love as always evolving over time. Almost all of the couples, easily, recognized that their love was not the same now as it was when they first fell in love. There were three sub-themes that emerged from the interviews as the most common ways couples described their love changing over time: love grows stronger, from lust to love, and love grows as the family grows. Specifically, couples noticed a positive change in their love over time. They noticed their love grew stronger over time and flourished from an infatuated state to more mature love. Couples also discussed how having children increased their love for one another. Previous research indicates love fluctuates over time as passion and intimacy decrease and/or increase (Sprecher & Regan, 1998; Sternberg, 1986). In Sprecher and Regan’s (1998) study, passionate love was shown to decrease over 102 102 time but companionate love did not decrease as negatively. Also, couples that felt a stronger sense of companionate love experienced less negative emotional experiences (Sprecher & Regan, 1998). This may help to explain why couples of this study only characterize the changes in their love as positive. Simon, for example, described him and his wife of 60 plus years as, “we’re just a part of each other as time goes on.” When couples feel like they are companions and have high levels of intimacy and commitment, they view their love as growing stronger. Couples also realized that part of their love growing stronger meant growing out of the infatuation stage of love. Many couples discussed the butterflies dissipating over time but still feeling a stronger love for one another. In a study by Sumter et al. (2013), passion and intimacy increased in ages 12-29 and then decreased significantly in ages 30-50+. Commitment increased in the same age bracket but did not suffer the same kind of decrease (Sumter et al., 2013). Couples in the current study described a similar experience in their own words: that the lustful stage (passion) fades away over time, but commitment is what keeps the love going. For example, Tim said during his interview with wife Sarah: “lusting…there’s no way I’d know what love is. Love is a commitment you know? Love over time…love grows over a period of time.” Tim made the distinction that during the lustful stage of their relationship (when they were younger), that wasn’t real love. But, as they got older and their love matured, it grew into a commitment. Although intimacy and passion fluctuate throughout a relationship, couples in this study believe their love has grown stronger and that seems to be due to commitment. The last sub-theme for love is evolving is love grows as the family grows. Couples were at different stages of having children when the interviews were taking place. Some couples were just beginning to have kids and others had kids 103 103 for years. For all of them, they discussed how having children has positively increased their love. Their definitions of love grew from including just the two of them, to now including their children. Matt explained it best by saying: “we’re going to gauge our love. Not only between the intimate, just you and me time, but also how you care for my child and how I care for your child.” Matt and Jennifer’s interview demonstrates how definitions of love change for families and love is not only seen through an intimate, romantic lens, but also through the lens of parenting. Although parenting can be a stressful event in a romantic relationship, it does not inherently decrease the satisfaction or love of the relationship (Huston & Holmes, 2004). In the case of these couples, parenthood only made their love grow to include more people. Eleven couples in the current study say they define their love as growing stronger from a lustful stage to a more mature love. And for those who have children, they felt their love grew wider to include their children and changed their perspective on love for their partner. These definitions came out of conversations between the couples and demonstrate how they narratively talk about their love. When couples define their love as evolving over time and growing stronger, that becomes a part of their narrative and how they view their relationship.

Love is a choice. Other couples emphasized that love is not just simply an emotion, but a choice. As discussed in the sub-theme above, most couples took notice of the fleeting feelings of butterflies and attraction, but what kept them together was commitment. Couples described their choice to love their partner as an intentional decision to stay committed to each other, even through the hard times. As Jack described, “we have chosen to love this person and we have to continue to choose that every single day.” The decision to love someone doesn’t 104 104 just end once the couple enters the relationship, but continues every day throughout the relationship. This choice is most similar to Sternberg’s (1986) description of commitment. The commitment portion of his love triangle is characterized by the mutuality and interdependence of the couple (Weigel, 2008; Weigel & Ballard-Reisch, 2014). How much commitment a couple experiences in their relationship is dependent on the expressions of commitment and how those expressions are interpreted by each partner (Weigel & Bullard-Reisch, 2014). When the couples of this study talk about choosing one another and staying committed to each other, those explicit statements are contributing to the feeling of commitment in the relationship. Narratively, the couples are enacting commitment and defining that commitment is a strong part of love.

Love is altruistic. The last theme for RQ2 is love is altruistic. Couples were describing their love for one another as unconditional, selfless, and that their partner was worthy of love. The first two sub-themes seem to build off of the last; because couples believed their partner was worthy of love, they loved them unconditionally and selflessly. Lee’s (1976) agape love matches well with the definitions given by the couples. He defined it as the type of love that is selfless and other-centered (Lee, 1976). In regard to relational maintenance, couples that have an agape love style use strong positive relational maintenance strategies and have reported long, lasting relationships in comparison to other love styles (Hammock & Richardson, 2011). This altruistic love may come from couples’ belief that their love is evolving over time into a more mature love. As discussed earlier, couples defined their love as developing into a stronger, companionate type of love. Kelley (2012) described this mature love as “full love” (p. 85). Full love is characterized by other-centeredness, commitment, and self-sacrifice 105 105

(Kelley, 2012). Because full love is other-centered and committed, partners feel safe and confident in their love, allowing partners to grow (Kelley, 2012). Loving selflessly and unconditionally may also be related to an earlier theme from RQ1: religion as a larger narrative context. As discussed in that section earlier, people who are more religious are more compassionate. That compassion may have an influence on how couples view love altruistically. Altruistic love was defined by couples as unconditional, selfless, and seeing their partner as worthy of love. By defining love as altruistic, this creates the narrative that partners should be other-centered in their relationship. According to Kelley (2012), when couples are other-centered, there is a sense of feeling safe in the relationship that allows partners to grow in the relationship; which couples also discussed feeling their love growing stronger over time. A strong sense of commitment also feeds into this story of unconditional, evolving love. Couples defined their love by also being a choice—choosing to stay committed to their partner and to love them throughout the relationship.

Summary of Major Findings RQ1 asked how couples co-construct love. The results for this question can best be summed up by understanding love from a macro and micro prospective. The first theme, love stories exist within larger narrative contexts, represents how couples framed their love stories with the influences of larger narrative contexts: religion, past relationships, and family. Relationships do not happen within a vacuum; each partner weaves their larger narratives into their relational narrative which then influences how they love each other. The intersection of the partners’ larger narratives is the site where the couple begins to jointly create understanding of their love through negotiated moralities. On a more micro level, the second 106 106 theme love is an action, focuses on how couples enact love every day through gift- giving, affection, and quality time. These sub-themes connected with Chapman’s Love Languages and Stafford and Canary’s relational maintenance. Couples were clear in distinguishing that these actions were done with intent and choice in order to show love to their partner. Therefore, based on the results of this sub-theme, love is jointly constructed by couples in their intentional actions which help to maintain their relationship. Love is something that must be maintained, sustained, and created on a daily basis. RQ2 asked how couples narratively define love. Through their stories, couples defined loved as evolving, as a choice, and as altruistic. As in previous research (Sumter et al., 2013), couples noted that lust decreased over time, but commitment was strong and therefore they felt their relationship grew stronger over time. Couples also defined love as being a choice which also ties into the commitment they have to the relationship. The construction of commitment supports Sternberg’s definition of commitment in his Triangular Theory of Love. Lastly, couples defined love as being altruistic; which also matches up with Lee’s definition of altruism. As Kelley (2012) described, altruism can better be understood as other-centered. Couples told stories of how they put their partners first as an act of love. How couples defined their love in the interviews is not just a representation of how they understand love, but it is reflexive in that it is creating their definition of love in the moment and is implicating how they will enact love in the future.

Discussion of Method Dyadic interviews in this study were exceptionally insightful into how couples jointly create narratives. They also come with their own unique research 107 107 benefits for the research itself and also the interviewees. Many times, after the interview was finished and I turned off the recorder and began packing up, couples would make comments like, “Wow, I haven’t thought about those memories in a long time. This felt really great!” This speaks to the vulnerability of qualitative work and why it is important to remember how we as researchers have a “reflexive influence” on our interviewees (Rogers-de Jong & Strong, 2014, p. 371). Having couples discuss how they fell in love and what love means to them can sometimes feel very vulnerable to people. The discussions during interviews do not end once the recorder stops; the thoughts and discussions from the interview forever impact interviewees and the relationship. Thankfully, most participants expressed positive impacts from the experience rather than negative. Researchers also have a reflexive influence on their participants by how they look and act. Characteristics of the researchers, such as gender, age, race, and more, can have an impact on how participants respond to questions. Reflecting on myself as the researcher, I have to wonder what sort of impact I had on the participants being in the body that I am in. If I were a man, male participants may have crafted their answers differently, or some may have even been more forthcoming because they would feel more comfortable in front of another man. Also, throughout the course of this study, I became engaged; which meant that during some of the interviews I was wearing an engagement ring and in others I was not. During some of the interviews that I was wearing the ring, participants would comment on it. This may or may not have had a conscious influence on participants. It may have made me seem more credible to talk to them about love since it was clear that I was also in a loving relationship. Although there is no definitive proof for how these characteristics influenced participants, it is important to think about how researchers have reflexive influence based on who 108 108 they are. If participants look at a researcher and can feel a connection or see similarities amongst them or not, will influence how participants partake in the interview process. Part of being a mindful researcher is considering how my presence influenced the conversation. As in any interpretive work, a researcher should also recognize their place in the research and interview as well. With narrative theory, there is a welcomed connection between the participant(s) and the researcher (Bochner, 2002). A researcher’s own experiences and narratives inspire their research. My own experiences influenced my choices in which questions to ask, where to probe for more information, and even in how the results were interpreted. During each interview, my questioning and discussing was in conversation with the couples. Their story-telling also included me. Although majority of their story-telling and narrative building was by them, my being present and interactions were part of the narrative construction. The main reason why I wanted to conduct dyadic interviews was so that I could see the construction of the “we-ness” of the couple. Having both of the partners present and in conversation together allows a look into relationships that we do not get to see often in research. Part of this construction of “we-ness” also incorporated me, the researcher. The conversation did not just involve two people, but three; partner one, partner two, and me. I became a part of their story construction of their relationships during the interviews. One challenge with dyadic interviews is the division of conversation. Some couples were much more forthcoming than others. Most of the couples were very open and had a natural flow of conversation between them. But, for a few of the couples, one partner either dominated the discussion or one partner was too shy to give in-depth answers. As the interviewer, I would try to directly ask each person to give their own answer to get both people talking. It also is beneficial to have the 109 109 other partner there to try and pull out answers from the other partner (Morgan et al., 2013). Couples acted as interviewing tools when they would question each other (Morgan et al., 2013). Sometimes partners would notice the other one was quiet and would ask them, “what do you think?” Although this was one challenge of dyadic interviews, it was also beneficial to have the other partner draw out questions from the other. This is one of the many unique benefits of dyadic interviews, that the participant can also become an interviewing tool. Dyadic interviews were helpful in understanding how couples communicate together and allowed me the interviewer to watch that communication unfold in real time. Watching couples jointly construct their understanding of their relationship allows insight into how they view their relationship; as a “we” perspective, not just an individual perspective (Eisikovits & Koren, 2010). In this study, I was not only getting a “his and hers” perspective of the relationship, but a third version which is an interdependent story jointly created by both partners. My experience with dyadic interviews adds to previous literature by confirming that dyadic interviews have a reflexive influence upon participants, the participants can act as interviewing tools, and dyadic interviews capture a third perspective that is missing from individual interviews.

Limitations As with any research, there are always limitations. I had hoped that this thesis would be inclusive to LGBT participants especially since their voice is lacking in Communication research. Unfortunately, that is not what took place. This happened for a couple of different reasons. First, due to snowball sampling, participants were found through people I am familiar with, which consists of a majority of heterosexual couples. Second, the few couples that did contact me 110 110 from my flyer in the LGBT Center were ultimately unable to participate due to scheduling. Not having any LGBT couples leaves out important stories and voices that would make this research richer. In the future, I would pursue, and suggest that others pursue as well, a study that explores the co-construction of love from the perspective of LGBT couples. Along with a lack of LGBT voices was a lack of analysis for marginality and power. As mentioned in one of the major themes for RQ1, relationships are a part of larger narrative contexts. Relationships exist in a larger social framework which distributes power to certain groups and people. Since the participants of this study were solely heterosexual couples, in future research there should be an analysis of the privilege of heterosexual love. It was not until recently that marriage was even legal for LGBT couples and even now heterosexual love is still seen as the norm. We can look at other factors of power as well, such as socioeconomic status, religion, and even family. Religion and family were seen as positive influences on love for the couples in this study, but for some people those are not such positive groups. Some people experience being ostracized from their religion or family because of who they love. These sorts of power structures have real important impacts on how couples love and it would be important in further research to examine how they influence couples’ stories. Another limitation that was recognized came from the “I love you” prompt at the end of the interview protocol. The initial intent behind the prompt was to give the couples a more intimate moment without me there, to be able to discuss the first time they said, “I love you” and be able to go back and see how the conversation played out. For most of the interviews, the conversation was pretty much the same tone and intimacy level as when I had been in the room; only one interview really showed an advantage of using this prompt when the couple were 111 111 discussing the first time they said, “I love you” was during sex. It was obvious by the recording they were already a little embarrassed talking about it, but were more comfortable with the discussion because I was not present. A limitation of having a prompt like this where the interviewer leaves the room, is if the participants forget what they are supposed to talk about or get confused as they begin discussing, the interviewer is not present to steer the conversation. A couple ways to fix these issues in the future would be to attempt to make sure the couple understands the prompt before leaving and leaving a typed-out copy of the prompt for them to read while they are left to discuss. This would be the advice I would give to any researcher wishing to use this interview technique.

Future Research There was so much data that came out of this research and many different directions for future research. One avenue would be to do a longitudinal study of how couples’ love stories change over the years (or do not change). A similar interview protocol from this thesis could be used and couple interviews could take place once a year over the span of 5 years (or however long). Conducting a longitudinal study like this would allow researchers to understand how stories about love and definitions of love change over time throughout the relationship. Taking it one step further, a relational satisfaction survey could also be given at the times of the interviews, to see how satisfaction changes along with the changes to their relational narrative. It would be interesting to see as narratives change throughout the relationship, does the satisfaction change for the better or worse, or stay the same? The findings from this kind of research would benefit the field of communication to see how narratives affect overall relational well-being. 112 112

Another way to advance this particular study is by analyzing the transcripts of the interviews for how they “loved” each other in the interview itself. This study focused on the content of the interviews, but there is still room to analyze nonverbal communication and how the content was being said and how the conversation unfolded. Nonverbal communication such as eye contact and holding hands throughout the interview are a part of how couples enact their love in the moment of the interview. How the conversation unfolds, like turn-taking, would also be another important analysis of how couples “loved” each other in the moment of the interview. One of the unique and interesting findings is the theme of larger narrative contexts that influence the love stories told by couples. There should be more in- depth research about these larger narrative contexts because they are great influences in peoples’ lives. In this thesis alone, narratives about religion, family, and past relationships were influential on how couples understand and talk about love. A research study could be done on each of these larger narratives and more. An understanding of these larger narratives could be really imperative to understanding that relationships do not happen in a vacuum; they are influenced by a lot of outside narratives. Lastly, this next idea for future research came from the experiences I had conducting the couple interviews. After many of the interviews concluded, couples would comment on how much they enjoyed talking about their relationships and the happy memories that were brought forth. I could tell that they were visibly happy and some even kissed or during the interview would hold hands. Clearly that discussing their love for one another created an elated feeling. Watching this unfold made it clear that talking about key positive memories that are important to 113 113 the relationship and talking about how couples love each other, positively affects the couple’s relationship. Bochner (1994) discussed this exact consequence of the interviewer impacting the couple and their narrative; bringing up memories of the relationship causes the couple to write and re-write their narrative in the moment of the interview. Since the couples were discussing positive memories of how they met, when they got married, and more, they were creating this happy love story of their relationship. Based off of this experience, a future research idea is to measure couple’s satisfaction or emotions towards their partner after telling a happy story together about their relationship. In order to see if their satisfaction increased after the story, you would want to compare it to their emotional state before the story. Researchers could assign couples the task of telling the story of how they first fell in love with each other (or another happy memory) at home to each other after a conflict or a bad day. They would also need a scale to measure their relational satisfaction to fill out before and after. Going from a conflict to sitting down and talking with each other about how they fell in love could show how much telling relational narratives impacts our relational satisfaction and overall feelings towards the relationship.

Conclusion As demonstrated in the previous literature review, there have been many theories, definitions, and studies written to explain love. Past studies have broken love down into components to better measure and understand what it consists of and how to measure it in relationships. This study though, focused on what love looks like when it is being enacted in a relationship. In order to understand how love is created and how couples “do” love, I wanted to focus on how couples talk 114 114 their relationships into existence. Relationships are not a fixed entity, but rather a process that is constantly on-going (Duck, 1995). In this process, couples negotiate meaning together on what constitutes their relationship. Narrative theory specifically focuses on the stories that are spoken into existence by couples which then create their relational identity. The stories discussed by the couples in this study are not representations of their relationships, but are their relationships and actual enactments of love. The purpose of this study is to add to the existing literature by understanding how love is jointly created by the stories and narratives of couples. Performing dyadic interviews allowed me to capture the “we-ness” of the couple and observe them “doing” their relationship in front of me. By conducting dyadic interviews and collecting the couples’ stories of love, I was able to catch a glimpse of the living essence of love and how stories create, sustain, maintain, and contest relationships. REFERENCES REFERENCES

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APPENDIX: INTERVIEW PROTOCOL 123 123

Interview Protocol At the beginning of each interview, I will introduce myself to the participants and again give an overview of the thesis and the interview process. Then I will ask if it is okay that I turn on the recording device and once it is turned on, ask them to again restate they are agreeing to the interview (they will also sign a consent form). First, demographic questions will be asked, then the open-ended questions, and lastly the private story told by the couple.

Demographic Questions 1. Age of each person 2. Sexual Orientation of couple 3. Relationship Status 4. Length of Relationship 5. Race/Ethnicity of each person

Interview Questions 1. How did you two meet? 2. When and how did you begin dating? 3. When was the first time you felt you loved your partner? (Specific memory/emotion?) 1. How did you know this was love? 4. How would you define “love”? (in regards to the current relationship) 5. How important is love to your relationship? 6. How has your love changed over time? 7. Have there been any challenges with love in your relationship? 8. Is there anything else about your love story you feel is significant? 124 124

After the above interview questions have been discussed, I will tell the couple that I am going to go sit somewhere else (another room or different table) and while I am gone I want them to jointly tell the story of when they first said “I love you”. The tape recorder will be going while they are talking, but I will not be present. After they feel they are done talking, they can come get me and this will conclude the interview.

If there is any information from this portion of the interview I feel needs more probing, I will conduct a follow-up interview with the participants.