Social Question

JLeslie's avatar

Will you answer two questions about relationships and love?

Asked by JLeslie (65458points) February 14th, 2012
40 responses
“Great Question” (3points)

A friend of mine has been doing a survey in a few countries, and I thought I would ask the collective. Please state what country you live in, and answer the two questions below. Feel free to expand on your answers. I’ll post some of the stats he has collected after we get a bunch of answers.

SURVEY Q:
1. What, in your opinion is THE most important component in a healthy romantic relationship?

2. Do you believe that a person (not Jesus) is capable of giving complete, perfect & unconditional love?

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Answers

SpatzieLover's avatar

USA
1. Empathy
2. Yes

SpatzieLover (24606points)“Great Answer” (1points)
nikipedia's avatar

1. If I had to pick just one, I guess I would go with love. If you don’t have it, your relationship is either not healthy or not romantic. And if you have a lot of love, it encourages you to be patient, compassionate, understanding, etc.

2. Not really, nor do I think anyone should. There are a lot of reasonable conditions to place on love—requiring honesty, not being abusive, not being a sociopath.

United States.

nikipedia (28077points)“Great Answer” (1points)
Simone_De_Beauvoir's avatar

USA
1. Equality of heart and minds – two (or more) people must be intellectually matched and agree, to an extent, on how they feel about others and the world.
2. No. (not Jesus either)

Simone_De_Beauvoir (39052points)“Great Answer” (2points)
Judi's avatar

USA
1. selflessness
2. No. Occasionally, but not perfectly all the time.

Judi (40025points)“Great Answer” (2points)
ucme's avatar

ENGLAND
1. Trust
2. Yes

ucme (50047points)“Great Answer” (1points)
MilkyWay's avatar

UK
1. Respect
2. No, no one.

MilkyWay (13745points)“Great Answer” (1points)
Blackberry's avatar

Oregon, U.S.
1. Chemistry.
2. No one at all.

Blackberry (33958points)“Great Answer” (1points)
TexasDude's avatar

US

1. What, in your opinion is THE most important component in a healthy romantic relationship?

Understanding.

2. Do you believe that a person (not Jesus) is capable of giving complete, perfect & unconditional love?

Yes.

TexasDude (25274points)“Great Answer” (1points)
6rant6's avatar

US. Trust. No.

6rant6 (13700points)“Great Answer” (1points)
Aethelflaed's avatar

USA.

1. Respect.
2. No.

Aethelflaed (13752points)“Great Answer” (1points)
flutherother's avatar

Scotland
1. That overused word, love.
2. No.

flutherother (34568points)“Great Answer” (0points)
Adagio's avatar

NZ

1. Respect

2. No, absolutely no

Adagio (14059points)“Great Answer” (1points)
rebbel's avatar

The Netherlands

1. Sincerity

2. No, but

rebbel (35552points)“Great Answer” (1points)
Dr_Lawrence's avatar

Canada

1. Acting respectful our your partner even when it seems no one will see or know the difference,
2. Complete: Y Perfect: N Unconditional: N

Dr_Lawrence (20014points)“Great Answer” (1points)
stardust's avatar

Ireland

1. Respect
2. No.

stardust (10562points)“Great Answer” (1points)
wilma's avatar

US
respect
No

wilma (16457points)“Great Answer” (1points)
tedibear's avatar

US

1. Healthy self-esteem of each partner
2. No

tedibear (19324points)“Great Answer” (1points)
downtide's avatar

UK
1. Equality
2. Possible, in someone who has low self-esteem and little self-autonomy, but I do not think that such a thing is healthy.

downtide (23815points)“Great Answer” (2points)
Coloma's avatar

USA 1. ) Healthy self esteem and self awareness
2.) Possible but rare, reserved only for those that have done some serious work

Coloma (47193points)“Great Answer” (2points)
Earthgirl's avatar

USA. Respect,which includes paying attention and listening and empathy. No, but it is something to reach for

Earthgirl (11214points)“Great Answer” (1points)
tranquilsea's avatar

Canada

1. To be able to communicate in a healthy way.

2. Yes

tranquilsea (17775points)“Great Answer” (2points)
janbb's avatar

USA

1. Ability to communicate
2. No

janbb (62906points)“Great Answer” (1points)
Neizvestnaya's avatar

USA
1. Respect
2. No

Neizvestnaya (22662points)“Great Answer” (1points)
Adirondackwannabe's avatar

USA
1.Trust and respect
2 Yes.

Adirondackwannabe (36713points)“Great Answer” (1points)
tinyfaery's avatar

USA
1. Treating your so like an individual, not a possession.
2. No

tinyfaery (44109points)“Great Answer” (1points)
JLeslie's avatar

Some of the stats from the last time he calculated:

Overall the most popular answer given IN THE USA to “most important component” is: 1. COMMUNICATION (~40%) 2.TRUST(~20%) 3. HONESTY (~15%)

In LATIN AMERICAN UNIVERSITIES: 1. COMMUNICATION 2. TRUST 3. HONESTY 4. GREAT SEX

He commented that, It’s amazing that only 8% in the USA (Bible belt) said commitment & in Latin America NO ONE ever answered commitment, yet that is EXACTLY what the marriage covenant is – a commitment to “Love, cherish & honor until death separates. He went on to say, I recently asked a marriage counselor that has seen over 3000 troubled marriages with a 90% rate of reconciliation…. he said that you can perfectly, politely and honestly communicate your way all the way to the divorce hearings, yet it is the commitment to love (verb) that makes reconciliation possible.

65% believe “unconditional love” IS possible from a human & 30% DO NOT (other 5% said “maybe”)

JLeslie (65458points)“Great Answer” (4points)
creative1's avatar

1. Communication

2. Yes, I know because I have it for my daughters… I don’t care what in life happens I will always love them regardless!

creative1 (12066points)“Great Answer” (2points)
Coloma's avatar

Aaah…well, as per @creative1 ‘s reply…YES, unconditional love for children, but in romantic relationships few people attain this advanced level of love IMO.

Coloma (47193points)“Great Answer” (2points)
Pandora's avatar

1. Your undivided attention, for sustaining romantic love.
2. NO. All love is conditional. Only maybe a parents love for their child. But anything and everything has limits. When we love a great deal, a great deal of trust goes into that love. Once the trust is destroyed it has the ability to kill love.
If I had one child kill another child, than I’m pretty sure I would disown that child. They would probably be dead to me as well.
If my spouse hit me, I happen to know that, that will kill my love for him. I love him like mad but that is a line he cannot ever cross. (I adored and loved one of my brothers until he actually punched me. It actually felt as if my heart broke at the moment. I was never able to love him again.)

Pandora (32219points)“Great Answer” (2points)
cookieman's avatar

USA

1. What, in your opinion is THE most important component in a healthy romantic relationship?
Friendship
money, looks, passion…they all come and go but friendship is often more resilient.

2. Do you believe that a person (not Jesus) is capable of giving complete, perfect & unconditional love?
No
All three of those words are absolutes implying a black & white world. There is much grey in this world.

cookieman (41637points)“Great Answer” (2points)
YARNLADY's avatar

#1 committment
#2 I don’t think there is such a thing.

USA

YARNLADY (46403points)“Great Answer” (1points)
Rarebear's avatar

#1 Trust
#2 Yes

Rarebear (25192points)“Great Answer” (1points)
Bellatrix's avatar

Australia/Britain (because I am British and live in Australia)

1. What, in your opinion is THE most important component in a healthy romantic relationship?

Trust

2. Do you believe that a person (not Jesus) is capable of giving complete, perfect & unconditional love?

No.

Bellatrix (21307points)“Great Answer” (0points)
MollyMcGuire's avatar

1. mutual respect

2. yes (capable)

MollyMcGuire (7740points)“Great Answer” (0points)
whitenoise's avatar

Hi. I’m from Holland, but I live in a very didferent country in the Middle East, right now.

To me, the single most important component is respect. It heads out over anything else.

And I like to kid myself into believing into perfect love, but I know there are very few things that are perfect.

I do, however, make a conscious effort to never make my love for my family conditional. That kind of love in my book is unconditional by default. Conditional love isn’t love, I feel.

just to clarify: relations and love can be hurt and seminiah over time. So from that sense I believe they are conditional.

Love however is an emotion. I will either love my wife or not. My staying in a relationship and being happy in it is of course dependent on many factors and efforts. Love is only one factor in that.

whitenoise (14157points)“Great Answer” (2points)
augustlan's avatar

USA

1) Reasonable expectations. (Hey, it’s not very romantic, but it’s super important in a lasting relationship.)

2) Yes, in a parental sense. Probably not in a romantic sense, though.

augustlan (47745points)“Great Answer” (3points)
Ayesha's avatar

Pakistan.

1. Trust and respect.
2. Yes. I believe so.

Ayesha (6218points)“Great Answer” (1points)
Blackberry's avatar

@JLeslie So basically, we just got owned, lol.

Blackberry (33958points)“Great Answer” (0points)
john65pennington's avatar

Ditto with Spatzielover.

john65pennington (29258points)“Great Answer” (1points)
plethora's avatar

USA

Mutual Respect and much in common

No unconditional love in this world.

plethora (10007points)“Great Answer” (1points)

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