What Color Is Your Love? A New Map for Seeking a Lasting Relationship

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Soul. Parachute. Heart. Love.

I may have been going about this dating rebirth in the wrong way. Perhaps what we are hyper-focused on: looks, money, smile, career, fitness, is important, but not the most important feature of a lasting relationship. I have written a lot about how good looks and/or good sex can be a misdirection. I’ve begun to explore the concept of JOY as the basis for my next adventure into a long-term partnership. Today, walking in Manhattan I began arriving at a new layer of understanding.

The density of beautiful people in New York’s Central Park on a Saturday morning is heavenly. As I was strolling along minding my own mind I noticed my thoughts wandering to a new idea. That idea bloomed, in my mind, into a new system of understanding. And in my own grandiosity, a new series of books. Starting with this first title using “love” as the denominator rather than soul or heart. I want it to be direct and to the point. Here’s the idea.

In a moment of reset after leaving a 3-year partnership, I am reconsidering all I thought I knew about love, my intentions, and what I want. Perhaps I was looking at the wrong aspects of my future partner. If I could measure the joy in their heart (their soulfulness) perhaps I could skip the line and get back to the upward navigation of a loving partnership. In my mind, a partnership that would last the rest of my life. Even that idea, however, is under advisement. Let me take it one day at a time, one step at a time, and one kiss at a time. Getting too far ahead of myself in any process often contributes to distractions and misfires.

The Strata Of Love

Energy/Motivation
Joy
Creativity/Passion
Physical Beauty and Fitness
Ecstasy
Spiritual Union
Sex

This is not a hierarchy or a ladder but a mesh. A network of someone’s love DNA.

Here is my outline of these ideas in my own experience.

Energy/Motivation

When you meet others with high energy there is a connection. We see each other. Often extroverted and outwardly exuberant. This is the kind of person who enters a crowded restaurant and seems to be working to a plan of their own making. A high-energy person may be able to love and connect with a lesser motivated person. My experience so far has shown that secure attachment is easier if the other person is also outwardly energetic about their life, perhaps our relationship, and other projects in their plan.

Joy

I wake up happy. Regardless of how the day ended, I renew myself each day. Struggling with my son, at the moment, I can be frustrated and disappointed at the end of the day, but I must reset and restart each morning. This is a cultivated state. I have not always come to my morning coffee with happiness. When depression is gripping my soul, even the coffee fails to lift my mood. In a reasonably healthy person, however, I think there are set points of happiness. I was married to a woman who requires effort each day to find peace and contentment. I tried to supplement and encourage her moods. I learned much later, after the divorce, that my efforts were never going to move her set point.

Creativity/Passion

This one is clearer to me now. In my last relationship attempt, I learned that beauty and secure attachment were not enough. As my daughter reminded me, I should not be concerned about the books she read, or what she liked to do on the weekends or on vacation. It’s none of my business. BUT… And this is a big one. I want to be inspired by my partner’s passion projects. If it’s Starbucks and shopping… Well, it’s not going to be enough for me. Retail therapy was the gift my ex-wife gave our two children. Shopping is a hobby that does not feed anything but debt and envy.

Physical Beauty and Fitness

Most of us are caught in this trap, I think. Younger, faster, smarter. The media continues to cast 30-year-old women to be the wives of 50-year-old husbands. Why? Youth is great. But I don’t want to date someone who is too far out of my age range. We’re going to have trouble finding cultural fibers that connect us. A friend said to me, years ago, “Sure, dating a 30-year-old is great, until you have to hang out with her and her friends. What are you going to talk about, ‘Taylor Swift?'” On fitness, I do think my own struggles with weight influence my desire for more streamlined women. I am trying to become a more streamlined 60-year-old man. It’s going well. It could be going better. AND, it’s not everything.

Ecstasy

Can they experience ecstasy in everyday life? Drugs are not required. Music can take me higher than most. The magic of a sunrise over the ocean. A Brian Eno orchestral song while I’m sitting in a coffee shop, at this moment, has me trippin lightly into natural exuberance. Some are not tuned the same way. Some require drugs to reach altered states of joy. I want a partner who can share their ecstasy with me. Turn me on to new highs, no substances required. This one echoes back to creativity and passion. Continuous creative effort requires some ecstatic fuel, I think. No passion, no ecstasy.

Spiritual Union

How does my partner find spiritual connection? With me, sure, but also with some higher power. I don’t much care if it’s god, God, or walks in nature. Transcendentalists are my people. As are the hippies and beatifics. My relationship with god is a very personal conversation. I can’t quite explain it to you here. But when we’re together I can show you. My radiant expression of joy and love is spiritually generated. I am grounded in my spiritual life. I believe in the church of water, trees, mountains, and others. Community is a form of spirituality. I long for a partner who can take my hand and lead me on a spiritual adventure. In fact, it’s essential that they can.

Sex

Ah, sex, the final frontier, where it all comes together. When well-aligned, sex is both an ecstatic, spiritual, and connective experience. (See: The Soul of Sex by Thomas Moore.) Here’s my experience.

One partner, a hippie chick, was able to be in tune with herself (first) and then me during sex in a way that took me/us to a new level. I’ve written about connected sex before. This was different. This was connected and ecstatic. Our link and fulfillment energized and bonded us well beyond the typical afterglow. Consequently, I wanted to have sex with her all the time. We had to have a few conversations about that as well. It was HIGH DESIRE, but not high demand. There was an ache that was washed clean by our lovemaking. As if, years of good sex were suddenly seen as “nearly great” sex.

While sex is not the primary driver of any relationship, I do believe the physical bond and sexual enthusiasm should remain an open layer of connection in a partnership. When things get off sexually, the relationship is likely to follow. If things never get aligned in the bedroom, the partnership will not last. And finally, if sex becomes hot too soon, the relationship may never have a chance to evolve on the other levels.

What I know about myself, as a man: I will begin accepting unacceptable behavior and red flags if I’m trying to get laid. It sounds crass, but many of us (men and women) will bend our relationship goals for good sex. But the sex connection is not enough. The honeymoon will end. Pure pleasure will dry up. There needs to be a connection FIRST, in my opinion. Then, the spiritual levels of sex can be established and cultivated.

In the case of my hippie lover, there were other issues. Spiritual and healing sex could not repair the other toxic elements of the relationship.

Bringing It Together In Love

What I’ve noticed about myself and my multiple attempts at finding a lasting, evolving, and ecstatic relationship is that each element is important. I have had partners who were solid on several layers and lacking in others. Again, this is a new holistic approach I’m trying to articulate, so I don’t have the answers or the formula yet. I’ll be working on it. I’m happy to hear your thoughts in the comments or via email.

Next task: define some of the colors represented by the various formulas or types of love as mapped by my strata.

A checklist to compare your relative experience, energy, and interest in the seven different areas of love.