ABSTRACT
Love is not supposed to be a miserable feeling. A love relationship requires high degrees of mutual caring, sharing, respect and involvement. The feeling of being in love is not enough to support a love relationship. It requires a degree of availability, of mutual passion, and a desire to be together. It requires that both be committed to struggle to make their coupleness as good as it can get. Love relationships should make people feel better about themselves, not worse. It should make both parties confident they can count on and trust the other. John Hinckley when he said he loves Jody Foster, a woman he never met, but it is a meaningless emotion when compared with a love relationship requiring mutual knowledge and caring. The feeling of love does not in itself indicate that a love relationship exists or that fulfilling coupling is happening.
