ABSTRACT
Howard Halpern has offered an interesting distinction between a 'love relationship' and 'feeling in love'. He initially states that a love relationship is characterized by high degrees of mutual caring, respect and passion. Healthy relationships contain the regressive qualities of falling in love and the more progressive adult behaviors of mutuality, care taking and individuation. In their study of vital couples, Ammons and Stinnett, found that the spouses showed a balance between mutuality and individuation. Similar results were obtained by Lewis, Beavers, Gossett and Phillips, in their work which compared 'healthy', 'normal', and 'dysfunctional' families. Beavers observed that healthy couples share relatively equal power, have complementary roles, and encourage each other's expressions of autonomy. Elation and closeness are followed by perturbation and distance in the dyad which in turn is followed by re engagement and falling in love again. This pattern evolves over the couple's life span.
