Hatfield and her collaborator Susan Sprecher developed in 1986 is consistent with this view of passionate love as a complex, integrative set of qualities. Looking at these specific qualities, see how your own relationship would rate:
Cognitive components
Thinking about or being preoccupied with your partner
Idealizing your partner or the relationship
Wanting to know your partner and wanting your partner to know you
Emotional components
Being sexually attracted to and aroused by your partner
Feeling good when things go well
Feeling bad when things go badly
Loving and wanting to be loved in return
Wanting complete and permanent union
Behavioral components:
Trying to find out how your partner feels
Providing service to your partner
Being physically close to your partner
Passionate love clearly involves more than sexual attraction. The cognitive, other emotional and behavioral components balance out the urge to get physical with your loved one.
Of course, testing your feelings toward the object of your passions is only half the story. To make this an interesting and, perhaps, relationship-building exercise, try answering the questions as if you were your partner. Have you partner do the same thing. You can then compare notes and see how accurately you did or did not predict your partner’s responses.