Love Ways and Relationship Quality in Heterosexual Relationships

This study reports the creation of the Love Ways Inventory and an investigation of the relationship between the subjective experience of romantic love and relationship quality. Based on the results of two previous studies, items were written to measure the various ways people experience love. Factor analyses resulted in five factors: intuitive love, secure love, traditional romantic love, committed love and companionate love. These ‘love ways' were then correlated with relational quality in two separate samples leading to three general findings. First, individuals experiencing committed love have higher quality relationships. Second, couples jointly experiencing high levels of companionate love have higher quality relationships. Third, couples experiencing similar levels of secure love and/or companionate love have higher quality relationships.