Appreciation does not create a debt
Read seven CTL-I 2018 gratitude statements, a transparent sum and mean, a care example and boundaries around reciprocity and obligation.
All seven source items retain the selected 1–4 values. The keyed sum is 7–28; divide by seven for the separate mean, without a reciprocity or worth score.
Gratitude includes several different reports
Items 17–23 concern gratitude for a partner’s existence and received love, a sense of connection while apart, accepting a need for the partner, offering comfort, caring when help is needed and sharing daily responsibilities. These statements combine feelings and reported inclinations. A mean does not observe actual care or tell us whether it was requested, possible or welcome. Needing someone and feeling appreciation can have different meanings in different relationships; neither is established by a group name alone.
A complete seven-item calculation
Suppose the raw choices are 4, 4, 3, 2, 3, 4 and 3. All are forward-keyed, so they sum to 23 and the mean is 23/7, displayed as 3.29. The calculation does not round each contribution or add the mean to another domain. An equally sized sum can arise from different answers about gratitude and practical responsibilities. The number therefore cannot reveal how the work in a household is distributed or whether either person regards the arrangement as fair.
Offer help with room for a different preference
Imagine a busy evening when your partner seems tired. You might ask: “Would taking care of dinner help, or would you prefer something else?” That offers a specific action and leaves the response open. A counterexample is doing an unwanted task and then demanding gratitude or affection in return. The source’s care statements do not make help welcome, create consent or determine what a person owes. A clear refusal can be respected even when the offer was well intended.
Read endorsement without a moral category
A larger mean describes more endorsement of these seven gratitude and care-related statements in this attempt; a smaller one describes less. Neither establishes generosity, selfishness, dependence or a fixed amount of love. Feeling grateful does not require accepting a demand, forgiving harm or repaying care with intimacy. A person may appreciate a relationship while deciding to leave. The inventory does not observe another person’s wishes, verify reciprocity or decide whose account of daily responsibilities is correct.
Care depends on resources and choice
Illness, disability, work hours, finances, caregiving demands and access to help can affect what daily tasks someone can offer. The form cannot separate willingness from those constraints. A person may also need support without describing it as dependence, or show appreciation in ways not represented in seven statements. These possibilities are context for a reading, not explanations the score can verify. Avoid comparing this mean with a partner’s mean or with an unprovided population norm.
You may read without a gratitude score
The forty-one-item form has no unscored option and requires every recognised choice before personal domain results. A missing item stops all personal scoring, rather than estimating gratitude from a subset. If a prompt does not fit your experience or you do not want to answer, you may exit and read every full guide. Reading without a score is always available. An unfinished attempt does not suggest ungratefulness, unwillingness to care or an inability to maintain a relationship.
Source attribution is separate from validation
The English statements reproduce Kapusta et al. (2018), Table 1, in Measuring the Capacity to Love: Development of the CTL-Inventory, under CC BY 4.0. The new Chinese translation and website explanations are identified adaptations, without endorsement by the original authors. The original German and Polish research does not establish validity of these displays, local norms or language equivalence. Six separate sums and means are transparent calculations; the website does not reconstruct an unverified official overall formula or assign a love-capacity level.
Choose one welcome action, or none
If useful, privately note something you appreciated and one action within your time and resources. You may ask whether the action would be welcome, without requiring gratitude or a particular response. You can also keep the observation to yourself or finish here. No score asks you to overextend, surrender a boundary, provide unwanted care or remain in an unsafe relationship. Public sharing contains only a general title and link, never your choices, raw sum or mean.