Separate a present decision from a promise about the future
Read five original statements about calling a feeling love and intending to continue, with exact scoring, a planning conversation and the right to reconsider.
Five complete numeric ratings produce this group’s separate mean. A stated intention is not a verified future action or your partner’s agreement.
Two time horizons within one theoretical component
Sternberg distinguishes the short-term decision that one loves someone from the longer-term intention to maintain that love. This original group includes both: how you currently name your feeling, whether continuation matters beyond the immediate moment, and intentions around freely agreed plans and ordinary disagreements. Combining them here does not prove they are one independently validated factor. Read the item meanings too, since a present decision and a future intention can differ without either being dishonest.
Keep five original statements and one exact mean
Ratings of 3, 4, 4, 2 and 5 sum to 18, giving 3.6 after division by five. Each statement contributes equally and none is reverse-scored. The result does not apply the Investment Model, calculate satisfaction minus alternatives, or add past investments to a duty to stay. If any response is unscored, this group has no mean. A near or equal number in the intimacy or passion group remains visible without being treated as an equivalent psychological amount.
A bounded agreement is clearer than a global promise
Imagine discussing the next few weeks while each person has separate plans. You could say: “I would like to keep making time for us. Could we discuss one arrangement we both want, and check it again later?” This expresses an intention and leaves the other person free to answer. A counterexample is interpreting a high mean as permission to book a shared future or announce a commitment on someone else’s behalf. Neither a questionnaire nor one person’s plan supplies joint consent.
Commitment never makes harm a requirement
An intention to continue can be reconsidered as circumstances change. Taking space, declining contact, leaving coercion or protecting private information cannot be scored here as a moral failure. The ordinary-disagreement prompt does not refer to violence, threats or situations in which a discussion is unsafe. No reading tells you to tolerate harm to become more committed. You may stop answering without producing a substitute conclusion, and your safety decisions do not require support from a test result.
Distinguish this component from a commitment-only questionnaire
The site’s separate relationship-commitment reflection asks about continuing intention, satisfaction, outside options and relationship-linked investment. These five triangle prompts overlap conceptually with continuing intention; they do not create a new independent commitment construct. Their role is to place a present love decision and future intentions beside intimacy and passion within Sternberg’s framework. The two forms have different items and cannot be converted or compared numerically. Neither form verifies your partner’s intentions or determines a relationship outcome.
Empty and consummate love remain conceptual examples
The triangular theory calls a commitment-only limiting case empty love and the all-three limiting case consummate love. These names describe theoretical combinations, not scores assigned by this original form. A relationship can change over time and may not resemble a pure case. The page does not identify a missing component from a cutoff, call a relationship empty, or recommend pursuing a supposedly perfect triangle. You can examine a particular intention without turning a theory label into an instruction.
An intention is neither a guarantee nor a prediction
The fifteen original items are not Sternberg’s published TLS and have no established reliability, local norms or cross-language measurement equivalence. The four-week period helps recall rather than establishing a validated time boundary. Self-reports may change with context and cannot distinguish every reason for a plan. This group does not measure loyalty, honesty or the probability of staying together. A difference between two attempts also has no established change threshold, so it cannot certify improvement or decline.
Choose a question you can answer for yourself
If useful, separate three private notes: what you call your feeling now, what you currently intend, and what would need another person’s agreement. Leave uncertainty explicit rather than replacing it with a promise. A conversation is optional; a joint decision requires each person’s voluntary participation. You may read the other guides or end here. Copying shares only the public title and link, never a commitment score, a message for a partner or permission to make a decision for them.