by Dr. MaryAnn Diorio

June 28, 2025

Hello and Happy Day! This is Dr. MaryAnn Diorio, Novelist and Life Coach, welcoming you to another episode of “The Relationship Road.” Today is Saturday, June 28, 2025, and this episode is titled “Love: The Glue of Healthful Relationships.”

Last week, we talked about how false expectations and false assumptions undermine good relationships. We concluded our discussion by introducing the concept of agape love.

This week, we will be exploring the four types of love and how love is the glue of all healthful relationships.

But first, as usual, let’s begin with a definition of terms, What is love? We use this word very loosely today to cover myriad situations. For example, we say, “I love my spouse” and we also say “I love chocolate.” Well, if we mean the same exact thing in both situations, we could be in serious trouble, either in our relationship with our spouse or in our relationship with chocolate.

In order to understand the four types of love—and, in particular, agape love—we need to go back to the ancient Greeks, and even farther than that to the greatest book of all time, the Bible.

Let’s start with the Greeks. Greek philosophers like Aristotle and Plato distinguished four types of love.

These four types of love are Phileo, Eros, Storge, and Agape. In C.S. Lewis’ classic book, The Four Loves, Lewis defines phileo as the love of one friend for another, storge as the love among family members, eros as the love between husband and wife, and agape as God’s love for us.

Phileo

Phileo is the kind of love we feel toward friends. The city of Philadelphia, known as the City of Brotherly Love, derives its name from the type of love known as phileo. This kind of love can occur between lifelong friends and members of a tribe or community. It is characterized by an emotional fondness for the friend and a genuine desire for the well-being of that friend.

Aristotle believed that phileo love is essential to happiness because, as he is purported to have said, “no one would choose to live without friends.”

Storge
Storge is the love that we have toward family members, very close friends, and even pets. It is broader than phileo love and actually overlaps the other types of love.

Eros
Eros is physical love, love that is expressed through the sexual union and, according to God’s design and command, is reserved only for marriage between one man and one woman.

Agape
Finally, we have agape love, the love that is the foundational premise for all lasting relationships. It is the type of love on which we are going to focus today.

Wherease phileo, storge, and eros are based predominantly on feelings, agape love is based entirely on decision. Agape love, therefore, is an act of the will and purely of the will.

These four types of love may overlap in particular relationships. For example, in marriage, all four types of love occur, with Eros being confined to and permitted only in marriage. In relationships outside of marriage, Phileo, Storge, and Agape may occur, and, as in marriage, they also may occur simultaneously.

In C.S. Lewis’ classic book, The Four Loves, Lewis defines phileo as the love of one friend for another, storge as the love among family members, eros as the love between husband and wife, and agape as God’s love for us and in us if we are born again.

Agape love is the highest form of love. Why? Because it is the only type of love that is based on the will and not on the emotions. It is easy to love according to the emotions. After all, when we feel a fondness toward a person, we instinctively want to do good to that person.

But agape love is a different story. Humanly speaking, it is impossible to love with agape love. In other words, it is impossible, in our own human strength, to love according to the will. Without the help of God, the human being will have no recourse but to live out of his own strength. And human strength is limited

So what does all of this have with human relationships? It has everything to do with human relationships. Next time, we will learn how agape love is the only love that will create lasting human relationships that transcend the test of time, and how we can acquire that kind of love.

We will also explore the main character in my award-winning novel, The Madonna of Pisano, who triumphed over evil through agape love.

So don’t miss next week’s post. It will change your life—and your relationships.

This is Dr. MaryAnn Diorio, Novelist and Life Coach, reminding you that the secret to great relationships is always to treat others as you would like to be treated.

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Copyright 2025 by MaryAnn Diorio, PhD. All Rights Reserved.

This week’s featured book: The Madonna of Pisano. Book 1 in The Italian Chronicles Trilogy.


A mother’s sacrifice. A village’s judgment. A love that changes everything.

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Dr. MaryAnn Diorio is a Certified Life Coach, Certified Biblical Counselor, Certified Behavioral Consultant, and an Award-Winning Novelist. In The Relationship Road, she combines her expertise as a coach and a novelist to bring you Biblical advice on how to cultivate and nurture healthful relationships. As Dr. MaryAnn often notes, “When all is said and done, life is about relationships.” Visit her on her website at maryanndiorio.com and her online bookstore at shop.maryanndiorio.com.