The Three Foundations of Love
Test a relationship on personality, values and goals rather than on how it feels.
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 3
- Confidence
- 93%
Shetty breaks love into three testable components he uses in the book and in couples coaching: do I like their personality, do I respect their values, and do I want to help them achieve their goals. Each has a concrete test rather than a feeling. Personality is measured against the friendship-hours research — 40 hours to become a casual friend, 100 to become a friend, 200 to become a good friend — so the question becomes 'do I want to spend 200 hours with this person'. Values are read from how someone actually spends their time and money, not from what they say. Goals require knowing where the other person wants to go, which most couples have never asked. Reach for this when a relationship feels good but you cannot say why, or bad but you cannot name the fault.
Origin
Developed for the chapter structure of '8 Rules of Love' and refined while coaching couples, using the friendship-hours study as the measurable proxy for the otherwise vague idea of 'liking someone'.
Core principles
- 01Liking a personality is a time question, not a chemistry question.
- 02Values are revealed by time and money, not by stated beliefs.
- 03Love is wanting to help someone reach where they want to get to.
- 04Most couples fail all three tests and patch the gap with things that merely feel good.
How to run it
- 1
Ask whether you want 200 hours with them
Use the friendship-hours benchmark as the personality test. If 200 hours is what it takes to become someone's good friend, ask honestly whether you want to spend 200 hours with this person trying to understand them.
Pro tip Shetty notes the hours can be unusually dense — he and Bartlett have logged few hours but very deep ones — so weight quality as well as clock time.
Watch out Do not confuse enjoying someone's company in short bursts with wanting hundreds of hours of them.
- 2
Audit their values through time and money
You only know someone's values if you ask, if you are aware, and if you observe how they spend their time and money. Shetty's blunt observation is that most people do not like how their partner spends time and money, which means they do not like their partner's values.
Pro tip Run the same audit on yourself first; the framework assumes you have already named your own current values.
Watch out If you dislike their values but stay because you like something else about them, you are building on the one thing Shetty calls the core of who a person is.
- 3
Ask whether you want to help them reach their goals
The third test is whether you actively want to help this person get to where they want to get to. Shetty defines that wanting as love itself. It presupposes that you know their goals, which requires asking.
Pro tip Pair this with the direction question — 'where do you want to be and do you want my help getting there' — which Shetty calls the deepest question a partner can ask.
Watch out Most people do not know where their partner wants to go, or where they themselves want to go, so this test silently fails without anyone noticing.
In the wild
Mid-conversation Shetty applies the benchmark to the two of them and notes they are nowhere on the 40/100/200 hour list, despite repeatedly opening up to each other in a way neither does elsewhere.
→ He concludes it is a different type of relationship — depth substituting for hours — which sharpens rather than breaks the test: the question is whether you want the 200 hours, not whether you have them.
Shetty's wife, a talented chef, was told constantly by people around her that she should start a restaurant, and he could see fear and uncertainty on her face each time. Rather than push, he repeatedly asked how it made her feel and what she actually wanted to do with her skills.
→ She named her own goal — nutrition and diet work with individuals, closer to paediatrics — and now works with people online. Shetty's takeaway: just because someone says something is a good idea does not make it your idea.
Common mistakes
Patching the three gaps with stickers
Shetty's phrase for it is trying to patch it up with all the other stickers that make us feel good. Chemistry, sex and shared routine are used to cover a failure on personality, values or goals, so the failure is never diagnosed.
Assuming you know their goals without ever asking
Shetty argues most people have never asked their partner what their vision is for their life or the relationship — and the reason is usually that they do not know their own answer, so they avoid the question entirely.
Is it for you?
Best for
Couples who cannot articulate what is wrong, and daters who want a selection test that is not chemistry.
Not ideal for
Anyone looking for a romantic account of love — this deliberately reduces it to three auditable questions.
From the transcript
“in order for someone to be considered a casual friend you have to spend 40 hours with them”
“someone's personality is do I want to spend 200 hours with them that's how I like to break it down”
“do you want to help them achieve their goals that's love love means that you want to help them get to where they want to…”
From the episode
Jay Shetty: 8 Rules For Perfect Love & Amazing Sex!
Jay Shetty