"Love is an act of faith." The sentence belongs to Erich Fromm, the German psychoanalyst and philosopher, written in 1956 in his book The Art of Loving. Seventy years later it is still quoted - usually wrongly, as an excuse for putting up with things.

Clinical psychologist Andrea Vicente, who specialises in relationships, says Fromm did not mean blind faith. He meant the capacity to invest in a relationship without absolute guarantees about the future. The difference is enormous, and it is precisely the one we tend to skip.

Where the line runs

Blind faith is stubbornly staying where there is nothing left. An act of faith is knowing there is no guarantee and choosing to invest anyway. The first is a refusal to look at reality. The second is a decision made with your eyes open.

Vicente puts it like this: to love is to accept a certain degree of uncertainty. The only thing that can be guaranteed is commitment - not the outcome. Nobody signs a paper saying they will still be together in thirty years. All they can sign is that tomorrow they will try again.

What psychologists count as foundations

According to the expert explanation in the piece, a healthy relationship rests on several things: choosing a partner with your head, understanding that love requires continuous intent, learning to articulate your own needs, accepting that conflict is normal - what matters is how it gets resolved - and protecting the investment even in periods when life is buried under obligations. Plus one that is harder than all of them: the balance between who you are and what the two of you are.

None of that is romantic. Which is why it does not sell well. It is easier to believe that real love takes no effort than to admit that it does - every day, with no proof it will pay off.

Fromm wrote it in 1956, when nobody was typing messages for hours. Today the same sentence sounds almost provocative: in an age when everything can be checked, rated and compared in advance, love remains one of the few things with no star rating attached.