In this chapter, we examine contemporary, mainstream concepts in the close relationship literature that link well with or provide questions about the idea of minding. We pay special attention to general analyses of intimacy, attachment, and love. For example, the concept of intimacy, as posited by major theorists, has considerable similarity to minding. We argue that minding is a process that couples can use to attain intimacy.

A bridge between minding and the literature on love is a natural step given the centrality of love in the conception of what it takes to succeed in a close relationship for a long period of time. Love often has been conceived in terms of styles of loving behavior that are part of an individual's personality. Further, love often is analyzed as if it were a stable type of trait or style, without the same emphasis on process that we provide in minding theory. We contend that through minding activities, couples may change one another's loving styles. They may, for example, go from a style of dominant passion or eroticism to one of more dominant friendship.

Overall, we repeat the claim that minding is a major vehicle whereby couples achieve states such as intimacy and different types of love. We believe that some of the key features of minding – reciprocity, self-disclosure, behavior involving knowing and being known, attribution, acceptance and respect, and continuity – have been given short shrift in the many writings and theoretical works on intimacy and love.