We all desire to feel loved and treasured. That is the one thing we all have in common; the need to feel love. What is love to one person is not necessarily love to another. Many people believe that love is about power and control and they call it love, but it is not. How do we learn to love? Well, for the most part we adapt behaviours or ways of showing affection from our parents and families. We have many beliefs about what love should be and feel like. Religion and cultural beliefs come into play as well. Most of us never challenge the fact that what we are taught about life and love are not necessarily healthy. We try to imagine what it would be like to be loved. We even buy into what romance novels tell us is love.
However, after many years of reading those novels, I have realized that a lot of them are just fantasies of that particular writer. It is that authors belief of what they think love of another person should be like. Life is not a fairy tale and yet so many of us buy into what we read and are told. Do we ever question it, or just accept whatever comes along? Let’s face it, we all, as men and women have unrealistic expectations of our relationships; and that is the reason many relationships do not last. The problem is that we all are expecting too much of those relationships. We also have become a society of people who have an extreme inability to give, and are too self-focused. A partnership or love relationship is based on a balance between partners, it should not be a power struggle. Finding a balance takes work and commitment to co-create a loving and evolving partnership.
How many are really capable of giving of themselves? It seems that many want to move on to another person, rather than look at the issues hindering the relationship they have. Most are very reluctant to look at themselves. It is so easy to move on it seems, however, when children are involved, serious thought and introspection is needed. I have known many that have moved on and left behind and abandoned the children they brought into this world. The result is children who grow up with issues around parenting and continue bad patterns in their relationships. A sad reality for many.
Having a healthy and realistic perspective is what is needed before entering into any relationship. Learning to love another person takes work, it is not magic, and not what we read in novels, it requires commitment, trust, and respect and lots of open honest communication about what we want out of a relationship and what we can give to each other. It is the elusive (for many) but a treasure we all yearn and crave for.