Love seems simple… dewy eyed, dreamy noons, mushy heart, rosy world.
But a few weeks or say, months into it, its not that easy. Relationship turns into an arcade of fights. Give a few years into it (living together…even better), it turns into a huge battlefield where battles of doing things the right way (read “my way”) are fought on a daily basis.
Then comes the guilt of having had a fight or an ugly argument – “why did I do this?” or “Why did I fight?” or “I should have done the (so called) right thing.”
If you identify with this here, read on because this is for you. if not, read on any way, youll find something useful.
Our concept of love usually comes from movies and mills & boons books. Our concept of marriage is defined by our parents’ marriage and of those we see and hear around us.
Love is defined as care, understanding, attention, being available etc. Love is defined as
If your definition of love is “I care about you deeply because (therefore) I love you”, and then you go on to do everything possible for the other person even if they are capcable of doing it on their own, then what you are doing is definitely not love.
Love is about sharing your life with the other person and respecting their personal life and priorities.
It requires 2 things:
- Having a life of your own
- Having the maturity, individuality and independence to respect this in your partner.
It means you have a life of your own, your own friends that are possibly not common, a hobby or profession that you are passionate about (may or may not be similar to your partner), ability to be alone and enjoy your own company and having no need for a partner.
If you have a habit of adjusting your needs and wants to what other people feel comfortable with, you are not being who you are, you are not being authentic.
Would you want to be in a relationship with someone who is not expressing their true self to you? Have you felt weird meeting someone and felt that they are pretending to be someone they are not. How did you feel about them? Did you want to have any kind of relationship with them? They were just trying to be someone they think you would like.
Caring for everyone around you is good, but not at your own cost. If you care for everyone, you wont be living your own life. you would just be pretending to live whne all you are doing is trying to please everyone. A syreshot recipe for failure is trying to make everyone happy.
Stop taking others’ responsibility. Give them a chance to take care of themselves. do you want them to depend on you every time they need something. If so, that’s not love, that’s making them handicapped incapable of living life without you. If they are adults, they can take care of themselves and that includes their emotions as well. so if they feel bad, they can take care of it. if they cant take care of themselves, would you want to be in a relationship with them?
Stop telling them what to do and not do. Start discussing what they would like to do, discuss options and make suggestions. You want to empower them not make them your puppets.
Be there for them, present. But don’t make them your mission. Your spouse is not your project. Improving them is not your mission for a relationship. if you don’t like or approve of the way they are, find someone else. If you don’t like their habits, make suggestions, open up and ask what is the reason they do that. Tell them it makes you feel (___fill this space with your feeling/emotion____) instead of saying “you make me feel like (____).” Separate the person from the behaviour.
Try these things and see what difference it makes in your relationships. Do leave a feedback in the comment section below on how it worked or did not work.
