We as a society are swallowing a lot of information as cannon, such as the idea that more is better. When it comes to love we seem to buy into the idea that time spent with our loved one is a measurable, tangible thing. We focus on quantity rather than quality. IF e commit ourselves to this idea, we are losing sight of what is really important. This kind of thinking leads us to keeping score. If we score points, then we set ourselves up for failure.
This failure can lead to suffering. Love shouldn’t be about suffering. We shouldn’t feel as if we are waiting for other shoe to drop when it comes to love. We should always remember that codependency is not a relationship.
A quality relationship will leave you feeling refreshed. In a quality relationship you celebrate each other for who you are, independently. If you feel that your relationship has a negative effect on your health, you are not seeing things for how they really are.
It seems as if relationships are dividing on the lines ideals, education and family. This may be due to lack of communication or a wildly differing set of values that were set within childhood. This is why some tend to manage their love relationships by creating a level of dependence on their partner. An important thing to remember is that loving someone else means you have to love yourself first.
Some people block their emotions by focusing on work or other external distractions. These can include smoking and drinking or using other substances to block their feelings. Avoiding the burden of emotion is just a coping mechanism that is used to protect themselves.
Many of these behaviors exhibit themselves when you becoming unsatisfied with their situation and relationship. They can say that they are going through a rough patch and move towards a pattern of ignoring problems denying situations thinking that things will change. This is when we either break up to protect ourselves or wrap ourselves in denial out of fear of being alone.
We have all had points in our lives when we have been on the bad side of unrequited love. We have known the loneliness of an unbalanced relationship. It is important to embrace self-care and to put your own emotional health and happiness first.
There are many situations that we have been able to experience when we interact with other people. Thus, there are also many mistakes that we have made and many forms of self-deceit we create in order to soften the pain.
“Guilt, shame and fear are the immediate motives of deceit.”
-Daniel Goleman-
Analyze your past in order to change your future
Maybe if we stop to analyze how we behave while being with someone and how our partners tend to behave with us, we’ll be able to find similar aspects. Chapters which repeat over and over, even though it was with another person. Partners come in and out of our lives, but we stumble upon the same stones.It gets to a point where we are submerged in a vicious cycle, which does nothing more than repeat itself. We seem incapable of escaping and don’t even know how we got to this point. Again with the same dramatic melody, the same bitter chords. Because even though the orchestra is different, you are still the director. Even though it’s a different person, even though you’re in a different moment in your life, though you promised to not go through the same thing again, there you go again… loving too much, loving in excess, loving wrong.
The traces of the past
Why does this happen to us? The patterns of interaction that we learn during childhood have very deep roots. We have been practicing them our whole lives, and changing or abandoning them seems threatening and like a terrible challenge. But it’s even more difficult to realize and be aware of the reality of the situation. Being capable of seeing everything that is happening from within.
The key is to start understanding ourselves, asking ourselves why we incessantly search for someone to look after and protect. Understand why our voice fails us when we try to explain what we feel and we end up abandoning the attempt. Why do I irrepressibly need to know what the other person is doing and to control them when they are not by my side? Why is it that, despite the fact that we’re suffering, we remain in a doomed relationship?
If our way of interacting harms us and the person we’re with, but we do nothing to try to understand or change it, the life you lead won’t be a journey of learning but instead a fight for survival. If loving someone is painful, it’s time to love yourself in order to stop the pain.
“Loving yourself is the beginning of an endless love story.”
-Oscar Wilde-
