THREE HARSH TRUES ABOUT LOVE
The concern with idealizing love is that it allows us to create false perceptions of what love truly is and what it will do for us. This unreasonable expectations sabotage the very relationships that we hold dear in the first place. Please encourage me to illustrate:
1. Loving is not the same compatibility. Only because you fell in love with someone doesn't always mean that they're a healthy match for you to be with in the long run. Love is an emotional process, compatibility is a rational process. And the two of them don't bleed very well into each other.
It's possible to fall in love with someone who doesn't treat us well, who makes us feel bad for ourselves, who doesn't have the same regard for us as we do for them, or who has a messy life that threatens to drag us down with them.
It's possible to fall in love with someone who has different aspirations or goals in life that run counter to our own, who holds different moral values or worldviews that run counter to our own understanding in truth.
It's possible to fall in love with someone who sucks for us and our happiness.
It may sound paradoxical, but it's real.
When I think about all the unsuccessful relationships I've seen or people have e-mailed me about, a lot (or most) about them come in on the basis of emotion — they felt a "spark" and then they just got in the head first. Forget about becoming a born-again Christian addict and an acid-dropping gay. It all seemed right.
And so, six months later, as she dumps his shit out on the lawn and prays to Jesus twelve times a day for her redemption, they look about and think, "Gee, where did it go wrong?
The fact is, things had gone bad before it had even started.
When dating and looking for a wife, you need to use not just your spirit, but your mind. Yes, you're looking to meet someone that makes your heart flutter and your farts smell like strawberry popsicles. But you still need to assess the ideals of an individual, how they treat themselves, how they treat others who are close to them, their goals and their worldviews in general. And if you fell in love with somebody who's incompatible with you then, like the South Park ski instructor once said, you're going to have a rough time.
2. Loving doesn't fix the problems of the friendship. My first girlfriend and I have been madly in love with each other. We all lived in separate cities, had no money to visit each other, had relatives that despised each other, and went through weekly bouts of senseless drama and hardship.
And every time we argued, we would come back to each other the next day and make up and tell each other how mad we were for each other and that none of those little things matter because we're omg so in love and we're going to find a way to do it and it's going to be perfect, just wait and see. Our love has helped us feel like we have solved our challenges, though absolutely little has improved on a realistic basis.
As you can guess, none of our issues has been fixed. The fights were renewed. The claims have gotten worse. Our failure to see each other hung about our heads like an albatross. We were both self-absorbed to the point that we did not interact too well. Hours and hours sitting on the phone with nothing specifically said about it. Thinking back, there was no possibility that it would last. Yet we've been holding things up for three fucking years!
After all, passion conquers all, doesn't it?
Unsurprisingly, the partnership burst into flames and fell into an oil patch like the Hindenburg. The break-up was ugly. And the big lesson I learned was this: while love can make you feel better about your relationship problems, it doesn't necessarily fix all of your relationship problems.
That's how the abusive friendship works. The roller coaster of emotions is intoxicating, each high feeling is much more critical and valid than the one before, but unless there is a solid and realistic base under your feet, the rising tide of emotion will finally come and wash it all away.
3. Love is not really worth losing itself. One of the distinguishing qualities of loving someone is that you can think beyond of yourself and your own desires to better provide about someone else and their desires.
But the question that isn't posed nearly enough is just what you're sacrificing, and is it worth it?
In romantic marriages, it is common for both people to sometimes compromise their own interests, their own wants, and their own time for each other. I 'd say that this is natural and safe, and it's a huge part of what makes a friendship so special.
But when it comes to compromising one's self-respect, one's integrity, one's physical body, one's aspirations and the meaning of living, only to be with someone, the same love becomes troublesome. A loving relationship is intended to contribute to our individual personality, not to damage or erase it. When we find ourselves in positions where we accept rude or violent conduct, that's basically what we're doing: we're allowing our affection to overtake us and reject us, and if we're not careful, it's going to leave us as the shell of the individual we once were.