Everything School Forgot

Love

emotionlovepeoplerelationships

Love is a tough one. The “rules” and guidelines aren’t universal. There are a ton of exceptions to everything and anything anyone says about love. Whether they are talking about how to love or how to be loved.

However, one thing that I feel is fairly applicable to most people is to love based on who the person is right now and has been recently versus who they were or who you expect them to be. Again, this falls under the “hard to explain” category because there’s absolutely exceptions.

What I mean is don’t love someone for who you thought they were or who you want them to be. Love them for who they are. If you don’t love them for who they are right now, then the situation is not the right one. However, consider this more applicable to love in romantic relationships as opposed to love between family members.

A good example of an exception to the idea of loving someone for who they are now is someone who has continuously and without fail screwed you and others over numerous times in the past. They may seem like they have changed, but odds are they have not. So if you are going to give them another chance, just be cautious and wary that they may easily fall back into their old ways.

Disagreements

There will inevitably be disagreements with the people you love. However, try not to react in the moment. Instead, take a deep breath. Relax a bit. Give yourself some time to think. Remember, like most tense situations, it’s okay to allow some time to pass before responding. Even if the silence feels awkward, that’s okay. It’s better to have an awkward silence than to say something out of anger and continue to escalate the situation.

Asking the person you’re disagreeing with if you can have a minute to collect yourself is another helpful way to respond. You could go write the issues down along with a larger explanation of why they are problems. This is more helpful, constructive, and usually less harmful than spouting off while angry. When you’re angry, it’s very easy to say things you don’t mean, will likely regret, and can’t take back.

Writing your thoughts down gives you a chance to dull the edge on your words. If you write down your thoughts while you’re angry then come back to them later, you may find they are a bit harsh, and you might want to find a way to soften them up.

Don’t leave someone you love for someone you like

I heard this somewhere a long time ago, and it has always stuck with me. I think it’s a pretty decent rule of thumb. Sometimes long-term relationships can start to feel slow, predictable, boring, stale, etc. You might meet someone new while you’re still in this relationship. The new person might seem exciting and interesting in a way that doesn’t exist with your partner. Maybe you feel a strong connection with them. The chemistry feels off the charts. But here’s the thing, at one time or another, you probably felt that same way about your current partner, and for whatever reason things have started to fall flat. In the beginning, romantic relationships are almost always electric and exciting. They have their own natural momentum, but over time that natural momentum slows. In order to keep it going, you have to work at it. Yes, just like anything else worth a damn, a good relationship requires work. I know, I tend to be a hopeless romantic at heart too, but even as a hopeless romantic you have to acknowledge relationships don’t just happen. Love doesn’t just magically keep things together. You have to put in effort, you have to compromise. Relationships aren’t 50/50 either. As in each person puts in 50%. They’re 100/100. You’re both either all in. Or you might as well be all out.

Back to this new interest. The thought might cross your mind that you could see yourself with this person, and maybe you’re right. However, you should not leave the person that you love just because you’ve found someone interesting. You should only leave the person you love if things really either are not working out or just are not what you want in life. Sometimes a relationship might be perfectly okay. However, you might want more than okay. There might be nothing obviously “wrong” with the relationship, but maybe it’s just not quite what you need. Or maybe it’s just missing that “something”.

How do you tell the difference between a relationship that’s missing that “something” and one that simply “slowed down and became boring”? That’s a very tough question to answer. I think the main way to tell is if it never really had that something special. I think most relationships do, but if it’s truly something special, that honeymoon period, in my experience will likely last year’s instead of weeks or months. Some relationships may happen just because you’re looking for something and so is the other person, so you go on a couple dates, and it seems good enough so you keep going and before you know it’s been a year and you’re in a long term committed relationship, but there was never really that spark. The two of you kind of settled. Now, again, as always, there are exceptions. That’s what makes love so damned hard to put into words. There are definitely relationships out there like what I have just mentioned that do last for a long, long time and do work and both people are completely happy.

Love is so individualistic that it’s really hard to put rules or even guidelines around it. In the end, it’s really about doing what you think is best for you and the ones you love. You need to make sure that you’re happy and will be in the long term. Otherwise, you and those around you will very likely end up miserable.

Relationships are 100/100 not 50/50

In the best long-term romantic relationships each person is putting in 100%. You’re either all in or all out.

I understand it’s kind of a cheesy way to put it, but honestly, it’s true. If you aren’t going to fully commit to the relationship and the effort it’s going to take to keep things great for the long haul then you’re wasting your partner’s time.

The final word on love

Ultimately, love is something that you’ll have to figure out for yourself and what it means for you. The biggest thing about love, that I think is probably the one steadfast rule you can have about it, is to be open to it. Like they say, “It’s better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all.”