So, you feel that swelling in your heart. The kind that makes you want to write poetry and beautiful music. You have the crazy indescribable urge to broadcast to the world that you’re in love and make frequent references to friends and colleagues about the object of your affection. You are on a delicious, delirious high and feel that nothing can bring you down now that you have finally found ‘The One’.
But is it genuine true love that you have stumbled across or an insidious impostor? One that leaves a trail of broken hearts and broken promises everywhere. History is replete with stories of unconditional love that reached almost to the heights of heaven itself. Couples who were bonded so closely that nothing could come between them. Unfortunately for every one of those tales there are literally thousands more which end in sorrow and despair. Most of the time the pain that results from a relationship ending has more to do with our own unrealised fantasies and lost hope than it has to do with our choice of mate. There are notable exceptions to this of course.
The difficulty lies in trying to maintain a realistic view of our partner and the relationship while our hormones and their rush of ‘love endorphins’ undermines our every turn. The phrase “Love is Blind” was coined for a reason.
Lust and The Honeymoon Period
By now the term ‘honeymooon period’ has become a mainstream label for the beginning of a relationship. It is the time when your significant other can do no wrong. They are perfect in every way, held aloft on a mighty pedestal where every day you go to worship at the beauty of their creation. This is the most dangerous time when errors in judgement can be profound and long lasting. During this period (even with the sudden rush of love hormones) our intuition will tell us when something is not quite right. The problem is for most of us we choose not to listen.
Compatibility issues can surface almost immediately and we should be thinking long and hard about whether these are things we can live with for the long term or whether this person really is the dream mate we have envisioned. It is the overwhelming passion of the ‘honeymoon period’ that has many people mistaking lust for love. A lot of ‘I do’s’ have been said out of lust and pure physical attraction and when the endorphins die down there is no foundation left from which a life together can be built.
Friendship And The Desire To Couple
Many people have envisioned a life spent with a close friend. These romantic friendships sometimes involve sex and sometimes they do not but one thing they all have in common is the desire for closeness. It usually starts when two people find that they are surprisingly similar. They begin to hang out all of the time and feel truly comfortable in each others presence. They are able to communicate freely and trust implicitly. It is easy to mistake such a wonderful bond as true love, however, there are usually key elements, such as passion, which are missing. Both parties soon talk themselves into believing that they would make a good couple just because they are such great friends. This rarely turns out to be true. It is usually our feelings of loneliness that have us running for the arms of a friend. Unfortunately, without those intangible extras that exist when romantic love is truly present, the relationship often falters. And more heartbreaking is the fact that afterwards the friendship rarely survives either.
So What Is True Love?
Thich Nhat Hanh, a world renowned Buddhist monk who was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, describes true love as having four elements:
Lovingkindness, compassion, joy and freedom.
But what does this mean in terms of your own relationship?
Lovingkindness
When you truly love someone you embrace them for who they are this very minute. You do not have fantasies about what you believe they could evolve into. You accept their shortcomings and foibles and sometimes love them all the more because of it. You have the desire to create happiness for them and through your actions are able to bring about lasting joy in their lives. This requires a deep level of understanding with regards to your mates wishes. Many people have done things with the intent to build a better life for their partners only to find out that their actions caused more pain and suffering to occur. The resultant argument usually starts with the sentence “You just don’t understand” or “You never listen.” True love always listens!
This doesn’t mean you will never have an argument. How boring would life be if we all agreed on everything. But there is a distinct difference between a disagreement which eventually brings two people closer together and a situation where one or both people feel alienated and deeply hurt.
Compassion
When your love is pure your primary intention is to remove the pain and suffering that has plagued your partner throughout their lives. We all come into relationships with baggage, past failures and disappointments, that can overwhelm the present if we let it. Being able to help heal the old wounds of your beloved is what compassion is all about. If you truly love someone you cannot stand to see them suffer. Helping them to overcome their hurt and fear in a compassionate way establishes trust. One of the foundations of a strong and long lasting relationship.
Joy
Every day you should feel absolute joy when you wake up next to your beloved. Obviously there will be times when difficulties arise. The universe throws curve balls at us all the time that we have to find a way to deal with. But even through those dark times you should feel grateful that your partner is by your side. They should be able to make you laugh when all you want to do is cry. They should be able to hold you even when they have made you mad. There should be laughter and light not tears and darkness. You should never feel alone and unhappy within your relationship.
Freedom
Freedom is an essential element for love. You have to have the freedom to be yourself and express your true desires. You have to be able to confidently give your partner all the space and freedom they need to live a fulfilling life. If you become angry or upset because your mate wants to spend time alone or with friends, or if you become jealous over the passion they have for their work or hobby then this is called selfish love. You are more concerned with your own desires than allowing them the freedom to truly shine within themselves. We all need things outside of a relationship to make us complete human beings. If we do not have access to those things we begin to wither inside. When you have truly found ‘The One’ you will feel a sense of freedom that has previously been missing in past relationships.
What True Love Isn’t
True love is never associated with violence, deception, abuse (emotional, physical or verbal), constant sacrifice for the good of only one person, jealousy, fear or mistrust.
“True love always waits.” And is patient, caring, kind, joyous and free!
-From Hubpages.com
