3 Hard Truths on Love You Need to Hear

[I feel like] I love you, [for right now…]

We’ve been taught love is eternal and unconditional. For as much as we’d like it to be, it’s rarely the case.

Once, I was listening to someone explain their divorce: “When you think you’ll never lose someone, you’ll do things that you wouldn’t normally do.”

Their words struck a cord in me and brought me back to the final days of my last relationship. I was certain that my fiance would never leave me. In fact, that worry never crossed my mind.

I stopped maintaining the relationship because the thought of her leaving didn’t exist. Oh, how wrong I was… for roughly 15 to 16 months I paid the price in pain and loneliness. But during that time, life taught me a lot about love and what it really means.

Separation between dating and relationship is false

Have you ever heard something like this,

“How long did you date your partner before getting into a relationship?”

I cringe at those questions and get passionate about what constitutes relationship vs. dating.

The term “relationship” is nothing more than a one-word explanation for the natural progression of an interaction between two people.

That’s it.

We could get into a long discussion about this, but to keep things simple, there is rarely — if any — distinction between “dating” and “relationship.”

But our society has created an arbitrary line where “dating” supposedly ends and “relationship” begins. As if once you move from one door to the other, you can close the previous one and forget about it.

Here’s where I failed my ex. I stopped dating her. And she stopped dating me. I stopped courting her because I thought it didn’t matter once I was “in a relationship.”

But this is what most couples do, and it’s evident in divorce and breakup rates.

Like a politician who secures an election and doesn’t deliver on their promises, the average person secures a partner and immediately stops doing the things that attracted their partner to them in the first place.

And love can only carry the relationship so far until unreciprocated effort becomes intolerable.

Sexual intimacy is the foundation of love

Let’s cut right to it.

Sex is the primary reason for romantic love and relationships.

Yes, I know there’s more to relationships than just sex. Believe me. I’d love to have a deep emotional connection with the right woman, but sexual compatibility is priority number one.

Which is why I’ve found it’s pragmatic to jump to sex ASAP. It’s the quickest way to gauge chemistry beyond “talking.” Plus, sex has a way of cutting through the noise by seeing who’s real and who isn’t.

So when people say “There’s more to love than sex,” they’re missing the point.

If sex is not the foundation or even a requirement of a romantic relationship, you’d marry your best friend or something. And to be frank, do you think that would work in the long term?

Sex is more than pleasure; it’s a vital, unspoken form of communication.

The longer you deny this fact, the more frustrated and disconnected you WILL feel from your partner (or potential partner).

But if you want to insist that a relationship’s foundation is “just an emotional connection,” that’s fine. You’re free to pursue “platonic love.” Let me know how that works out.

Love is conditional

My fiance and I failed to maintain a healthy sex life. As a result, I held onto a lot of resentment.

But we also mistreated our relationship. We failed to set boundaries — which, strangely, most people seem good at doing before they label things. Perhaps too good. We set up walls, but when we slap a label on it then everything seems to be up for grabs.

So when I hear “love is unconditional,” no, I’m sorry to say but that’s a load of crap.

Unconditional love becomes an excuse to tolerate anything and everything.

That was even something that came up during our breakup. My ex said, “I loved you unconditionally.” But what she was doing was suffering in silence and letting resentment build up.

And she put all the responsibility on me to fix things she couldn’t bother to communicate.

Love in a romantic relationship comes with conditions — otherwise, you are setting yourself up for disaster and heartbreak in the future.

And those conditions are: boundaries, effort, and being valuable.

When I wrote “I feel like I love you, for right now,” at the beginning, that’s how you need to start looking at love. It is more than a feeling. This means you can’t lock it down and keep it forever without maintaining it.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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