Love is the feeling you experience within; relationships are transactions of give and take.
The success of any relationship demands time and effort. It will die if you do not invest your energy in maintaining it. Love is nothing but a feeling you experience, and it is not enough for a long-lasting healthy relationship.
Because people fail to realize this, they commit based on fleeting initial feelings. If compatibility gods do not favor their luck, they are left with associations that breed nothing but anxiety and resentment. Relationships require more than love; they require values, vision, and lifestyle.
You can experience love without being in a relationship because love is nothing but a chemical feeling, or as Sadhguru says, love is the sweetness of your emotion. So when you fail to distinguish between the idea of love and a relationship, you expect your relationship to help you experience the sweetness of your emotion. In other words, you are giving the power of your feelings to an external object.
The purpose of a healthy relationship is to help you grow, not to make you happy
- You see yourself more positively: Let’s say you’ve always felt self-conscious about a certain aspect of yourself or your appearance and have tried to hide it. However, your partner accepts that parts of you love you and enables you to understand that the feature is lovely. The whole of you is beautiful. You begin to accept yourself.
- Your partner introduces you to new experiences and opportunities: Maybe they take you out to a karaoke night, to a night club where you dine to live music, to new adventures such as rock climbing, salsa classes, etc. They might also help you with new opportunities professionally.
- You pick up your partner’s beneficial habits related to lifestyle, finances, or psychological well-being.
- Your partner provides practical and emotional support that gives you the much-needed courage and confidence to take risks in life and pursue your goals.
- You grow because you learn you have the capacity to support your partner emotionally: Initially, you could have doubts about your ability to offer another person dedicated emotional support, but eventually, you come to understand this.
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Additional Resources:
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Check out my other pieces on relationships and life here: Bhanu Singhal
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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