When people get together they feel love; forever,
unwavering, majestic love. It’s the kind
many of us dream about from our youth; the flowery, perfection we imagined love
to be when we were kids.
We all have some idea of what love should look and feel like. If we didn’t we wouldn’t be able to couple. But many of us have a deeply held belief that this is all we need to sustain a relationship. I call that an unconscious belief, developed from a child’s vision of what love is.
Nothing wrong with believing in love and it would be perfect if our partners had the same vision as ours. Then we could romp together in our fantasy of what life is supposed to be like. But that’s not usually the case. We select people who come from different ideas and backgrounds. And it’s safe to say our partners have their ideas about what love is supposed to look and feel like too.
So where does that leave most couples? Wishing their partners could join them in their vision and automatically understand and deliver what they need. In many relationships people sit in the belief that if their partners truly loved them, they would be able to give them what they needed to feel great. Because there is love in the relationship that should be enough for the relationship to be the best ever… only it isn’t.
I work with a lot of couples who love each other. But it may have been a long time since they’ve felt the closeness each other they remember. They know it existed once, but it feels like a long time ago and they don’t know how to get it back. While no two couples are the same, the issues they struggle with are often similar.
What’s missing from most relationships is the understanding; real understanding of what sits in the way and blocks the love, and an understanding of what is missing in each person’s life from the other. Once each person becomes aware of what stands in the way of his or her tenderness toward the other, then the couple can discover what each person wants from the other. When this is realized each person can learn how to ask the partner for what they would like, instead of hoping the partner would just deliver.
This builds true understanding and that builds compassion and compassion may just be the adult version of the child’s idea of love.
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