How many spears have been broken of this concept — from the authors of classical literature to gossip in the kitchen. The easiest way is to say: no one knows what true love is. Or: everyone understands this word in their own way. But modern psychology has an understanding of what true love is.
The main thing is to understand the states that are disguised as love but are not a true feeling. In literature and cinema, often, the wrong versions of love are shown as passion, which is the only true way to know each other and get the most out of the contact between the two sexes. In fact, these are human weaknesses that can be successfully dealt with. And from love for another person from brides dating site Brides4Love, you will have only positive emotions.
So, let’s talk about the modern understanding of love. And the most common are three options.
1. Love Addiction
Any dependence is distinguished by the fact that the object of desire eventually reaches such a magnitude that it obscures you with its shadow. You can be in a relationship, only your figure in them is so small that it almost does not exist. There is only your partner:
- There is a complete merger with a partner because they meet the necessary criteria.
- Your partner seems to be such a welcome gift that you immediately appropriate them as property inviolable to the rest of the world.
- You project yourself onto the partner, literally imposing your own personality on them. In fact, you give all of yourself to this image.
- The partner loses their individuality for you, becomes property, does not have their own opinion and desires.
- You feel that you do not deserve such a gift, but you cannot help yourself and try to impose yourself.
- You regularly break boundaries, responding to a logical detachment with even more pressure.
The problem is boundaries violation. Initially, they were open because, at the beginning of the relationship, you felt easy and comfortable. But as soon as you felt that the partner was your delight, you immediately wanted to hide them behind all the doors and locks. Of course, no free person wants to live in a cage — even if the latter is made of pure gold. Then its borders are automatically locked — so that there are no further attempts. And you stay inside, locked and possessed.
In general, a person must understand themselves and the principles of personal boundaries so as not to encroach on someone else’s. Even if it seems to you that you are doing it with the best intentions.
2. Emptiness
In the case of addiction, the significance of your partner for you is incomparably high with your own. This is an imbalance. And one more side of it is your high importance for your partner.
It is a state in which you are in a relationship, but your partner is not of special value to you. You may feel the significance in the relationship itself, but the partner is perceived as a junior and powerless. Perhaps you are ashamed of them. You don’t take them seriously, and you’re not afraid to lose them. But something keeps you in the relationship.
The problem is that the first and second states have an invisible connection. After all, if you can stay in a relationship with indifference, then there is nothing that will protect you from a relationship with addiction. In fact, the root is the same — the inability to understand boundaries. In the same way, you do not know what can be yours, and what is definitely someone else’s. For emptiness, as well as for dependence, encroachment on someone else’s is just as characteristic. In this case, you want complete control. A side effect is an attack on the partner’s identity. Whereas in the case of addiction, you merge your own identity within the boundaries of others.
3. Harmony
To truly love someone, you must first give up any encroachment. Accept that a partner is a separate person with their own desires, thoughts, and their own self. Mutual respect for other people’s boundaries inspires trust, in which the relationship can be called equal and happy. This is called balance:
- Balance indicates that your relationship is in harmony. Equal conditions for both personalities allow you to feel freedom, develop, and truly enjoy each other.
- You are similar and in no way inferior to each other. There is no condescension or disdain. You do not envy your partner and do not want to become a part of them.
- Each of you has absolutely unique and distinctive individuals. Therefore, there is no leader, at least at the level of individuals.
- Both of you respect each other’s boundaries. Your thoughts and desires are your thoughts and desires. They have nothing to do with your partner’s, and vice versa.
Nothing will work out of such a union as long as you judge your partner by yourself, trying to make them think like you, denying their subjectivity, trying their decisions on yourself. It is impossible to find yourself in a situation of complete indifference if there is mutual respect for other people’s boundaries. In this case, sympathy is permanent and has a good chance of evolution. If you want to experience what emptiness is — try to attack other people’s boundaries. At first, love will keep your relationship on its shoulders, until one day you realize that you were able to subdue it, but completely cooled down.
Final Words
That’s the whole story about unrequited love. There is no evil fate that, against your will, brings you to a person who does not want to love you in any way. No experience has taught you to love — and, therefore, you indifferently keep next to you a person whose personality you could absorb.
Rather, in the first case, you attacked your partner’s boundaries, but they turned out to be stronger and better in everything — and you became addicted. And later you found the one that turned out to be weaker, decided that no one was worthy of your love — and accepted emptiness. Is there a way out? Of course: stay within your boundaries.
