We tend to get into a relationship and think that once we've found intimacy and true love it should stay that way. After all, it was hard enough to find real intimacy with another person. Once we've found it, we should get to keep it, right?
What we all discover is that love and intimacy are not set emotions. They change, flux and flow.
Eventually we all seem to learn that staying in love is more difficult than falling in love. Which leaves us with the question, how do we stay in love with each other?
Well, you've already made a good step if you recognize that love is not like some award certificate you get to frame and put on the wall. Intimacy is changeable and dynamic and will ebb and flow.
If you can appreciate that truth, then you can understand this next one. Relationships are an inquiry into loving. They are an ongoing opportunity to learn about how intimacy works and what gets in the way of it.
At this point you can hopefully understand that relationships are an opportunity to grow in your ability to love. Part of this is to become an adult rather than a child when it comes to love. The honeymoon phase will wear off in every relationship. That's gonna happen. And that's when you get to learn more about how to truly love another when the infatuation wears off.
Another thing you will likely need to learn about love is Acceptance. Accepting your partner not as some fantasy ideal who is always going to keep you happy but as a real person with strengths and weaknesses.
Learning how to love means not expecting our mate to keep us happy all the time. That is an expectation no one can fulfill. You mate cannot fill your inner emptiness. You have to keep taking your own journey. And learning to stay in relationship when the infatuation wears off and a little conflict and disappointment show up is another way to learn something useful about love. There's more to it, but this is a start.
What we all discover is that love and intimacy are not set emotions. They change, flux and flow.
Eventually we all seem to learn that staying in love is more difficult than falling in love. Which leaves us with the question, how do we stay in love with each other?
Well, you've already made a good step if you recognize that love is not like some award certificate you get to frame and put on the wall. Intimacy is changeable and dynamic and will ebb and flow.
If you can appreciate that truth, then you can understand this next one. Relationships are an inquiry into loving. They are an ongoing opportunity to learn about how intimacy works and what gets in the way of it.
At this point you can hopefully understand that relationships are an opportunity to grow in your ability to love. Part of this is to become an adult rather than a child when it comes to love. The honeymoon phase will wear off in every relationship. That's gonna happen. And that's when you get to learn more about how to truly love another when the infatuation wears off.
Another thing you will likely need to learn about love is Acceptance. Accepting your partner not as some fantasy ideal who is always going to keep you happy but as a real person with strengths and weaknesses.
Learning how to love means not expecting our mate to keep us happy all the time. That is an expectation no one can fulfill. You mate cannot fill your inner emptiness. You have to keep taking your own journey. And learning to stay in relationship when the infatuation wears off and a little conflict and disappointment show up is another way to learn something useful about love. There's more to it, but this is a start.
About the Author:
You can learn much more about this in the free course 7 Vital Marriage Insights You Couldnt Learn In School at Marriage Guidance That Works. Johnnie S Laney teaches relationship and emotional intelligence courses and you can get more here Marriage Advice Help Secrets.
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