We all want to be loved, the way we want to be loved.
"The 5 Love Languages" book captures it really elegantly.
And, yet, we are who we are, and we love as we love.
On the one side, you have us, as human beings, desiring connection and worthiness and needing it, demonstrated in a way that we can feel it, acknowledge it, and own it (if only momentarily).
According to the "5 Languages" book, the languages are:
1. Touch
2. Words of Affirmantion
3. Acts of Service
4. Gift Giving
5. Quality Time
They aren't necessarily perfect categories - but they are pretty darn comprehensive.
So, we go through life wanting to be acknowledged intimately. To be "SEEN", especially by those closest to us.
So many people who have been married, or otherwise in long term relationships, struggle with the "GAP" between the way one expects to be loved, and the ways that one actually is.
We create the gap ourselves based on our internal expectation. How well do we explain it? Just how well can our loved ones deliver on it?
That's the one side of the story. The side about our WANT for love for ourselves. And, one thing that I have learned is that our "ambition" for love can be very different than our other ambitions. Some are very specific and demanding (within their own minds) about their expectations of love, and others are much more affable and flexible.
The other side of the coin is our ABILITY to love.
If you think about it, to love someone is to SEE them fully and embrace them, as they are.
To sincerely love someone is to accept them, to appreciate them, to care about them.
If we TRULY LOVE someone we SEE their UNIQUE being, and LOVE their UNIQUE being. Thus, we shouldn't want or expect them to be or love any different than they do.
So often, I see love in relationships, but just expressed in ways that are unable to be "heard" or "felt" by the other.
It saddens me, when people with the capability and the desire for love fail at a relationship and go through such hardship, because they were unable to reach a common ground between their desire for love and their ability to love.
I realize now that our ability to love is not just how we are able to EXPRESS our love for others, but as importantly, and possibly moreso, is our ability to ACCEPT, APPRECIATE and EMBRACE others' love when it is shown in a different way than we expect it or desire it.
So, the CUNUMDRUM is that we want to be loved in the way that we expect to be loved. And, when we aren't we struggle with the gap. We seek love in a specific way. And, yet, when we are TRULY IN LOVE it means we accept and appreciate exactly as they are, meaning we shouldn't expect anything different. Otherwise, we don't fully love each other but the idea of each other, or the possibility of each other.
I am not trying to speak in circles.
I really believe it is our ability to balance these two things that makes relationships last.
The balance of managing our own "GAP" with our ability to "LOVE FULLY" and be accepting.
If we are able to get to that place, where we love someone fully and UNCONDITIONALLY, then in that place there can be NO GAP, because we can't want for them conditionally to love us in a different way.
To meet our own love's expectations, perhaps we must simply have NO expectations. I know that is a tough concept to embrace, but I think it is only there... where possibly we accept the IS of love is that it can have no expectations in how it is expressed, so that we can truly embrace the love that is given? I don't know about that one.
Occasionally, you find "THAT" couple that pisses you off ;-) That couple that seems to express love in the right way for each other... that seems to be always in the groove. They are the exception these days. Most relationships require greater resolution / translation of "the GAP".
This is where its so important to engage our children in this conversation to help them understand the importance of their upfront choice in friends and life partners.
The loop of, "If he/she could love me differently, then I could be all in" leads to disharmony and not harmony. It's wishing they loved differently.
The balance of the selfishness versus the selflessness. (Not saying selfishness is bad, simply that it must be balanced).
Each one of us has to find our own balance.
Society, media, the world around us, doesn't help. It's constantly pushing you to want for more, to expect more, to desire more, and encourages you to claim that you are "worth it". (OF COURSE I am not talking about staying in an UN-LOVING relationship, I am talking about the majority of relationships which in my opinion are LOVING ones, just partially misunderstood ones.
Perhaps in those moments when we are frustrated that someone should be LOVING us more or differently, it is us, ourselves, that should be LOVING them... MORE and DIFFERENTLY?
It makes it harder...
But it makes it last.
Yours in circular harmony,
Nestor