You know how it goes, boy meets girl, and love is in the air. Then some months, years or decades later you find yourself alone, bewildered, possibly broke and devastated.
The anger, resentment and bitterness that you may feel towards someone you once loved so much, and you know they feel towards you, can be crushingly painful.
If you’re wise you’ll do these 2 things in relationships, right from the start…
1) You’ll acknowledge that you have every human trait. In different circumstances you can be kind or cruel, generous or mean, noble or base. For every trait you’re happy to own, there’s one you’d rather disown. Don’t take my word for this, observe yourself. You’ll see it all if you look hard and fearlessly enough. Then love ALL of it within yourself.
Then look deeply and recognise that your partner has every human trait too, just like you.
This isn’t depressing, or unromantic. It’s enlightening and freeing! Love is born in the dropping of illusions. Love is not blind. There is nothing as clear-sighted as love.
Infatuation is blind and it blinds you to the true beauty of a person in their humanness. Infatuation eventually tears relationships apart. Building a relationship on infatuation, and a fantasy that a person only has the traits you’re infatuated with, is like building a house on sand.
2) You’ll jot down a list of what you love about your partner. Then you’ll make note of a list of what you don’t. Keep going with the second list until it’s the same length as the first. You’ll ask your partner to do the same for you.
If you’re in the early stages of a relationship and everything’s wonderful, it will be easy to jot down what you love. You may find it difficult to think of anything you don’t love about them.
If so, this shows how infatuated you are with this person, as they may be with you. It demonstrates how vital it is that you both break the destructive spell of infatuation and break through to love. That you let go of the illusory and unsustainable fantasy you have of one another.
To build a relationship on a solid foundation is to love and appreciate one another for who you truly are. If this is the relationship you want, and you’re wise, you’ll do these two things, now.
