I recently had a discussion with some of my people about the nature of love. There was a thought floated that unrequited love, or love without equality is not really love. I challenged that notion when presented. How else can unrequited love be a thing? What about the ever shifting (or more heavily weighted in one camp) power dynamic in other relationships? Love is not a thing contingent upon reciprocity. Right?
Should it be, though?
Should we bestow our love upon those who don’t share our affection? Should we measure our devotion and the strength of our emotion on what we are getting from the other side of the equation? I don’t know. I’m not sure that’s wholly controllable, so this conversation (with myself) might be moot.
Maybe not, though. Perhaps this issue is the very root of everything. Every single thing. Perhaps we need to explore the nature of relationships from the standpoint of equanimity. To be clear, I firmly believe that we need to give each other space to be who we are, which includes the way in which we show love. I am not suggesting that we are all going to love the same way and demonstrate that love in the same way. I am merely suggesting that we need to find our own version of an even playing field within the confines and context of the individuals involved in the relationship.
Or, not.
Anyway, please permit me to digress for a moment. About a day after this conversation I’m yammering on about, a friend sent me a screenshot from social media. Tik Tok or Insta or some shit like that. The post was fairly lengthy, but the first sentence is what really called out to me. Ready? “Staying in a relationship just because you love somebody is not worth it. Love is not all you need.”
Hmm. Interesting. This sort of supports the sentiment I’ve been sharing, but also takes us in a slightly different direction. A good one though, so let’s roll with it. What I’ve been talking about is the nature of love. Why we love, what love is, and who we love. The base question I am trying to sort out is whether the experience of love is defined by the nature of the relationship. I say, no. It isn’t.
When we love freely, we love based on where our heart takes us, not where our brain leads us. So, we don’t necessarily fully absorb the nature of the other person’s affection for us, outside of the vibe we get and the way in which we internalize that feeling.
Okay, let’s hold on that thought for a moment.
If you would have asked me why I was staying in my last relationship that was troubled by so many damn issues, I would have told you that I love him. I wouldn’t have said that he loves me. I probably wouldn’t have even waxed poetically about our so called spectacular life. I would have just shared my affection for him. That’s not to say that I didn’t ever consider those other elements, but they were something of an afterthought. Actually, it’s worse than that. They were something that I forced myself to NOT think about, for fear I wouldn’t like the end result of that exercise.
Was my affection for him enough to keep our relationship healthy? Fulfilling? Afloat? Clearly not. We were both unhappy, and there was not a damn thing that my love was doing about it. That’s not entirely true. My love encouraged me to dig my heels in and stay. Stay where I wasn’t wanted. Stay where my needs weren’t being met. Stay in a place where I was being manipulated and abused. Stay when all was truly lost.
I mean, the saddest part about this post is that the conclusion I’m about to share might very well be a duh moment for a good deal of you. Ready? Love is not enough. Ever. The most mutual love isn’t even enough, so there’s zero fucking chance that love on one side of the scale cuts the mustard. No way.
This feels sad. This feels particularly challenging when there’s all this talk out there about relationships being work, and people giving up too easily, and compromise is always needed. Given the narrative that floats around everywhere, we might be inclined to think that while our love (overwhelmingly massive as it may be), might feel one-sided and unfulfilling from time to time, we have to just roll our sleeves up and dig in. The real story is not when you decide to call TOD. Nope. The real narrative is how you “did the work” to get yourself firmly entrenched in a relationship that you crafted with your own two hands.
Outside of the plethora of memes on social media, there’s also the reinforcement of this notion through how many fucking people just stick it out. For years. For decades. For a lifetime.
A friend of mine lost his mom a few months ago. I was asking how his dad is doing and he told me that his dad is sad but managing. He speculated that the reason his dad is struggling at all has more to do with familiarity and habit and a sense of comradery than a deep-seated affection or adoration. In fact, he even remarked that things might have worked out a bit better for everyone involved if his parents had decided to throw in the towel at some point, instead of relentlessly banging away at their broken coupledom.
I wasn’t surprised either, because I have so many friends and acquaintances that fall into the same camp. Some of them entertain the one day philosophy (i.e. that day, when the kids are out of the house…) and others have just resigned themselves to the notion that they are in it until the end. They have found workarounds when it comes to their unhappiness, and they manage the best they can under the circumstances.
As you might have already concluded, this is just the beginning of this topic. We are just dipping our toes into the tepid, chemical-laden water. There is so much to unpack here. So much that we must consider. The bottom line is that I truly believe we can love someone with our whole heart, and we can maintain that love in the face of a lack of love (or a lack of respect, etc.), but if we really want to grow as humans and find contentment, we have to learn to let go of all relationships that serve us. Even the ones that feel like they occupy the most substantial pieces of our heart.
Don’t despair. This is actually the good stuff.
More soon.
x
L.
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