What is Love? What comes after Happily Ever After?
Having grown up with Disney movies, I assumed Happily Ever After was just that! No fighting or disagreements but forever suspended in the "honeymoon" period for the rest of my life. Boy was I naive!
Love in my book was defined as loving someone until death do you part and you do whatever it takes to make the other person happy and my expectations my partner made me happy. I didn't see this destructive pattern of giving my happiness and power away to my partner at the time. I said "I Do" with the expectation he make me happy and it was our jobs to do that for each other.
When it came time to end my marriage, I had to really reflect and my first question was how did we end up here? There were NO signs of any issues, we didn't disagree on much, we were independent and supportive of each others careers, we were best friends, we talked about everything together....etc.
Through this process, I searched for the meaning of the word "LOVE." What the hell did this word mean? Was love supposed to hurt so much?
As I sought out answers I found this quote:
“Of all the misconceptions about love the most powerful and pervasive is the belief that "falling in love" is love or at least one of the manifestations of love. It is a potent misconception, because falling in love is subjectively experienced in a very powerful fashion as an experience of love. When a person falls in love what he or she certainly feels is "I love him" or "I love her." But two problems are immediately apparent. The [problem] is that the experience of falling in love is invariably temporary. No matter whom we fall in love with, we sooner or later fall out of love if the relationship continues long enough. This is not to say that we invariably cease loving the person with whom we fell in love. But it is to say that the feeling of ecstatic lovingness that characterizes the experience of falling in love always passes. The honeymoon always ends. The bloom of romance always fades.” ― M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth
This perspective on love helped get me back to reality, romance fades and having unrealistic expectations that love would remain the exact same as the beginning was something I had to accept and this destroyed my naive perspective on love and gave me a much deeper understanding of love.
Falling out of love is inevitable in any relationship and I take this into my engagement. Some important steps I've taken to be able to say "I Do" one more time is knowing marriage doesn't guarantee "love" or a lifetime together, nothing is permanent unless both parties ACTIVELY agree.
Some things my partner and I have discussed is if at anytime we feel we not longer want to engage and fight for each other in our relationship, we agree to let the other go, wanting them to be happy. Releasing the one we love is one of the most painful experiences one can go through but in the process loving ourselves is the true gift and understanding of love.
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