Over the years, I’ve noticed my clients struggling with relationships due to common misconceptions about love. Unlike our definitions, which are more personal, unique, and nuanced, our misconceptions about love and relationships are foundational. They are building blocks that were laid wrong, impacting the rest of the house.
Here are corrections to some of the most common misconceptions about love.
Love Is Not a Feeling, It's a Choice
I used to believe love was a light switch. Something flicks on. You get tingles, butterflies, and goosebumps on the back of your neck. It hits you like a bag of bricks or a strong arrow. When you know, you know. Right? Not so much. After many expired relationships, including a marriage, I don't see love that way anymore. I've placed Cupid right next to Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.
Love is a choice. Actually, a series of choices.
The first choice is based on many factors, including chemistry, value, logic, ambition, humor, intelligence, body type, spiritual alignment, or whatever you put weight on, whatever matters to you, whatever you want and desire at that point in your life. Anyway, the list goes on and on, and the weight of each factor varies depending on where you are in your life. What was important to you two years ago may not be today, or vice vera.
Based on these factors, we either choose to begin the process of loving or not. If we decide to enter this process, the action of loving can bring "light switch" moments. The way he looks at you. How hard she makes you laugh. The notes he hides in your purse. The way they make you feel when you don't feel anything.
But like an airplane flight, there is turbulence. The fights. The disagreements. The ruptures. The little things that bother you. His inconsistency. The way she loads the dishwasher. You start wondering if you've made the right choice. Once you are in doubt, you have to make another choice. To continue to fly with this person or jump out of the plane.
This choice is based on many other factors, again depending on where you are in our journey and what’s important to you, including your definition of love. If you decide to jump, the scary free fall will either make you stronger (grow) or stunted (a victim). But sooner or later, you'll find yourself back at the airport waiting to board another plane. And with the flight, facing turbulence once again.
The choice to love is not a feeling, it is an action AND an inner journey. We all know love is an action but many don’t realize there is also an inward journey required. That is why love is so difficult. You must look inward, process, and explore yourself. This is where many drop the ball. So love isn’t just a daily choice to love someone but also a daily choice to look inward.
Also, like chemistry, the ability to love is not a constant. It is a variable. It fluctuates, depending on where both you and your partner are at in your individual life and personal journeys, and what you both are struggling with. Sometimes it is easy to love. Sometimes it is extremely difficult. But at the end of the day, it's always a choice.
Love Is Not Constant, It Comes in Moments
The feeling of being “in love” is not a constant. It’s weather. It comes in waves, washes over us, or dissipates like clouds. It hits us like lightning, showers us, or flows through us like wind. We capture love in moments.
It’s what makes love so beautiful, yet so confusing because we have a misconception that love should always be on: We should always be feeling “in love.” But that’s not love. That’s fantasy, a movie. Love is found in moments. Sometimes, unpredictable, unexpected, lost and found again.
Here’s the thing. We love fast and don’t see the moments. We are always looking at the future and miss them. Or we’re looking in the rearview window and they zoom past us. And when we miss them, we can make decisions we may regret. We can minimize what’s actually there.
So know that love is NOT a constant state of knowing and there will never be any guarantees. Love is a continual process of discovery and unfolding.
Only You Can Determine How Healthy Your Love Is
Love is either healthy or unhealthy. There are grays and shades and degrees, and healthy love can become unhealthy love and vice versa, but at the end of the day, the current love you both have built is either healthy for you or not healthy for you. And the only person who can determine that is you.
Yes, your friends and therapist can shed light on certain things, give you fresh perspectives and opinions, and show you things you may not see, since love can blur our lenses. But what they see is also based on their own definitions of love. Not yours.
And even if everyone says your love is not healthy, chances are you are going to stay and continue to love until you decide it’s not healthy and it doesn’t work for you anymore.
Love Is Not Always Sex and Pancakes
Another misconception about love is that it is always characterized by intense passion, overwhelming emotions, and kissing on your toes.
Yes, while passion can be a part of love, love also encompasses comfort, companionship, and a trusting connection that may feel like steel-cut oats — plain but hearty. The expectation we place on love to constantly knock us off our feet keeps the love ungrounded, like a sugar high. Love then becomes a series of disappointments.
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