A Simple Way To Show Love
Being There Is That Enough? — All About Relationships
Just like a bridge above, connection and love is essential for us humans. Love is a road that brings forward a journey. We start and we never know where we end up. The road might seem straight yet there are deviations on the way.
Love
What more do we need?
Love brings a special connection between people.
We love each other with family, friends and our partners. We can generally love humanity, plants, animals and our plant and the universe. Many times we do whatever needs to be done to hang onto that love for a person. Everyone wants to be loved. It is the most basic human need together with food and shelter.
Love is enough right? If we have love nothing else is needed. I have heard this phrase many times.
In a recent discussion with a friend, she told me this was all she wanted. I have heard many people telling me the same thing and I felt many times the same way as well. After all what else we need? Love. After horrible events in my friend's life, all she asked for in the next relationship was love.
Now, many years later she wishes she had asked for more. She did receive love, yet a few other things become as important as love further down the road. In the beginning in the “honeymoon” phase we tend to not see things that are not perfect about our partners. They seem small and insignificant compared to the love we feel. The hormones of love blind us from some of the truth that comes out later in the relationship.
To begin with none of us are perfect. We all have our ways of doing things that could be difficult for a partner to deal with.
Cleanliness for example. Keeping a clean household is important to my friend, yet not as important to her partner. This creates a lot of difficulties and fights in the relationship. Even though they love each other basic hygiene, a clean house and clean kitchen is a basic need for one of them while not for the other. This becomes a daily problem and the discomfort and the bickering begins.
This couple loves each other very much yet besides love there are a lot of fights about other things in the household that create a strain in the relationship.
I had a friend one time who told me that his wife’s biggest issue was how a toilet paper was put on the pole that is holding it. This seems to be a small thing to one person and a huge issue for someone else. There were probably other issues in this marriage as well and the toilet paper was the last straw.
Love did not save that couple and while she got remarried he never did. It is sad to see when people separate over small things. Many times multiple small little things add up and a person can not take it anymore. Communication, compromise and a continued open channel to each other is necessary in these cases to resolve issues. This can be difficult to many people, including myself as I do not like any conflict situation.
There is love and there is love
I believe ultimate love is when both partners are able to accommodate each other and negotiate what they can adjust to in their lives. It is not easy to live with another person. Even if we love them. This goes for family members and friends as well not just intimate partners. There are many different situations when people love each other and live together. Living together can be a desire to be close or it can be a necessity.
More on Love
Financial difficulties can also strain a relationship when one person carries most of the load of taking care of things that need to be paid while the other person is not contributing. After a while, this situation can get old. Resentment can build up in the relationship. It is hard to carry the burden of being a sole giver of financial means in a relationship. I have been there and done that many times in my life. It is a difficult situation.
I know many people in my life dealing with this situation when they are the sole provider. This does not mean that the other person does not contribute to the household. While they are not contributing financially, they might be contributing in other ways like household chores, watching the children, cleaning and cooking.
How to Love
Loving someone can be more difficult that it seems at first glance. In cases we can love someone and do not like the way they are doing things. There is not one way to love in this universe. Love is a very complex feeling with many emotions, needs and wants attached to it.
I knew a few couples whom divorced and later they got back together. Sometimes it was 1–2 years later, sometimes it was a decade later. We continuously change how we act and react to things. With time I learned things that I did not know growing up and as a young mother of two. Things were assumed of course and part of this is a cultural belief.
An example would be that is always the women who takes care of the household, the children and also needs to look pretty and ready for the husband’s needs at any time. This might be fine when the woman does not need to work in the household. Yet, when I had two work 2 jobs, going to school, raising kids at the same time I did not always look pretty, had enough time to cook or clean the bathroom. Things like this change the balance of things and start to create a strain in a relationship that was loving originally.
What can one do to show love? Is love truly enough?
I am not an expert in love. I made and still make mistakes when it comes to love. To the best of my ability what I can do is observe, pay attention and being there for the people I love and care about.
Adjustment is a necessity when it comes to love. It can not be just “my way”. Love also changes over time, sometime we feel closer to a person we love while other times we feel more apart. This does not mean we do not love that partner, family or friend. It just mean our emotions as humans change over time. We need our own space and time to spend with ourselves as well. When we know our own needs and wants and take care ourselves we can be more open to love and take care of other people in our lives as well.
I learned that a simple way to love is being there, showing up in the relationship with a full heart and an open mind to change.
Thank you for reading,
Gabriella
A recent lovely story from Libby Shively McAvoy supporting Warren Brown’s Global Banquet idea. A must read below.
What can one do to show love? Is love truly enough?
Not all of the time.
Many of us don't know what real love is.