WHAT IS LOVE?
Have you ever experienced a real love relationship?
When I was young, I used to hear the song called What is love? The lyrics were Oh baby don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me, No more….I loved that song it was so catchy. At the time, I even thought that love was like a sweet pain. But later in my life, I learned that Love is something different and very complex; I’m still a romantic woman, but now I know better that love involves many emotions that are hard to understand, balance and process at times. Scientists have always battled with the concept of love, however, psychologists have identified many kinds of love, but in this blog, I am going to talk about romantic or real love within a couple.
Romantic love is defined by scientists as an intense feeling of emotional attraction between two individuals. But Love according to the Bible is also sacrifice, loyalty and vulnerability 1 Corinthians 13:4-5
How can we combine these two concepts in modern romantic relationships?
According to Robert J. Stenberg, an American psychologist, there are 3 components in a real love relationship. They are intimacy, passion and decision/commitment.
Intimacy is about connectedness, a feeling of closeness and warm in a loving relationship. Passion is about physical attraction and romance. And commitment is a decision that one loves another in the long term, we make the commitment to maintain that love. The 3 interact with each other. If one is missing there is no real love. For instance, infatuated love is what we call love at first sight and only has the passion component.
Most of us have a vague idea of what love is through social media, fiction, movies or what our parents or school have told us about love. Some people think that the concept of love has cultural influences, other people think that is a fantasy, a game or an illusion. For instance, I grew up thinking on the happily ever after story. When I was a child I used to watch all the Disney and Hollywood romantic movies, but now I know that relationships are more like an art, we keep brushing painting while we process our feelings and experiences until we produce a masterpiece, which is a solid strong relationship. Relationships need to be nurtured and it requires the intention to stop thoughts like “there is someone better” out there. Mature people understand this is a lie, a sabotage thought.
Why we tend to confuse feelings of love and lust?
Because lust can feel like love, but lust is just about wanting to have sexual contact, when there is only lust, we don’t have a regard for the other person’s wellbeing. However, when lust blends with love we do care about our partner’s feelings. Are these two components separated when there is real love? No, they are not separated, however; to be real they need to be integrated with commitment. It is not easy to discern this as we often even deceive ourselves and others making us believe we are in love when we are not. Lust is just a fleeting emotion, most romantic relationships start like that, but if we desire an everlasting love that passes the test of time we need to commit so that those feelings of attraction can develop into real love, it will be just a matter of time if two people are meant to be together.
Is love a feeling or a choice?
Is both, when we meet with someone for the first time and “fall in love” we are not making a conscious choice. We are just feeling attraction. At the beginning, we cannot understand why we are attracted to some people and not to others. But is important to know that sometimes our feelings come and go and are usually beyond our control. This is why real love cannot be based only on feelings. The only way we can judge that love will remain forever is when we decide that it will. Therefore, staying in love is a decision It’s about saying to our partner, “I don’t know how we’ll get through this except that it’ll be together.” Love is an amazing feeling in the beginning, but for love to last a lifetime, it has to evolve into a commitment of never letting this person go for as long as they let you.
Love doesn’t expect anything in return for its actions because Love itself is the reward.
There is a lot of confusion and misunderstanding in our culture about what Love is, but real love is about friendship, trust, commitment and sincere dedication to each other’s personal and spiritual growth. Real love requires honesty about how we feel, what we want, what we believe and who we are. Is a commitment to reality. Love cannot grow if we think that there is someone “better” out there. This is not the point in relationships. The point is that we have chosen to give to that person our gift of love and he/she has chosen to love us in return. This is the only way love can grow…we cannot always guarantee our strength, but we can tell to ourselves “I will always accept you and I will always love you.”
Being in love is amazing it can make us do thoughtful things, desire to be close to that person and make us feel extra-happy!
If you are still struggling to find the love of your life you may want to contact a professional that can help you to brush it up your relationships skills. Remember that Real Love lasts for a lifetime. Love is for better or worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do you part.
