IF YOU'VE NEVER FOUGHT, YOU'RE NOT REALLY IN LOVE

Love drives people crazy. Or rather, the way most people interpret love drives them crazy. Relationships have their ups and downs -- like every other bit of life.

Things always seem ideal in the beginning, but inevitably turn ugly at one point or another.

The person you love with all your heart becomes your verbal punching bag.

You let your emotions get the best of you and instead of doing your best to understand those emotions, you lash out at your partner -- the one person who is supposed to love, care and support you.

The same person you’re supposed to love, care and support yourself. Arguments are commonplace in a relationship. In fact, if you’ve never fought when in a relationship, then you’ve never been in love.

Love makes us go crazy. It makes us do and say things that are out of character.

Relationships don’t need to be filled with yelling and screaming and name calling -- that’s only the case when you don’t understand love, when you don’t understand what you’re feeling or how to deal with it.

Here’s what happens as a loving relationship progresses:

The "Honeymoon Phase" gives us impossible expectations.

Romantic love is, by far, the greatest high life allows for. It’s as amazing as it is because it comes naturally, without the need of a liquid, pill or powder. The problem is -- as with all highs -- there’s always a comedown. Love is a roller coaster matching each peak of the track with a corresponding and inevitable downward slope.

During the initial stages of a loving relationship, we constantly experience this increase in escalation; we think more and more about the apple of our eye and bask in the waves of emotions that overcome us.

Eventually, that emotional high wears off -- it has to. It’s not possible to feel the intense emotions most often associated with romantic love forever. It’s not a constant, but rather a pleasant surprise

The problem is we believe these intense feelings to be the definition of love, when, in fact, they're not even half the story.

There always comes a time when we question whether or not what we feel is real.

Human minds are incredibly powerful; they control the entirety of our realities. The problem is, although we are our minds, we manage to lose control of them -- therefore losing control of the realities we experience.

Love is just a version of reality. We interpret the emotions we feel as being love. We allow ourselves to open up and share ourselves with a person who’s basically a stranger. We allow an emotionally-filled, romantic reality to consume us.

But then… the lack of escalation, the fading of the mystery and novelty, all lead us to question whether the reality we’ve built for ourselves is real.

The funny thing is, we’re the ones who built that reality. Nevertheless, we question our own design.

We inevitably question whether we’re settling down or just settling.

The world holds endless possibility, and with it an ever-growing pool of partner options.

The smaller the world gets, the more options we have -- when it comes to finding a lover -- the more we consider the possibility we may be making a mistake by being in love with the person we’re in love with, the more likely things are to get heated.

Because the mind is a self-perpetuating system, questioning the love opens up the possibility of us falling out of it. It’s not that the love is fading, it’s that we’re always looking for that next, bigger high.

The second you consider the possibility that you’re making a mistake being with the person you’re with, arguments will definitely ensue.

Reality sinks in and we realize our partner isn’t perfect.

"Love is blinding" -- is something you’ve most certainly heard before. The statement, however, is wrong. True love is not blind. It sees the imperfections, the flaws, the mistakes -- and accepts them. Romantic love is the illusion.

Romantic love is fueled entirely by emotion -- feelings that can rarely be trusted. You see, emotions alone don’t do much for us; it’s the way we interpret those emotions that makes all the difference.

Once you realize the perfection you’ve built up in your mind isn’t the person you’re actually with, it can be a bit jolting.

Those of us who are more experienced understand perfection doesn’t exist, and understand how to channel those emotions properly.

Most people, however, take that emotion and blow up in the face of the person they claimed to love.

We sometimes have difficulty accepting we’re not perfect.

Silly, I know. Of course, we’re not perfect. Of course, we all make mistakes. Of course, we’re all walking imperfections, works in progress.

We know we aren’t perfect, yet get incredibly defensive when our partners ask us to make small changes -- to improve and make compromises.

We don’t want to change because we have some ridiculous notion our partners must love us for the individuals we are now... which, correct me if I’m wrong, they already do!

Just because they’re asking you to make some changes to improve yourself, doesn’t mean they love you any less.

It’s difficult for two egocentric beings to live under the same roof. To do so peacefully isn’t even possible.

You know you’re imperfect, you have a lot to work on, yet aren’t willing to listen to the one person who knows you possibly better than you even know yourself. If anything, that says a lot more about you than your partner.

Maintaining an "I" when you’re being a "We" isn’t easy.

The reason people have it so difficult is that we both want to be alone and at the very same time don’t want to be alone. We want our space until we get lonely, and then we want companionship and love.

You can have both -- you honestly can. But you need to be smart about it. This was the biggest issue of mine when I was last in love. I’m incredibly egocentric, but, at the same time, am a lover at heart.

Understand yourself, understand your psychological and emotional needs, understand your partner’s needs and then look for the right balance.

Don’t yell and scream and throw tantrums. You’re in an adult relationship… it’s time to start acting like it.

Love falls short if you don’t understand its nature.

What I understand love to be now is almost the opposite of what I initially believed it to be. When you fall in love, the intensity of it all washes you away with the current.

It’s such a unique and incredible experience that you begin to believe it exists outside of you. You begin to believe you have no control of it, no say in any of it at all. We hear "you can’t help whom you love" bullsh*t all the time.

Love isn’t any more magical than physics -- most people just don’t understand it. So we fight. We do our best to hurt and cause pain because it gives us the illusion of control.

We destroy the beautiful thing we were lucky enough to get a chance to create -- and for what? Some fairytale of what we believe love ought to be?

If you believe love to be the entirely otherworldly thing most people believe it to be, you’ll find that love will fall short again and again.

Worse yet, you will get hurt again and again until you no longer are able to hurt. Then you will feel nothing -- complete numbness… and that’s the worst experience of all.

December 01, 2017