Children’s literature is full of images of princesses meeting their prince. It’s a beautiful scene , and of course they always live happily ever after.
With these kind of expectations drilled in to my brain since I was a child, how can a regular relationship ever live up to my ideals about love?
Or are they even really ideals, or things we should all strive for?
I find a lot of people settle in love. Not so much at my age, but I see couples that are older that are nothing more than long time roommates. They have kids and a mortgage and joint bank accounts. But where is the love?
I find comfort often mistakes itself for love. Most times it makes love even better. People get used to the way they live their life and dedicate so much time and effort in to something. To suddenly drop that doesn’t even make sense. If you spent a year on a certain project, there would be no reason for you to give up on it forever. After dedicating yourself for that long, you find it hard to rationalize giving up. At what point does love become something you feel bad for giving up because you’ve spent so much time on it? And at what point do you keep pursuing it because you know how great it can be?
When you are on the outside looking in on a situation, you imagine the ways you would react. At those points you are strong and unbiased. It’s a product of what you truly feel. But when you are in those situations your biases come in to play that you never considered when you were on the outside looking through the glass. How do you go back to that time and try to look at your own situation with being swayed by emotion and commitment?
In love, what things are you willing to compromise? What things are you never willing to give up?
There are barely any real life prince-meets-his-princess-fantasy stories. People don’t usually live happily ever after without ever having anything go wrong, no arguments, no hurt. But just because that’s not the norm, does it make it okay?
In the song She Will be Loved by Maroon 5, it says “it’s not always rainbows and butterflies, it’s compromise that moves us along.” I really believe that. I think that there are some things you can never work at. Love, a connection and that twinkle in your eye, giddy feeling cannot be created or forced. It just is. That is the nucleus of a relationship. Every other detail you should be able to figure out. It’s about communication. Arguing doesn’t have to be destructive. A lot of the time it can be constructive for a couple if both people exercise active listening and constructive thoughts. And just because a couple argues doesn’t mean they are a bad couple. I think it’s the result that comes out of an argument that is a true reflection of a couple. And those things can usually be worked on.
Although every little girl dreams of being a Jasmine or Cinderella, it hardly ever works out that easily in the end. But the take home message, I think, is that love prevails through everything else. And that “love,love, love…love is all you need”. Everything else is just details.
….I think. I hope.
3 comments:
Very very true and sweet. I always question love and what it means too.
I really like this post! I agree with you too, there are couples who may argue often, but they also have more loving moments than a lot of other couples too. If I had to choose between an up and down relationship filled with passion, and one that's pretty much a flat line.. well, duh, the former. I think sometimes people settle because they don't know how to handle a relationship that requires a lot of work, but I think it's worth the challenge!
Love becomes something different when you get older - passion turns into comfort.
As Chris Rock once said, "If you want excitement, marry a crack addict. Because you'll never know what tomorrow will bring..."
Ha!
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