We need to develop some notions about love independent of those we witnessed whether good or bad.
The beliefs about a potential love partner that each person brings to the table will greatly influence every aspect of the union. We are unique individuals and need to assess what our unique personalities require.
Being loved makes a person vulnerable revealing our innermost pains, failures, fears and past hurts to another person is a dangerous proposition for many. The challenge of love's difficulties is a great opportunity for personal growth and exploration.
In a romantic relationship, all of the deficits from a person's family training come to the fore - if you did not receive love as a child, it is harder to receive love as an adult. If a person was abandoned as a child, there is the tendency to be closed off to the possibility of caring too much for another human being.
The rationale for the person fearing abandonment is if he/she does not enter into an intimate relationship, there will be no sense of loss when it ends. Intimacy in relationships, however, is something we need in non-sexual non-romantic relationships as well. We all need to be vulnerable with trusted friends, relatives, not just a lover.
What makes love good?
I believe in therapy and support groups. Therapy is a wonderful self-exploration even for the person who considers his or her childhood to have been idyllic. In therapy, you can take a close look at who you are and what you need in every situation. And support groups, which can be informal, serve to absorb some of the anxieties and worries about being vulnerable and in a relationship without burdening your partner. It is good to have two or three people to whom you can turn in order to get feedback about major decisions: moving in together, having a child with your partner, getting married, etc. Conversations with your support group can alleviate a lot of the pressure to be everything for each other in a relationship. Don't isolate with your romantic partner because a cult of two is never a healthy relationship. You need an impartial reference point to look at where you are going as a couple.
Love feels best when each person is very confident about something, each person is taking care of his or her individual needs, and there is a healthy sense of interdependence, not independence or codependence.
If one person is absolutely sure of what he or she wants out of life and is working toward this goal and the partner/lover is completely insecure and floundering, there may be competition or codependence may ensue. A couple must be made up of two individuals, not two people desperate to be one and glued at the hip with the same exact interests, goals in all areas.
Take care of your needs as an individual - if you need to go running for an hour every morning or eat gluten free foods or meditate every afternoon to be who you are, do not stop your process to be what someone else wants you to be.
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