Love is Respect

Respect covers many aspects of a relationship.  It includes respecting the other’s needs and wants.  For example, letting your partner sleep even though you don’t understand how she could be so tired, or stopping on a long trip to let her use the restroom even though you don’t need to use it.  It includes respecting the other’s ideas and opinions, even though you don’t agree.  For example, he thinks the dog is sick but you don’t; rather than insist he’s wrong, respect him enough to consider that he may be right.  It includes respecting boundaries in regard to another’s feelings.  For example, if you know he is sensitive about his weight, then you don’t bring it up or use that as a weapon to hurt him. Respecting another person means that what is important to them becomes important to you, if only because it is important to them and they are important to you.  Respect is the way you say, “You matter to me.”

Love is Authentic

Another aspect of a relationship with an atmosphere of safety and acceptance is that it invites authenticity.  Acceptance invites openness in a relationship which allows individuals to be authentic about who they are without fear of being rejected, mocked, or ridiculed.  Too often in the initial stages of a relationship, the individuals become who they assume the other wants them to be.  This is a very dangerous mistake, for they must abandon their authenticity to keep up the façade they have created until eventually they either face a rude awakening or slowly die inside.  Even when the two people start out on the right track, being themselves, if they are not allowed to stay true to themselves in the relationship, they will slowly die inside.  For love to be real, the individuals must be allowed to be real.

Love is Intimacy

When there is a high degree of safety and acceptance in a relationship, the individuals can enjoy a deeper level of emotional intimacy with each other.  They feel free to share their deepest feelings, fears, hopes and dreams.  They feel no reluctance to withhold any part of who they are, but find a beautiful peace in having another individual who really knows them, understands and values them, who loves them.  This kind of intimacy is wonderfully satisfying.  Sadly, many couples settle for much less, being satisfied as good friends or acquaintances; seeking closeness through physical intimacy, rather than emotional intimacy.  But a physical relationship without the foundation of emotional intimacy is empty, hardly satisfying at all.  It is like trying to have a healthy body by eating only candy. Healthy relationships have the best physical intimacy because they have grown from deep, emotional closeness.

Love is Acceptance

It is said that a woman gets married hoping she can change her husband and that a man gets married hoping that his wife will never change; both are very mistaken.  While those hopes are based on very unrealistic expectations, often leading to disappointment, those hopes can be tempered with a generous dose of acceptance.  When we can accept other individuals for who they really are, their strengths and weaknesses, realizing they are a work in progress (as are we), we give them the freedom to become the very best they can be.  It means giving them the benefit of the doubt, withholding judgment and criticism.  It means resisting the urge to step in and take over, even though we could do it better.  It means biting our tongue when we think they need us to tell them what to do or how to be.  It means trusting that others are doing the best they can and learning along the way.   Accepting others is a very loving thing to do, a loving way to be.

Love is Safety

A relationship in which the individuals do not feel safe with each other cannot be considered a loving relationship.  Only in a safe environment will there be the freedom necessary for an individual to be his/her authentic self, to express opinions, air grievances, or even to grow and flourish.  Safety in a relationship includes freedom from ridicule, belittling, criticism, mocking, rudeness, and abuse of any kind.  Safety in a relationship feels like settling into a warm, cozy bed with fluffy pillows and soft blankets, a place where nothing can get in the way of your peace and tranquility.

A Loving Relationship is...

Each February I do a daily tribute to love in honor of my favorite holiday, Valentine’s day.  This year I have chosen to address 28 characteristics of a successful and happy loving relationship.  You may notice that I am divorced and perhaps you are thinking to yourself, “She can’t know much about love.”  But perhaps it is that failed relationship that has prompted my lifelong study of love.  What is love, really?  I asked that of my former husband once and he summed it up in one word, COMMITMENT.  But I need much more than that in a loving relationship.  They say that love is a many-splendored thing and I have found it also to be a many-faceted thing.  You may have your own opinion, based on your own experience.  But I invite you along for the next 28 days as I share my opinion, based on my experience.

Mission Quilt

One of my summer projects was to finally make Aaron's mission quilt (he's been home 5 years now).