Wednesday, April 30, 2014

The Relationship Elephant In The Room

Ah love! Everybody wants it, some will find it, but even fewer will keep it. In fact, love is not really an elephant in the room because usually when people love each other, you know it. They demonstrate it at every opportunity. It’s evident in their speech and their treatment of each other. So, why do I say this? I am so glad that you asked. I'm saying this because love is one of the most misused emotions in our lives. We have twisted love into being all sorts of things that it isn’t, and out of being the one thing that it truly is. Love is about giving…of yourself.

It’s not about paying your bills, or getting this and that for yourself, nor is it about someone doing everything that you tell (not ask) them to do. It’s also not about physical or emotional abuse, or other ways that you can mistreat someone in your life. Again, love is about giving…positively and unconditionally. Love becomes an elephant in the room when we don’t see the giving. When we feel that what we receive is tainted or laced with conditions, the elephant is more the question of “do you love me?” Isn’t "do you love" me always the question? Cue the all too famous Halle Berry with Eddie Murphy scene from the movie Boomerang.
“What do you know about love? What do you possibly think you know about love? You know, I am sick and tired of men using love like its some kind of disease you just catch. LOVE should have brought you’re a** home last night!”
That’s a great line, and it illustrates my next point. What will shock many of you is the person you are with does love you, they just may not know how or be able to love you the way that you prefer or deserve to be loved. Shocked? Of course not, you already knew that. In Boomerang, the character Marcus (Eddie Murphy) loved Angela (Halle Berry), but he really didn’t know how to love her the way she needed at that point. It happens. Let me make it easy on you, not only is love about giving, but it’s about making a decision. I repeat, loving someone is a decision. It’s not an emotion, and it shouldn’t be something that you turn off at-will. Two people who love each other should, and will give to each other. They should make each other better. This doesn’t mean that they won’t argue, or disagree. But it does mean this isn’t all that they do, and it means that when they argue or disagree, they don’t strive to hurt each other. So, what to do? I often use the term, “add, subtract, multiply, divide”. I didn’t make it up, but it does apply here, so I'm sharing it with you. Sometimes you have to ask yourself, “what does this love do for me?” Hopefully, it looks like this:
ADD: LOVE
SUBTRACT: PAIN, BEING ALONE, SPITEFULNESS, BITTERNESS
MULTIPLY: JOY, AMBITIONS, PEACE, BETTER, A TRUE PARTNER, TEAMMATE
DIVIDE: FEELINGS THAT I WOULD NEVER LOVE AGAIN, PAST HURTS
If for some reason you do this exercise, and it doesn’t remotely resemble what’s above, you might have some decisions to make. I hope this blog has encouraged you to make them, because a love is no good for you, if it’s bad...

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