Love is a strong feeling that is very misunderstood these days. People often confuse the feeling of infatuation, attraction, or liking with the feeling of being in love. The main difference between like and love is the level of affection you have for something or someone. Liking someone is an instant process; it can be a result of instant external factors such as looks or personality. Love, on the other hand, is a much deeper process based on internal factors such as how the person acts with you and others, how they make you feel, what they mean to you, etc. We all know that there are numerous myths of love, and when these myths are what you keep seeing, you start to believe they are true. Below are the everyday surfacing myths of love, and if not paid attention to them, they can lead to serious havoc in your relationship and your perception of love.
- You need the grand gestures and constant romance to let someone know you love them: This is absolutely not true. The grand gestures and romance are required during the courting period of the relationship. Don’t get me wrong, the grand gestures are great and can truly enrich a relationship. However as the relationships settles and starts to grow, it’s the little things that have more impact on the relationship. The constant checking on your partner, taking care of them when they’re down, remembering things they tell you, remembering the important dates etc. are way more important than making a grand gesture due to the guilt of forgetting something that’s important to your partner.
- Meeting the right person is a random toss of dice: We have heard this time and again that there is one perfect person that was made for us and he/she will magically come in our lives when the time is right. This is very untrue. There are various factors through which you meet the person you end up with including location, shared interest, common social circle, an area of work, age etc. Think about the population of 7 billion people, you may know 1000 people, at most, out of those 500 will be people we will get along with. From those only about 100 people will be of the same age as you and about 10 people from that, are people that you would consider more than friends. That means you’re effectively picking 1 out of those 10 people instead of 1 out of the population of 7 billion people.
- There will always be a person more suited for you than your current partner: This is by far the biggest example of a leap of faith. There is always a chance that someone better could come your way but this is the case with all opportunities in life as well. There may or may not be a better-suited person in the future for you but you will never know. Love is about feeling the need to stop looking further when one person walks into your life because you realize you no longer want to wait for someone better to come by.
- When you’ll meet the one, you will know instantly and your life will feel complete: I have asked many people in committed relationships, ‘how do you know that this was the right person for you?’ They have all given me the same answer, ‘when it is right, you will just know’. I am not undermining the fact that it is true. The only catch being, it isn’t true for everyone. For the majority of us, it takes a lot of exploring the other person, their likes and dislikes, habits and lifestyles and most importantly how much of time and effort they’re willing to put into the relationship to be in it with you. It is not a matter of instant that you will know, it’s an entire process which can take a few days to a few years for the general population. As I have mentioned before, it’s not a person or relationship that makes us feel complete, we are complete ourselves. We might just need this person to help us grow into something we didn’t think we were capable of ourselves. That is what love is in its most basic sense
- The match made in heaven: we hear so many people say, these two are a match made in heaven. There is no single match made in heaven simply because there isn’t one person on earth who is a perfect match for us. We are compatible with many people in this world, we come across very few of them in our lifetime in fact. Amongst these few, we may end up with just one of them based on various situations like right timings, preferences, and priorities. It is up to us on what factors we are willing to compromise on and what our true priorities are when it comes to finding this person and eventually settling down.
- You won’t need to put work in a healthy and good relationship: I actually worry about the people who think a healthy relationship requires no work. Any relationship, in order to survive, will require a lot of work by both involved parties. The easy part is getting into a relationship, the sustaining and moving it further is actually the hard part. Nothing in life comes easy and a relationship tops that list. No two people are exactly the same and in order to accommodate the differences, a lot of effort needs to be put for two people to make a relationship work in the long run.
- Fights ruin relationships: Fights are, in fact, crucial for a healthy relationship. If a couple doesn’t fight, it means they’re keeping the issues they have within themselves which will eventually surface. Instead of letting it, it comes to the point where a person explodes like a pressure cooker, making things worse. It’s better to have regular fights and get the differences out of the way, thereby compromising on the reasons for the fight and coming to a general consensus in a healthy manner.
- Couples therapy means the relationship is in serious trouble: It’s a general mentality of people when someone says we are going to couple’s therapy. People have a misconception that couples therapy is the last resort. Couples opt for it when matters are at the absolute worst and they need professional help in order to solve their issues. This is far from the truth. Some couples who genuinely have issues but want to make their relationship work use couples therapy as a preventive method as opposed to using it as a last resort. It is better to nip the problem in the bud by going to couples therapy and solving their differences as opposed to waiting until the point where damage control isn’t possible.
- Opposites attract: I agree that opposites do attract but only to a certain extent. However, these differences have to be small in terms of likes and lifestyle. If the differences are too extreme, they’re normally a reason why a couple would break up in the due course of time. There is a thrill in being with someone whose tastes are completely opposite to ours, as we get to experience the different side of life. However, if these differences aren’t met in the middle, it is a recipe for a disastrous relationship.
I cannot emphasize how important it is to not get stuck in between these relationship myths. The reason most relationships fail is because people expect these myths to be a reality. We have seen from childhood that every relationship in our life has required work, be it with our parents, siblings or friends. Romantic love is not different. Love is what it is and it is up to us to decide how much time and effort we are willing to put into a relationship to make it work and take it to the next level. No one said love was going to be easy and it is up to us to realize it and bust these relationship myths in order to truly have that one extremely fulfilling relationship in our life.
Featured image via Jean Baptiste-Burbaud on Pexels
