People will do anything, no matter how absurd, to avoid facing their own souls.
-Carl Jung
We love out of convenience. We love to avoid loneliness. We love to avoid ourselves. We love because it’s the popular thing to do. We love out of self-interest. But most of all, we love with a love that doesn’t hold up to adult standards. It’s as if when we fall in love, we lose the rational part of us. Romantic relationships imply indeed a lot of emotions and vulnerability, which may in part explain why we so often act in childish ways in love.
Many let their ego take the lead or run the course, give their partner the cold shoulder when certain things don’t go their way, complain that their spouse doesn’t do enough of “this”, or perhaps does too much of “that”.
I wonder how it would be if we behaved the same way we do with our partners in the workplace. It probably wouldn’t take long until we all would be sitting in our own little corner, asking for a timeout.
The truth is that growth isn’t a process that simply happens because we age. Growth is a deliberate choice. Growth requires self-awareness. It’s the end result of healing. Just like your skin grows again after you have injured a part of your body, we are offered the opportunity to grow after we have fell on our face in our own lives.
When we avoid growth, and avoid facing the pain we have accumulated during our lifetime, we put ourselves in a risky position.
That pain that has never been addressed will sooner or later bleed out into our most intimate relationships. In those moments, we may become like children again. We lose our capacity to regulate our emotions. We may deflect onto our partner our own pain. We may cry, scream or shout. Or worse, not say anything at all.
Our standards for love may be poor because we have never worked on our own selves. Or considered that it is a prerequisite to be able to love someone else.
Some fail to realize that “love is blind” for a reason. When we first get struck by love, we get delusional. We enter a magical land of fantasy that is filled with unicorns and rainbows and 4-times-a-day-sexy-times.
It’s as if we venture into this land forgetting all of our “previous common sense.” What’s up with having a baby after 6 months of dating? Getting engaged after a year? Rushing to live together? The usual, right?
It’s not only our standards that are at fault , but our perception of love altogether. It’s not that there is only “one way to love” . It’s rather that there seems to be a tendency for many to be impulsive in love. Like children who make a scene when they don’t get the toy of their choice right here and now, we are fools willing to throw our rationality down the drain for love.
We lose our adult selves the most when we lose at the game of love.
That’s when the biggest tantrums of all happen. You thought adults couldn’t have those? Think again. The terrible twos are not exclusively a baby thing.
Moments after a breakup, we emulate all kinds of behaviours that the adult sleeping in us wouldn’t be so proud of. The fantasy land that once was now becomes a battleground. Like kids who play games at recess, we play many kinds of games. The blame game. The" I-Never-Loved-You-Anyway" game. The " You’re-Full-Of-Shit" game. The "its me-not-you game. " and last but not the least, (my personal favorite), the " I’m-right-you’re-wrong game."
It’s unfortunate that these games don’t come with instructions, because we clearly are not good at creating our own. As adults in love, it’s saddening to think that too many times, some are willing to “say the last word” or "win" an argument without realizing that there are no winners in each of those instances.
It’s either you win as a team, or you lose as a team. If the person in front of you is your opponent and not your teammate, you may want to examine what has made your team split up like this in the first place.
Kind of shy to write this down as it's my first time ever... but I feel beyond happy and grateful to have had been able to set myself up a so called wallet not that long ago. I came a long way in the cryptocurrency world, and I am very thankful that I have had the chance to meet some very kind souls who have provided me precious guidance. I thank from the bottom of my heart each one of you who takes the time to read my posts and interact with me. It means more to me than you know. I am deeply passionate about writing, and I hope to do it for as long as life allows me to. 💜