I haven’t had a relationship in a while now, for many reasons. I am quite sure that one of them is that I had to understand a few things about love and relationships in our society. I felt this process of getting an understanding and that’s why I didn’t feel ready for a serious commitment. I wasn’t there yet.
My relationships helped understanding a lot, but Talking to Friends About their relationships helped as well.
On Thing I realized is that every Person has a “cup” for their ego. We are all trying to fill that cup – some ceople choose relationships to fill it with love. Some people choose their career to fill that cup with self-affirmation. Some people choose sports. Other people (here I count myself in) have different things filling up this cup. I think it’s a lot of pressure, if there is only one thing responsible for filling up that cup. Especially if this is romantic love, thus only the partner can make this person feeling important. On the other hand, if the partner is doing something “wrong” the person doesn’t feel loved and unimportant instead. I realized if love is connected to the ego, people can’t feel love disconnected from their ego.
Another Thing is that our cups are differently filled from the start. Our character as well as how we grow up determines our starting level. If we have to fight to get attention from our parents as kids, our ego is filled on a lower standard level. Also, what our parents teach us about love and about self-respect influences us for the rest of our lives…If our parents teach us that other people always try to steal sth from our cup – its very hard to trust other people…On the other hand, if we got all the attention our parents could give (=too much), the cup itself is bigger and we always need more than others.
It’s crazy, because I have met people who really don’t need a lot to fill their cup and they feel happy. Other people even have a hole in the bottom of their cup – they always feel it getting empty again. Even if they found someone who gives them love, it can never be enough. And instead of fixing their cup, they try to get more and more proof of love for their ego. I realized that the ego always is the basis for love. A Person with ego problems will always have trouble to enjoy love for what it is, trusting each other without the need of proof.
This was a lot talking about cups and I don’t know if it is a good metaphor. But it helped me understand the different perceptions of love and the Involvement of the ego. And I understood that these couples who perfectly fit and don’t really have problems just have a good combination of filling their cups. This is how I could seperate the construct “love” from the ego and also from the construct “relationship”.
While love is a feeling, a relationship is a construct of rules we choose to follow to share this feeling with a person as long as possible. I mean, especially monogamous relationships are not a natural thing for humans – which doesn’t mean that it is bad. But it definitely is something we have to work for. While humans were living in tribes, love was completely disconnected from the ego. Sharing food, sexual partners and the children, what could have been “proof” for love? In our society though, there are so many rules and obligations for love – and if people don’t follow these rules, they are bad people. I am a very romantic person, but I think obligations aren’t love.
Facing the reality that we don’t live in tribes, and we live in partnerships and marriages with small families, I think we just have to find a person who likes to share the same rules. If we are with a person who needs different relationship rules, it takes more energy from us than it gives. Love is the reason for a relationship, but for making it work for a long time both people have to agree on the rules. I think it is that easy – it’s not about finding the one true love. Find someone who feels happy with the same set of rules. If it is an open relationship or monogamous, if you live together or seperated, if you make each other presents everyday or not…Everything is okay, if both People involved are happy. And rules can be changed – to keep the love and don’t hurt each other. Relationships change and evolve. I think that is the most valuable thing to find: To love each other and to trust each other so much, that you can always adapt the rules to your path of life without doubting the love. And here I make the Connection to the ego glass again: If a person has a hole in its cup and tries to fill it with proofs of love, he/she can never feel that trust in another person. If the cup is half full already, it is way easier to trust in love and another person.
I don’t think you will ever find that one person that makes you happy, that one job or that one city or whatever. I realized I have to fill the hole in my cup first, then get to a good standard level and then I am ready for being happy WITH another person. Like the cream topping on a Milkshake Cup 🙂
gypsy messenger 