Understanding love in the couple

We live love automatically. We enter and leave relationships without giving ourselves the opportunity to love in our own version of a healthy and happy couple..

But learning from our relationship mistakes allows us to build and rebuild on what wasn't or isn't working. We retired before attempting the challenge of being able to be happy together.

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The ups and downs in relationships

Literature is full of star-crossed love. In these few words, Gabriel García Márquez vividly conveys the physical and psychological sensation of heartbreak.

"The gradual absence of your interest in me, the progressive lack of your "good morning", the selfish choice of your distance, They were the ones who determined that it was not necessary to travel to Macondo, it was enough to kiss your lips to feel... One hundred years of loneliness".

But how many unfortunate loves are just misunderstandings, or effects of the "virus" of alexithymia

. The result of not being able to account for our own feelings is that we find it impossible to connect with them. How many times do we forget the details of the beginning of the relationship where everything was new and unknown, where novelty fed love. A) Yes, time is blamed for the warmth that the years give and the fact that passion seems to fade.

A stable relationship over time is subject to change, and must endure the occasional misadventure. Problems with families, work, duels, fear of the future, children, are some of the reasons why a couple can deteriorate, so slowly that it is not even perceived. When it comes to therapy because of bond dysfunction, or when we question how well the relationship is working, some of this is already rolling.

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Putting ourselves in the perspective of the other

It is essential to clarify What idea of ​​a relationship does each member have?. Sometimes they are ideal concepts, impossible to achieve in the real world. Couples that function and are happy, this second condition is often not taken into account, and we are left with only “make it work”, they are made up of real people, imperfect and many times they do not know the way of love of the other person.

Each one understands or understands being loved under certain characteristics, actions or gestures, that the other even after a long time does not finish knowing. We hope that they guess us and we give value to a quality that is only valid in our first years of life, when we are unable to clearly formulate what makes us happy or how we would like to be loved.

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love as a process

Love is construction, and sometimes it must be built on rubble. Not bad. Confidence in mutual love takes time, and this implies going through winding roads. Learning to relate to who we love from another place, after having seen him fail, requires courage and desire.. Many give up when it is really time to prove with actions and gestures that this person is important to us and that it is worth the attempt.

We can ask for help or turn to someone who objectively clarifies how much potential there is in that relationship. Being involved in such a relationship clouds our vision and our emotions. It is clear that there are relationships that are better left aside, and that guide us to think what we want to do is clearly healthy. It is easy let ourselves be trapped in the ego or in the pride of believing that giving in is weakness. And it is convenient to review how well we are doing and how well the situation we are experiencing is doing us.

When we rejoice in the existence of the other in our lives, when their good makes us happy, knowing that the days are not all the same and there will be some better than others, when we understand that arguing is not a problem, that the important thing is the way and from where we do it, we understand what disagreements are to be resolved and to live better.

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Responsibility is the key

We are not forced to live as a couple, and you can be really well alone. But if we decide to take this path, it is necessary to know that the key word is construction and empathy and if we want to reduce it to only one, we can say that that word is responsibility. Responsibility in love does not mean obligation, but contract, pact, agreement. It is that of knowing the other with virtues and defects and still loving him.

The concept of responsibility is important both in the care of the relationship and when something happens. When a couple is in crisis, it is precisely at that moment that we must know and use our resources. Although it seems paradoxical, many crises come to light when the couple is going through (or about to go through) very good times. Crises do not always happen in adversity, they can also be expected in the face of the arrival of a good streak, new jobs, children in case they want them...

Changes in the home, for example, generate situations of tension: they arise in couples who, finding themselves at the gates of a different reality, make the process unknown to them. Other times the couple evolves to a new moment where the magic and that time of falling in love cease to be with the same intensity to enter another stage in which fantasy ceases to be the support of the link. There are many reasons, everyone has their own, and that's what it's all about, knowing it and healing it.

Looking the other way does not seem to be a good formula for when questions or crises arise in the couple; addressing these issues can lead to deep, loving and lasting relationships. Obviously, with its changes along the way.

Non-dependent loves, but responsible for the union, where each one can nurture and reflect on the other without getting lost. Respecting differences and private, internal and external spaces. Understanding that by accepting the other I take for granted his good intentions, his absence of harm (at least intentional) They allow me to experience that living together is not easy and neither is getting to know each other, because throughout life we ​​will change.

Accompanying us and not ignoring ourselves in this process enriches. Everything you do for the well-being of the one you love will do you good, and everything that the person who accompanies you does for himself will necessarily have repercussions on both of you. When love is established in the bond, fidelity is a consequence.