13 Things that Love is NOT
Did you know love is one of the words with the most definitions? Webster lists 9 definitions on its online dictionary. But the number is much higher... likely closer to the number of people on the planet...about 7.7 billion-ish. Everybody has their own idea of what love is.
Love and caring are shaped by our experiences—a lot of them when we are very small and continuing through our early adulthood. It’s often in our intimate relationships that we begin to see the definitions and points of views we have about what love is and isn’t, about what caring is and isn’t. It is often the juxtaposition of what we think love is and what we are receiving from our partners that creates friction and tension in our relationships.
Our willingness to examine and change our definitions of love and care is a huge determining factor in the health and longevity of our relationship(s). A lot of the popular definitions and portrayals of love and care are inaccurate and a source for misunderstanding and destruction. If we are willing to be change our ideas about love and caring, we will have more freedom to create relationships that are truly loving and caring.
What LOVING and CARING is NOT
Lust
Love is much deeper than physical attraction or the desire to copulate. (But don’t be too hasty to eliminate lust. Bodies do enjoy being lusted after. Lusting your partner is a good thing and will definitely improve your sexy time.)
Sex
Love isn’t even required to have sex. Sex is often more enjoyable if love is involved, but they are not synonymous. If you have any doubt, remember that you loved and love lots of people before sex was even interesting. Puberty was a phase. It’s time to move through it and be able to separate physiological drives and emotions.
Abuse
This one seems like a no-brainer, but we often “hurt the ones we love the most.” Unfortunately for a lot of us, abuse and love are often paired and the reinforcement has led us to seek or display abuse as part of our relationships. Whether intentional or not, abuse is not loving.
Abuse is more inclusive than we’d like to believe. Most of us do not consider ourselves abusive, and so ignore the abuse we deliver. But abuse includes fighting, nagging, perpetual fault finding, stone-walling, threatening—anything that serves to inflict pain or undermine another person’s confidence in him/herself. Verbal, emotional, and spiritual abuse are just as damaging as physical abuse and their subtlety often allows them to go undetected or ignored longer, causing more damage.
No one wins with abuse, so there shouldn’t be an especially here; but please be honest about this issue if you have children. You have a great deal of influence and you could stop a bad pattern with you and be a true inspiration and resource for your children by learning how to love and care without abuse.
Putting up with abuse
Letting someone get away with abuse is not loving to you or the other. It is important for you to realize that YOU COUNT. You matter. Your health and safety matter and must be included in the equation of your life. Giving in to another person to “keep the peace” or anything similar is not loving for you or them. It keeps you both in a bad pattern. Even if you truly love and care for the person that is abusing you, and you know they are lovable and that they love you, too; leaving, or in some way taking action to stop the abuse and get yourself out of harm’s way, will be required. Please get the support you need to love and care for yourself (which is actually loving the other person, too. That’s just a longer blog for another time or something to talk about in coaching).
Worrying
There is no action here, only doubt and fear. Worrying is a choice that keeps us inactive and radiating negative energy toward the person/thing we are worrying about. There is no real action, only reaction to a thought or feeling. Worrying does not contribute to the other person’s life. Any activity flowing from worry is more often about controlling the other person in order to control or manage the thought, feeling, or outcome that you are avoiding.
Control
Dominating or manipulating someone is not loving or caring. If you think you know better how someone else should live their life you don’t. Period. Real loving and caring is allowing someone to fuck up and not abandoning them for it. You cannot choose for another; and if you truly care, you will allow her to choose for herself, even if you do not like or agree with her choice.
Never having to say you’re sorry
This might be one of the stupidest ideas out there. If you are the source of someone else’s pain or misunderstanding or erosion of confidence and you know it, apologize! It doesn’t really matter if you meant to hurt them or not. If you recognize that you contributed to the diminishment of another, saying sorry is about the fastest way to get past it. Saying you’re sorry doesn’t mean you were wrong or what you did was wrong, it is just recognizing and being willing to consider the other person’s point of view. It’s empathic listening. If you love and care about someone, for what reason would you resist or withhold from listening to them?
Not going to bed mad
This may work for some people, but others may actually require rest and space to re-set their breathing and their brains to be able to confront a conflict or intense emotional situation. If you are with such a person, give them space! Insisting resolution for the sake of an idea handed to you from your great grandparents or the movies is ignorant and actually mean if you are with an individual that doesn’t work this way. Find out how to address conflict in a way that will work for both people.
Putting yourself last or putting the other person first
There is a time and a place for you—sometimes it will be front and center, and sometimes you will be backstage and behind the scenes. If you have a healthy relationship, you will be all over the place and it will change from year-to-year, day-to-day, even moment-to-moment sometimes. If you are always putting the other person first without consideration of yourself, you are gone from your life and you will become resentful if the other person doesn’t recognize and appreciate what you are doing. It’s a set up for failure. Not only does it leave you in the dark most of the time, but if you are with someone who loves and cares for you, they don’t even want you to be putting yourself last all the time. In fact, he may be frustrated because he is trying so hard to get you to come on stage with him and you are refusing. Check yourself and make sure you are not making blanket assumptions or carving out a “rut” for you both to fall into. If your partner needs more energy and attention, give it all out. Just make sure that you are looking ahead to what will create a greater future together, not just what will be easier in the moment and lead to your and your relationship demise.
All you need
Calling BS big time. Love is not all you need for a relationship to work and please, oh please, can we stop perpetrating this on ourselves and our future generations! For an intimate relationship to work you need a lot more than love. Here are a few things you will also need: a sense and value of self (self-awareness), respect for your partner, willingness to negotiate and resolve conflict TOGETHER, cooperation, creativity (for working around and beyond conflict, if nothing else), shared values and priorities, and the ones we refuse to acknowledge: physical attraction and financial compatibility. Love isn’t enough and an insistence that it is is not loving or caring for yourself and your ability to create a sustainable relationship.
Punishment
Tough love has a place. Sometimes holding someone’s feet to the fire is the loving kindness required. Punishment is not the same as tough love or facing the consequences. Punishment is a negative reinforcement to get someone to stop doing something. The effects are relatively short term in comparison to positive reinforcement, and it is often more damaging than beneficial in the long run. Silent treatment, withholding affection, spending someone else’s money or doing something to “teach a lesson” is a mean-spirited; lose-lose option. A more loving and caring choice would be to learn how to communicate your hurt or disappointment in a way that offers an invitation for the other person to contribute; learning how to give praise and positive reinforcement for behaviors that benefit you and the relationship; learning how to ask for what you’d like in a way that elicits cooperation. Punishment doesn’t make anyone feel good and it doesn’t really work. Better options exist to facilitate behavior change and foster connection and contribution.
Spending time or being together
We often give our time and attention to the things and people we love; but sharing time together in itself is not love and caring. Time shared with someone or something must also include presence, listening, and curiosity about the other to be truly loving and caring. Just existing or experiencing next to someone is not the same as being with someone. Check in to see if you are actually checked out of your relationship. If you are, checking back in can really turn your relationship into real loving and caring one that is nurturing and fun to be in.
Spending money or buying gifts
If you are loving and caring, you will invest in whatever it is you love and care for—your pet, your home, your kids, your relationship. You will spend money on your girlfriend or wife. Absolutely you will. However, you will never be able to buy her off or out of the relationship. Ladies, you will never be able to buy him off, or diminish yourself and be so unassuming or low-maintenance that he will stay if you do not give yourself. The true glue of a relationship that works is each partner giving themselves to the other. Not giving over, giving in, but giving yourself—-being vulnerable, sharing your dreams, asking for your desires, delighting in your quirks and offering your unique blend of awesomeness to your partner to have and enjoy. No amount of money can replace the gift of YOU in the relationship.
We’ve been misinformed about what love and caring are. Our mistaken ideas are destroying our relationships. We unknowingly push our partners away when we try to show our love and care in these ways. If we’re going to change our relationships and feel loved and cared for, we must understand what love and care really are so that we can offer true loving and caring to yourself and your partner.
Break the chain of unloving and empty relationships to create a loving, caring, and fun companionship that benefits everyone.
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