in love forever?!

By februarie 11, 2012Barbatul, Thoughts

I am driven by my needs. Whether I am aware about it or not, it doesn’t matter, I will still be driven by them. I think everybody does. People need to love and be loved, to be independent, to share affection, to be free… We are like soap bubbles moving into space attracting and repelling each other. We all meet persons we dislike and we all meet persons we enjoy to be with. For me it came one day when I met her, the perfect soap bubble for me. We were driven by our complementary needs, we met, we watched each other, we matched perfectly. I remember years after, asking one to the other: “Did we ever had at least one argument?” We didn’t. Such a nice love story.

Time passes, years are running and people change, the needs are fulfilled, over-fulfilled and the most powerful needs that drive us are now different. I woke up one morning, having my wife near me and feeling I slept close to a stranger. What was wrong? What did she do so that I didn’t love her anymore? I know I have all the availability in the world to love her but I can’t. She is different. These were all my thoughts in that morning. We talked and talked about it and made a commitment to search for our happiness even if this means that we have to split. This was for us the perfect space to discover ourselves, our new needs.

After a while I was reading a book, I wouldn’t have read such kind of books before, Miguel Ruiz – The Mastery of Love where I found, in a chapter, a story about a man who was preaching that true love doesn’t exist. Love is an exchange between people, it is like the relation between a drug dealer and a consumer. One is controlling the other till the relationship breaks. One day that man meets a woman who was crying because love doesn’t exist. Surprised by such a similar opinion with his, the man stopped and they talked and talked … after a while they started to have a relationship. It was a special one. They were both free, they allowed each other to be exactly as they were and they enjoyed the time together and apart. This way the true love finally emerged. One evening, at the end of the story, they were sitting and watching the sky. A star started to shine in a special way and slowly landed in the man’s hands. He was very surprised by such a beauty and he gave her this star. She was so scared to carry such a beauty that she dropped it by mistake. The star broke and so did their true love, too.

At the end of the story there was the explanation as well (thanks God). The star was representing his love to her and by giving her the star he made her responsible for his love. This will never work. Love is your own feeling. It is not somebody else’s responsibility to keep it alive or not. While I was reading the story I had the impression it was written for me, about me. I realized I did the same. I expected my partner to make me love her. It was so empowering to see that love it is my feeling, nobody else is in charge with it. I am free to give this feeling or not! I felt so free!

Do not think that in the next moment I started to love her or anybody else, in the next moment I saw all my relationships following the same pattern. We attracted each other, we lived together for a while, we evolved, we changed, we didn’t match any more and love – as I knew before – disappeared. After that I was always ready to start another relationship. For me love was a feeling generated by my needs, by my expectations and I realized I was able to explain why I did love each person in my life. It was scary to see this.

The journey took around 3 months and one day the change happened inside me and I felt the need to ask her to marry me. We were already married but behind that initial “will you marry me?” were so many reasons, so many expectations, so many duties. I felt I need to do it again and this time I didn’t promise to love her ever after, I simply told her: I love you now, this is all I can promise you …

Since then I choose to love her every day and it doesn’t work always because we are human beings and we are allowed to be imperfect. This is my understanding of love and I deeply believe that each relationship between 2 persons has its turning point where all the initial needs and expectations you charge the relationship with, will be saturated or vanished. That perfect body you loved changed and you will start asking yourself: Do I still love her? It is a moment of choice when you can start something new hoping that another relationship will last forever. Or you can change the rules of the game and start loving just because …

I leave you with these questions: Are you willing to love a person exactly as he/she is?  Do you want to be loved exactly as you are, without having to change anything, you are perfect as you are and as you change … Do you?

10 Comments

  • Ana Matos spune:

    WOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!

  • Daniel spune:

    WOW?! That’s all you receive from your friends? 😛
    I think people are using words so easily (it’s somehow like the notion of „friend” from Facebook or even from real life). I mean they are talking a lot about love, they think they can make it, they even write books or make movies about it, they suffer, they cry, but do they really know what love is? Do they think that all the butterflies in stomach, the blindness, the suffering, the pain, the compromises, all the „heaven&hell-being together” stuff is love? The true Love I mean. Love that not depends on needs or mood or even on relationship. Maybe I’m not that smart or experienced in this matter 😛 but I know a guy (and I really love him, regardless what some may say about him or what he did) and this guy always said (but not wrote) things that went directly into my mind and heart – Ruiz is a hell of a guy too 🙂 So even if you know what I’m trying to show you…please read this (or not only this) http://www.messagefrommasters.com/Shiva-Shakti/What_is_Love.htm
    And we can share some more thoughts over a beer sometime.
    After all we share the same birthday 🙂
    Take care.

  • alina spune:

    While you’ve written beautifully, let me disagree with you: love is not a choice! It might be hard work and cooperation – „we’re in it together!”, but it is the relationship that acts like that, and not the love. It might very well be that in a relationship which works well (meaning both partners work together, consensuously), where there is respect and mutual admiration, things could turn to love. But love has something that eludes the choice. It can start and it can end without us having a say, no matter how hard the efforts, and how willing the person.
    At least that’s how I see it. 🙂 That yes, you need to strive, to find it in yourself, to give all, but it really doesn’t rely on your aware decisions, rather on the chemistry of souls, which there is or there isn’t.
    Happy Valentines Day, if you celebrate it, and may love be there for you two always and forever, the shiniest star in the sky! 🙂

  • Mihaela spune:

    It’s a beautiful story – yours and that of Miguel Ruiz. I’ve read the last one few months ago 🙂
    True love does exist. This remembers me about Shrek and Fiona and how True Love changed their life. To Fiona finding True love meant to assume her real nature – that of female ogre. She was scared at the first time because she was thinking about herself that she is a beautiful princess. Pretty strange, isn’t it? 🙂 Sometimes True love helps you to know yourself better. To Fiona being a female ogre was no problem since her lover was an ogre too. But I wonder what would have happened if Shrek had been Prince Charming 🙂 For True love you have to match somehow with the other…
    Probably there is no universal description for this phenomenon. I like your description and I’m glad you have found TL. So … enjoy it! 🙂

  • Alexandra spune:

    Hi Andrei,
    very good question, for me to ponder upon. so thank you.
    in return I would recommend you a book that has been also recommended to me (didn’t read it yet) but maybe you will find it to be useful.
    http://www.edituratrei.ro/product.php/Ayala_Malach_Pines_C%C4%83ile_%C3%AEndr%C4%83gostirii_Cum_ne_alegem_persoana_iubit%C4%83/2359/

    best wishes 🙂

  • Cipriana spune:

    Your story reminds me of a question for which I never found an answer. What is the relation between needs and love?…

  • Alexandru Geamanu spune:

    … si cu toate astea in fiecare zi duc gunoiul pentru ca vreau, nu pentru ca trebuie. Corect?

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