AnvilheadII

Real Love

March 13, 2013 By Susan J. Elliott


Real love is a permanently self-enlarging experience. – M. Scott Peck

Dysfunctional and destructive love affairs make our lives smaller. We lose sleep, family, friends, material things, money and time at work. To the extent we ever had it, we lose self-respect and self-esteem. We lose our ability to think clearly and independently. We become used to losing things, we become used to the narrowness of our lives and our willingness to let this other person narrow it even further.

When we have true love, real love, functional love, we don’t lose the people in our lives. Real love does not demand that you give up friends or your time for your friends, in fact it encourages independence and being fulfilled by other people, places and things.

Real love is secure to the point where you can fill your life up with other things. You are a healthy and functional person and your healthy and functional mate trusts and supports you. (and you are both trustworthy–that’s the important part).

Real love does not purposely or unwittingly engulf you. I’ve seen people claim to be healthy but be in completely enmeshed relationships that are unhealthy and they cannot see the enmeshment for what it is. I’ve seen people get taken hostage by someone and taken away from their family, friends, interests and hobbies all the while CLAIMING that the person who is taking them away is just really into them. No. Blending family, friends, interests and hobbies with a new relationship is never easy…but real love not only allows it, but demands it. What is important to you should be important to them.

Real love is not jealous and can let go enough to let someone go off and fill themselves with their friends, their interests, their very important solitude time….knowing that a fulfilled person comes back to the relationship a happy person and that makes the relationship better.

Real love doesn’t make us worry needlessly. It doesn’t make us wait and wonder and watch. In dysfunctional and destructive relationships we are forever hypervigilant…always off our pins, we are always waiting for the other shoe to drop, we cannot figure out, from one day to the next, what is real and what is not. If you are wondering that, chances are NONE OF IT IS REAL. Chances are you are in a bait-and-switch relationship which is designed to keep you forever uneasy.
It is that uneasiness that captures our attention. So long as our attention is captured, we are not thinking about leaving or making ourselves and our life better, we are always focused on our dysfunctional mate. It is hard to FIND the energy to leave so long as we are embroiled, constantly, in nonsense. (anvil note - this made me think of Everhopeful's CHICKEN post!!!)

Real love is a PERMANENTLY self enlarging experience. There are many people in bad relationships and in denial about how bad those relationships are who will point to the few times the dysfunctional and destructive other allowed for their growth. But chances are, they took it back at some point and the growth was diminished or permanently stomped out. Real love gives without taking it back.

Real love does not HURT. Real love does not play mind games, does not send mixed messages and is not passive-aggressive. If you’re in a relationship where these things are present, chances are you have felt crazy a time or two. That is a narrowing experience. You become so nuts you can’t live your life to the best of your ability. And that is not self-enlarging. It’s damaging and narrowing.

Real Love doesn’t say sorry very often. In the 1970s there was a movie called Love Story whose tag line was “Love means never having to say you’re sorry.” Love Story is the ultimate schmaltzy movie and the line became the punch line for years after its release. However, there is some truth in the much-maligned line. Real love needs to apologize very seldom. And it’s not “doesn’t apologize” because most controlling, anger people never apologize, but “doesn’t NEED to apologize” very often. Love is about taking care of self and taking care of your mate. And those things are in balance to the point where they seldom collide.

Controlling and abusive people get to the point where they cross so far over the line that the controlled person has had enough and is ready to split. It is at that point that the abuser engages in, what I call, “abusers remorse.” I qualify it like that because it is NOT real remorse. It is the remorse necessary to get the other person back in the game and under his or her control. It’s a cat and mouse game played by the cat so the mouse doesn’t get away. Once the mouse believes it is safe to move, the claws of destruction come back out.

The abusive partner will even cry and beg the other person not to leave. They will swear UP AND DOWN that they “get it” and things will be “different this time.” and SWEAR they will go to counseling, go to anger management, go to the ends of the earth just to keep you. They will SWEAR that they saw the light because you were leaving them and they suddenly realized what you meant to them.

Don’t believe it for a second. Again, it’s not REAL remorse. It’s remorse just to keep you in the game. And guess what? Real love doesn’t see this kind of scene EVER. It’s just something that does not happen.

And what happens to abusers remorse? How does the abuser “change back” and reel the contrite stance back in? Why it’s you. It’s YOUR FAULT when things go back to the status quo. You’re not being nice enough, tolerant enough or too bitchy, whiny, clingy — whatever. Name that behavior of yours that will cause the destruction and abuse to return. If you fall for abuser’s remorse, this is what you will get…not only an abuser who’s even more ticked off at you…but an abuser who is blaming you for everything that is going wrong.

Real love is the furthest thing in the imagination from this scene. Real love does not seek to place blame. Real love looks for compromise and solutions. Real love does not cause one partner or both partners to stand there wringing their hands endlessly because of what is and is not happening.

Real love does not play games, it does not cause us to lose sleep, friends, jobs, money, time and value in our lives. Real love is an ENLARGING and not a NARROWING experience.

And finally, real love exists. But–and this is a big BUT–it is true that in order to find the right person, you need to BE the right person (I have no idea where I heard this quote, but it’s SO true).

To be the right person you have to do your work. As I say over and over again, WATER SEEKS ITS OWN LEVEL. If you are attracting and attracted to unhealthy and dysfunctional, you are unhealthy and dysfunctional.

Do your work and they disappear and real love has a chance to walk in.

Lily1918

"faithfulness, hope and Love. The greatest of these is love"

real love like described above.
not the imitation we believe it to be.

"*If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate."

anvil!!! thank you so much.

Ann

I'm married 43 years, we have had good times and bad but in the end we are still very in love and best friends. One of the things that keeps our marriage interesting and alive is that there are 3 parts to our relationship....me, him and us. I have my own interests and friends, and he has his hobbies and friends also. And we have common interests to share. That's how I think it should be, it gives us lots to talk about sharing his day or mine. His thoughts and opinions don't always agree with mine...but we have learned that this doesn't mean one of us is right and the other is wrong, it just means we have differing thoughts and opinions and that's all good.

I am keeping this in my "treasures" Anvilhead, because I have a niece going through a very bad time right now and this says more than I could ever say to help her find herself again.

Thank you for bringing it here.

Hugs

EverHopeful721

WOW. Just....WOW. That's all I got right now, lol! My brain is too busy digesting and processing a lot of things in that post which, I have to admit, made me.....uncomfortable. But I'm guessing, in light of my present circumstances, that that's probably a good thing, huh??

Thanks, Anvil!!

love4menotu

Thank you for letting me vent, it's been such a confusing time, when I start to think I am ok with the relationship ending, I swing back into that state of hope - a hope that needs to be buried along with this marriage. He will never recognize what he has done, and I need to quit hoping that he will "see the error of his ways". For him, has has not made any mistakes in the marriage - it's all on me. The disrespectful, misbehaving wife, who wouldn't do what she was told.

Makes you want to throw up a little, yes?

Over is over. He will not change, and I can't make him. It's out of my control and arrogant to think that I could change him or anyone else.


L

Anaya

Thanks for the thought-provoking thread!

I think it wonderful that there are those who have found true love. They give hope to others.

I still have yet to get past the "dys" in my function.

Faithlove

As I read it, I was thinking to myself...."yes, that's happened, yes, that too....oh, I can relate to that, etc." But I was also wondering, "Is Real Love even real?"

Then, I read it, "And finally, real love exists." And that took my breath!

Thank you for posting this!