The right way to love
There’s a pervasive myth in our society that there is a right and a wrong way to love. However, there’s not much clarity about what the right might be. We all have difficulty with relationships and difficulty with love. Therefore, we’re liable to draw the uncomfortable conclusion: “Everyone knows how to love correctly except me.”
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This attitude leads to blaming, defensiveness, accusing and a general shutdown of any loving feelings. You may feel helpless, betrayed, incompetent, angry and lost. If you become defensive and withdraw from your beloved, things get worse.
There are actually as many ways of loving as there are people—and none of them is wrong. Some ways of loving work better than others. There are an infinite number of ways that work extremely well. This is good news, for it ends forever the fear that love can become boring, or that you can become bored with it.
Love
Each one has his/her own unique experience with love, and must define it. Many of us experience love in many ways: romantic, practical, spiritual, familial, unconditional, passionate, selfish, and more.
As we experience it in primary relationships, love is one person's positive experience of another.
Love tends to bring separate people together.
Love is sharing and caring.
Love unites us.
Love is your willingness to share yourself.
Love is a state of being, a feeling, not an action. It is warmth, connectedness, and a desire to be closer. Love is someone's recognition in the order of the things he or she likes most about the self. Love is not critical or separating; it is accepting and supportive.
We hear much, especially in popular songs, movies, etc., about how painful love is.
- Love doesn’t hurt; whatever hurts in a relationship is not love.
- Love isn’t limiting, it’s freeing.
- Love is how you feel; not what you do. The expression of love is one degree removed from the feeling itself. How you behave is not necessarily an accurate barometer of how you love—that depends on your understanding of love and your ability to express yourself effectively.
- Love is a feeling; the expression of love is an art. As with any art, there can be a wide gap between what is expressed and what is felt. The difference between expression and feeling has several contributing factors: self-awareness, honesty, safety, intent and fantasy. As with art, practice and knowledge of technique are helpful.
Communication and miscommunication
Whether you love or not is subject only to your own opinion, no one else’s. The proper answer to the age-old demand, “If you love me, you’ll...” is: “Wrong. I do love you, but I’m not going to do that,” or, “I’ll do that, but it’s not a test of my love.”
While love is not a behaviour but a feeling, accurate and effective communication of feelings is important. It can be very frustrating to love and be unable to communicate that love. We all know the experience of loving someone very much and having them perceive our love as something else.
Behaviour contributes to accurate expression and is therefore important. It does you no good to love if your behaviour is consistently interpreted as unloving.
As in any art, you need to know what you want to express to communicate it effectively. Your personal way of expressing and receiving love is your ‘lovestyle’.