Redefining Love and How to Maintain its Authenticity in Relationships

I was having a conversation earlier and talking about different media, different shows, how we respond to them, and ultimately what kind of emotions and questions come up now. I’ve already written a piece on the show sex life on Netflix but essentially, I think the question isn’t about fidelity or infidelity. The question is who are we in our relationships? And as we delve to figure that out, the reality is we don’t know. Even when we do know, we often lose ourselves in our relationships and forget who we are. We get married, have kids, or we’re in these long-term relationships if we’re not married, and we feel as though we have to change. It’s as if we have to become a specific type of partner that may not be authentic to who we are. As we examine authenticity in relationships, what it really looks like is being my most authentic self to myself and my partner. This means I have to redefine love and my understanding of it in order to cultivate it in a healthier way.

In a recent podcast with Jay Shetty, Esther Perel explains how love is a verb. She says love is not only a verb, but we have to also distinguish between a life story and love story. The love story is where we have rainbows and butterflies, and it feels good. The moment it doesn’t feel good we question the love story, we question the love, and we question the relationship. But a life story with someone is essentially saying it’s going to ebb and flow. There are moments that give you butterflies and moments that don’t, but here’s someone who is with me as life changes and transitions through good times and bad times. I now have a life story and a life partner. They’re here for it all and they’re doing life with me. Sometimes we are expecting life stories when we really have love stories or, we’re expecting a love story when we have a life story. People ultimately want it all. We want both. But that’s not the case and really, if we’re going to do this, we have to be accountable and say, “Am I creating an environment for love to flourish, and am I cultivating that intentionally”? I think if we view love as a thing or as a feeling, then that love story and feeling is what we’re looking for. We’re looking for butterflies, but the reality is, love is a verb. It’s something you do and something you cultivate.

There are plenty of ways that we start a love story. We start a relationship, and we don’t nurture it. We don’t grow it. Love is no different than a plant or a puppy or a child. You don’t have it and just leave it in the corner to wither. How many people consider themselves dog moms, plant moms, and devoted mothers? You don’t just leave something you claim to love and care for most to wither and rot in a corner. You don’t have children and just neglect them. Child Protective Services would be called. You don’t get a pet to ignore, abuse or neglect it, because then someone’s calling animal services on you. If you get a plant and just ignore it, it will wither and die. If we say we care about this thing, we have to own the fact of whether or not we are nurturing it. And the reality is, plenty of us have started relationships that we have not nurtured or, don’t have the intention to nurture. We just wanted it to make us feel good. And in that same avenue, we have to own that.

I was saying to a friend that I had a previous relationship that never met my needs and could not meet my needs. What I didn’t understand in my youth was, I don’t have to hold on to something that no longer serves me or does not serve me. I don’t have to become someone else because in doing that, I’m not actually cultivating or nourishing love. I’m doing what I think I’m supposed to do, which is not actually loving or creating love, so the relationship suffers. You feel guilt, you feel all these horrible things when the reality is, it’s not the relationship for you. I did not nurture it as if it was the relationship for me. Keeping that in mind with that perspective, I have to own that. I have to own that I started a relationship and allowed a relationship to start. I was a willing participant in this relationship that did not serve me and knew that pretty early on. Rather than speaking to that truth, I allowed it to continue. I encouraged it to continue without really pouring into it, and that’s not healthy. That’s not fair.

The accountability is recognizing that I wasted my time, and I wasted someone else’s time. I wasted a part of someone else’s life as well. I’m not just the victim. If we consider cultivating and creating love from that space, I think we’re able to hopefully recognize that we have to be accountable to love. We have to be authentic to love, and as we continue our relationships, we have to be able to re-evaluate love. We have to constantly be checking in to see how I’m feeling about my partner, how they feel about me, and if I’m doing my part. If we are going to sit there and say I want a life partner, we have to then grow mature love the same way we grow mature in the relationship. It does not stay as a newbie forever. Babies don’t stay babies forever. Neither does love. It grows and it evolves into deeper levels and deeper places that will only go there if we let it. As we continue to think, “What is love? What does it look like? How do I grow it?” Recognizing I have to redefine it so it fits authentically for me in my space and my partner and so it’s attainable. We want love to be attainable and realistic. Sometimes we have pretty lofty goals and that is not healthy either.