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Making Love Last by Learning to Love Look up the word love in any dictionary and you'll find two separate definitions. The first: an abstract noun encapsulating a feeling of tenderness, passion and warmth. The second: a verb defined by concrete actions such as giving affection or expressing tenderness and care. The trouble with these parallel definitions of love is that too often people are satisfied with (and even preoccupied by) the primary definition and never get around to the secondary one. Treating love as an "entity" or "idea" often leads to a fantasy of love. This fantasy connection, which binds people together in an imaginary fusion even as they continue to mistreat each other, makes practical and personal adjustments to improve the relationship difficult. We often first experienced the discrepancy between a fantasy of love and the experience of love as , at times when our parents, who claimed to love us, acted in ways that were not always loving and, even destructive. The more we see love as an ethereal concept, the more we lose sight of the specific behaviors that make love an active expression of our feelings for others. When we see love as a product of action, however, we can look into ourselves and our relationships with fresh eyes and examine how loving we truly are. If everyone you know was to make a list of the actions they find loving, these lists would most likely include similar qualities. Expressing affection, sexuality and caring are universally considered loving behaviors. Similarly, there are specific actions that are recognized as going against loving feelings. By approaching ourselves and our relationships with this proactive, pro-action perspective, we can change the course of our relationships and develop into more loving individuals. How to Be More Loving 1) Look at What You Do, Not What You Say Take a step back and ask yourself: How do I actually treat my partner? Do my actions match my words? One helpful way to examine this question is to make a list of the behaviors and actions you would define as loving, then ask yourself if these behaviors and actions match your own. What specific things can you do to be more loving? For example, if you say it is important to you to support your partner's independence, but act upset every time they want to hang out with their friends, you should alter your behavior to fit your beliefs. 2) Stop Withholding Withholding is one of the biggest obstacles to becoming a more loving individual.Early on, learn to withhold positive qualities either as an indirect expression of anger or as a self-protective defense against being hurt. In either case, withholding often persists into adulthood leaving us guarded and less vulnerable to love. Sadly, it results in hurting both people involved. These patterns of withholding often include feeling victimized or consumed by others. Holding back positive qualities, especially ones that your partner values, disrupts the loving feelings and intimacy in a relationship. For example, if you know it makes your partner happy to be affectionate, but you refuse to be affectionate in public, you hinder your partner's loving feeling toward you. Breaking your patterns of withholding is an immediate way to become a more loving individual. 3) Lay Down Your Arms If you find yourself in a heated argument with your partner, the most loving thing you can do is unilaterally disarm. Drop your stake in winning the argument in the interest of improving your relationship. This does not mean that you should suddenly agree with everything your partner says and stop having an opinion. On the contrary, unilateral disarmament is a rational decision to take the high road, not overreact and lash out in the moment and choose to approach the problem with a cooler head. Even the most intense arguments can be diffused by saying something warm and understanding, expressing physical affection and stressing that being close to the other person is more important to you than being right. 4) Fire the Coach in Your Head All of us are plagued by a critical inner voice, which provides an inner dialogue of destructive thoughts toward ourselves and others. These "voices" not only do damage to our confidence and self-esteem, they also wreak havoc on our intimate relationships. Through negative coaching, our critical inner voice encourages our defenses and diminishes our trust in others. Sometimes these thoughts come in the form of self-attacks (i.e. "You're such an idiot, no wonder she doesn't like you."), other times they attack the objects of our affection (i.e. "He is so pathetic, why do you even like this creep?"). Another way the voice operates is by providing bad advice (i.e. "You can't trust anyone. Don't be too vulnerable or you will look like a fool.") Listening to these "voices" and acting on their bad advice, creates a greater fear of intimacy and puts distance between people in a relationship. Identifying specific things your critical inner voice says about you and your relationship is the first step toward breaking the pattern. Voice therapy, a process of verbalizing the the negative point of view of the critical inner voice and then answering back to it with your real point of view, is an effective way to insure that this negative coaching doesn't continue to interfere with your relationship. 5) Develop Yourself as an Individual Recent studies show that individual happiness and self-confidence are key factors in determining a successful relationship. All the pressure you may put on yourself to find the "right" partner doesn't amount to much if you are not right with yourself. The more you develop yourself as a strong, confident, non-defensive individual, the more likely you are to find happiness with another. Redefining love in terms of action can benefit an intimate relationship enormously. Following these suggestions will not only make you more loving, it will also make you more lovable. Sadly, many people are more comfortable with the idea of love than they are with real intimacy and relating. By seeing love as a product of action we can break free from our fantasy of love and truly experience loving and being loved. With February looming around the corner, I can't think of a greater gift for Valentine's Day. by Lisa Firestone, Ph.D. in Compassion Matters |
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The greatest happiness in life is to love and being loved. As a choleric person, i don't fall by sweet words. As I will not do either. If we do love the person, They fill our mind and hearts all the time. Without any words spoken, you could feel it by their action. If they are not liars. No matter how difficult the problems are, saying bad words will do nothing good for ourselves. Instead it will harm others. And words, once spoken you can't take it back. I would choose to stay quiet and see how i feels about the person. I will talk it over once i calm down. Or if its too much to handle, i will just let him know i cant stay. 
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Many people have far too much fantasy chasing, money measuring and subliminal influences from media presentations to even began to function within a relationship. Sadly, some can't observe the reality around them, because they are looking for excitement and drama... but all they need do is look at older couples who have been together for decades. They are able to do so, because they did not chase every whim of drama fantasy, and they did not get dis-illusion behind the ups and downs of actual living, and they came realize being in a relationship does not mean someone has to entertain them. I feel sorry for many young people today, they base their relations on so many material, fantasy and drama embellished things until, they can't stay together once the Restaurant, and other things fade from being primary concerns. Some look for these story book homes in some story book community and then get buried behind the expense and status obligation they fell they need to uphold by being in these environments. They have to go to the so called " right club", the so called "right stores", and drive the so called "right vehicle" and wear the so called "right labels on their clothes", then they want their kids to go to the so called 'status school" and be in the 'status programs and organizations".... and they want all of it INSTANTLY!!!! IF we listen to many who claim money is not a matter, but the summary of what they say is all about how much and how many ways money does matter. Honest and free flowing love, does not have anything to do with what one's job title is, nor does it have anything to do with what one's degree is, nor what their profession is. All people have to do is be two individuals, willing, capable and engaged in work, and if they are temp. out of work, actively engaged in seeking work and accepting it when it present. It does not matter who makes more money, if they claim they are in it to share their lives. But this 'barter and buy a mate" madness is at a level of pure craziness. The material measure of individual lives by material standards has made many idolatries of many sorts. Then you got the 'romance novel script" seekers who claim love is gone if no one is on a continual mission to erotically stimulate them with some fancy. People have forgot how to accept and give simply appreciation. In many situations soon as a man is determined to have money, the smile come flowing like water out of a faucet, then when they don't get to spend and waste that money, the frowns are so thick, the bright sun can't even dim their glare. then comes the 'worship me because I have this sex organ or that sex organ.... It's pure insanity. But the sad thing is it goes to absurdity, about the look of 'faces'... when no matter what a face looks like, it cannot and does not and never will be an indicator of integrity and honesty of character and person. A shapely butt might be a lure, but it is no guarantee of anything else, a buffed body might be an allure, but it is still nothing more than a buffed body.... If you are quick to prejudge another and ones self, over a meal, or at a movie, then you just might be misjudging both the other person and yourself. But it is up to each to figure out their own trips, and when they figure them out and over come them, then they might be ready to share love with someone. but getting together with a list of expectations, that ultimately become demands and then those demands seek obligatory conduct and performances... then two people will find a misery they probably deserve for seeking such. None are a Princess, nor Prince, nor is anyone a Queen or a King.... no matter what they conjure in their minds to make them think themselves as being such..... First and Foremost it might be good for people to first simply seek to be a good person in and of themselves, and be open to share... as well as to appreciate the same within another. What people end up doing is chasing fantasies, making babies that result to have to suffer because of the adults fantasy chasing. if you don't know what "marriage is", then stop obsession over it, until you can first see what it is, and then learn to respect what it means. no one owes you a fantasy, and if you seek one for yourself, eventually reality will awaken you, when you fail to do the work to build what it takes to make dreams function and be functional within your life and your relationships. We become too often 'obsessive beings" always in search of something to 'obsess over".... until we have forgotten how to simply appreciate and be appreciated.
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