The essential relationship values (part 3)

In the last two parts of the essential relationship values series, I mentioned the importance of trust and respect. The third essential relationship value is an obvious one: love.

As tempting as it may be, I am not going to try to define love here. There have been hundreds of highly intelligent people who have tried and failed to find a satisfactory definition of what it means to love.

For a relationship to flourish, love has to exist.

Love needs hope and the courage to make the relationship work. I found that in my last relationship, I didn't have the hope or the courage. I had the dreams - I wanted to marry him and maybe have a family with him someday - but I didn't hope that we would work out. There was a part of me which always felt that the future would not be one with us together.

Courage in love is the ability to see the relationship through the hard times and sticking together in the face of adversity. It is not a coincidence that wedding vows often say "Through richer or poorer, in illness and in health" because these are the vital tests of love.

I have seen my mother stand by my father at times when it was really hard. When we first moved to London, times were tough and money was short. My mother walked everywhere - to pick up groceries and drop us off and pick us up from school - despite a bad leg which throbbed with pain following a car accident. We had to save what we had.

My mother was from a very rich family and when I was young we had eight or nine servants to do almost everything and she never had to lift her finger. Then when the going got tough, she put on an apron and cooked, cleaned and did whatever she had to to make it work.

That is love. The willingness to accept that things may not always be good, but that we are in this together.

Love is an action. It means that it has to be proved and acted upon consistently. I think what many people often forget is that relationships need work. They need continuous effort and care to make sure that they continue and succeed.

All too often, I have seen my male friends chase and chase a girl and then once they 'have' her, they get lazy. Then they start showing the real them and let the relationship go to waste. 

As one half of a relationship, love means getting as good as you give. So if you cherish, trust and respect the other person, but don't get the same treatment back - it's not love. It hurts to be the one not being loved, but it will hurt even more in the future if you let your life go by in the hope that "one day" they will have to love you back. The truth: no they won't.

Being in love is different to loving someone.

I have often struggled with the concept of explaining this to my boyfriend or dates, but most of my girl friends grasp this quickly. A relationship doesn't require you to be in love with someone, but it needs you to love them. 

Being in love is the honeymoon period, when every flaw in your significant other is beautiful and you can't bear to be apart for any amount of time. This is what gives you the fireworks and the butterflies. In contrast, loving someone is about being willing to do anything to make them happy without expecting a favour back.

Loving someone is a state of being, while being in love is an emotion.

It is also important to remember that love is not unconditional. I don't think there's anything called unconditional love. Love relies on the condition of trust, respect and value. If any of these are broken, love ceases to exist in the same, pure form it did before.

I have heard friends complain about staying with men who didn't treat the way they deserved to be treated for the sake of 'love' and I was also guilty of the same - though I never quite admitted I was in love with him.

But that's not love. Love is dependent on being treated well. Love gives the same as it gets. That particular 'love' is actually dependency, neediness, desperation or addiction. All of these can be cured, but love doesn't need a cure.