There is usually this notion or belief that love is actually everything in a relationship, but can we really say that love is everything? You can actually love someone honestly and that person would also love you greatly, and the relationship would still crash — this points to something, that love isn’t actually everything as far as a relationship is concerned.
What about understanding? What if love exists and understanding doesn’t, what would be the fate of that relationship on the long run? When a couple gets married, it is said that they are in love, true love even, some would say. But along the line, hitches come up and break that marriage, and divorce looms over, and people would say they fell out of love; but that really isn’t the case — it could be that they didn’t have understanding between themselves to sustain the love in that union. One thing that I’ve come to notice is that everyone has issues — there is no person on earth that doesn’t have issues in the eyes of some other person, but the key to maintaining a successful relationship is to find that partner that can tolerate and understand you in the midst of all your so-called issues.
How about companionship? This is also one thing that people shove aside when choosing a partner? Your partner should be your friend, your confidant, someone you trust, someone who you feel comfortable with, someone who wouldn’t mock you because of your flaws, someone you would rather be with than be alone. But if you love your partner and your partner loves you, but there still isn’t companionship in that relationship then the bond in that relationship would remain static, and static isn’t good enough.
What about compatibility? Even with the presence of love, incompatibility might still be a great test to how much that love can stand. Sometimes couple fall in love, get married, are happy for a while, but after that compatibility issues get the better of them, and all of a sudden the couple in love become a couple in war? Would you say that they stopped loving each other? You just can’t stop loving someone easily; it’s situations like incompatibility that make the love turn to hate.
I still believe that love should be the basis for a relationship; it’s the life of every relationship. However, I want people to stop looking for only love; I want people to find companionship, I want people to find understanding, and I want people to find compatibility — when you find these three then the love in that relationship would probably be the one that every lover dreams of.
Shawn