I once read a quote that stated you only encounter three main loves of your life. That doesn’t mean you will have only three relationships, but rather that there will only be three that make the most impact in your life.
“Your first love is said to be when you’re younger, the love that everyone else told us was right…Your second love is the hard love. The one that teaches you lessons about yourself and reveals things to you that you never knew…Then the third love is the one that comes from out of nowhere. The love that you never see coming.”
I first read this quote when I was younger, and I never really forgot it since. Love can be one of the greatest feelings in this world, but it can also be one of the most painful. You can’t necessarily plan when and how you are going to fall in love or what type of impact it’ll have on your life. It all just happens naturally. As I’m growing up, this idea seems to make more and more sense, and it really makes you wonder if it’s applicable to everyone or not.
In the article, The Three LOVES THEORY, written by Roxie Nafousi, they explain the three loves as the first, the intense and the unconditional.
The first love is described as a “fairytale.” It’s the type of love making you feel all types of butterflies, and you become convinced you will get married. This love allows you to finally experience being in a relationship with someone who truly loves you and find love in someone else as well. It convinces you that this is as good as it gets.
The intense love “turns our world upside down.” It allows you to learn more about yourself and the type of person you are in a relationship as well as who you want to be with. They say your second love will be the worst heartbreak, the kind making you feel as though you’ll never be happy again.
The third love, known as the unconditional love, is also considered the “unexpected” one as per Nafousi. It happens when you least expect it but is supposed to feel the most right. After already having experience with relationships and heartbreaks, this love is supposed to be the most genuine. The one in which you both are meant to be together because of the qualities you enlighten each other with.
When thinking about it, it makes sense that these are three categories of relationships because they all share different emotions and stages of your life. They also help you learn more about yourself and the type of relationships you crave.
However, the only thing I don’t agree with is that you have to go through all three. I have seen real life scenarios where two people find unconditional love, which apparently is supposed to be their third love, on their first try.
I feel it is different based on every person and every relationship, but it is definitely a good base of what the three loves can be. It is nice to think that you will end up with the perfect one, but it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to go through specific lovers to get to them.
This reminds me of Gary Chapman’s five love languages, in which he made society believe that these were universal terms that each relationship must follow, which was not the case. This can further show how every relationship is different, and at the end of the day it is important to listen to your heart and follow it.
It is always interesting to learn how love can be categorized—something I found more interesting about the three lovers—but it’s important to note that these categorizations are not set in stone.