When it comes to love, I’m kind of a cynic. It’s not like I don’t believe it exists, but my idea of love is pretty different than what the common perception is. I am the child of divorced parents—the difference is my parents waited to get divorced. They stayed in an unhealthy marriage for way too long and during this time modeled what a relationship should look like to me. When it became time to put into action what they had taught me, it blew up in my face. While I adamantly stand by my views, I recognize my opinion was formed based on my experience. Nonetheless, here are my unpopular opinions about love.
Love is NOT the most important part of a relationship
This is hard to get people to agree with me on, but there’s not much you could say to me to change my mind on this one. Love is definitely an important piece of relationships, but only a piece to a bigger whole. Relationships are very dynamic and complicated. There are many pieces like schedules, beliefs, goals, values, families, friends, and money, to name a few. Love is a part of that dynamic shifting and changing system that is a relationship. If love does vanish from a relationship, I think it’s clear that relationship should end, but the mere presence of love in a relationship does not justify the relationship’s existence to me.
Getting back together does work
When it comes to this belief, it usually just depends on the person’s experiences with people who have broken up and gotten back together. I have found that, at least for me, getting back together with partners doesn’t work: but I think it can work. Just as relationships grow and change, so do the people in them. I don’t think getting back together is always a good idea and this can differ depending on the circumstance. For getting back together to work, some growth has had to have happened within the individuals and the relationship. This plays back into my first belief about love not being the most important aspect of a relationship. People will often use their feelings to justify giving it another go without taking other factors into account. Trying the same thing over and over again is the definition of insanity.
How I View Marriage:
Growing up in such a marriage focused culture, I spent a large part of my life with marriage at the center of my life. I couldn’t wait to grow up and get married and build my life with my “other half.” Marriage, in my eyes, became some sort of magical bond between you and another person. I seemed to be a special transformation that separates your love from the love of others around you. As I grew up and had relationships of my own while watching my friends and family in their relationships, marriage soon grew to be a financial and sometimes religious contract between two people. For me, it didn’t seem to be anything more. I don’t hate marriage and think they can be amazing and beautiful relationships—and in their own way, magical. But I truly believe that magic and beauty would be there if the couple wasn’t married. What makes their love special isn’t a marriage, but the connection they’ve fostered and cultivated.
Marriage Won’t Change Anything
Along the same lines, I don’t believe the act of getting married itself changes anything within your relationship. Any changes that come about come from you and your partner’s own work and communication. I was talking to my dad about someone we know who is getting married and how concerned their parents were for them. Their parents talked about how they were worried that he thought that by getting married, life would just work itself out in terms of finances, career, and school. The way television and movies often portray marriage, that’s the way it seems. If you’re married, you’re an adult and your American Dream will just fall into place. The truth is, you will exist in your marriage as you existed outside of your marriage until you put in work to change and mature.
Love is NOT Easy, It’s a Choice
This is the belief I always have the hardest time explaining. Love not being easy does not mean it should be hard. Life does not exist in black and white, but instead on a spectrum. If your relationship is hard, exhausting, depressing, toxic or abusive, you should leave and if you need to, get help. But just because something isn’t hard doesn’t mean it’s easy. When you’re single, you basically only have one person you need to worry about. Yes, you have friends, and maintenance and care are required there, but fairly minimally. A relationship is hard work and negotiation and compromise and sacrifice. Love is work. It’s like investing in a house that’s a bit of a fixer-upper. You have to spend a lot of time, money, and effort on the house, but with each change, you create a safe place for you to live. Just like a relationship, it’s an investment: but it’s worth it.
I don’t hate love or people who are in love. I love love and truly admire the people I know that have built relationships I respect and aspire to have. Building a relationship so that I can share my life with someone is something I want and is important to me. I just think there are some different ways we can look at love to help cultivate the best relationships we are capable of.