To truly love someone

Hey guys !

Today, I’m coming back with a very personal piece of writing I’ve intended to write for a while. I didn’t quite know how it would take shape. I didn’t even know how the situation would evolve at that time, but it’s been a while since I wanted to let go of all that heaviness I’ve been feeling these past months through writing.

Writing has always been a way for me to process and understand things. To raise my consciousness and bring it to the world as a story I hope to make universal, helpful and relatable. Writing is my personal Kintsugi. It’s always been my favorite way of self-expression.

Kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing broken objects, especially pottery, with a liquid precious metal such as gold. Liquid gold holds all the broken pieces together, making it even more beautiful to have been broken. It’s a philosophical art based on introspection and sublimation of wounds.

Breaking up…

Recently, I had to break up with my “boyfriend” (I never liked that word. It just feels untruthful to me in many situationship). I still loved him when I did and it has been one of the most painful things I had to do.

Right now, going through that break-up fog just makes me wanna go back to his arms, enjoy things together and tell myself it’s all gonna be okay between us when in fact I know it won’t. At least, not for now and maybe I’ll have to accept never either. Each day is me being strong enough to remind myself again and again why – Oh, why ? – I’m doing it.

Why ?

Because our relationship has been toxic for a while, and it’s also a pain to simply admit it.

I think letting go of someone you love being aware that your relationship is damaging the both of you is one the most courageous and difficult thing oneself can do. It’s a kind of ultimate act of love towards your person, but also to you. It’s having the courage to admit that – despite all the feelings, despite the future projects you may see together, and despite all the good moments – the relationship itself is truthfully not a loving place and you should protect both of you from its most-of-the-time toxicity. Letting go when there are no solutions left despite all you wish the relationship was feels like turning selfish love into unselfish love to me.

To truly love someone

Throughout my experiences with relationships, whether romantic or not, I came to learn some things about love. What is the meaning of love is certainly one of the most complicated human questions to solve, because of how many configurations of love exist ! Yet, what’s paradoxical is that love is supposedly one of the most simple and common feelings we can feel. Lessons about love surely have been some of the most painful life lessons I could learn. But at the same time, I think it always lead me to a purer, saner perspective on love. For the sake of me and my partners.

✯ Love shouldn’t be complicated. Love can be easily recognized and just does you good.

✯ Love doesn’t hurt. Being attached/ dependant to someone, the idea of someone you want to see fulfilled or the way a relationship makes you feel hurts.

✯ Codependency hurts

✯ Being in love with love is not love.

✯ When you truly love someone you don’t love an idea of them. You don’t love them for a concept of how you see a future with them. You don’t love them for how they make you feel about yourself. You love them for who they are, and as they evolve on their own.

✯ Yet, of course, someone that truly loves you should make you feel loved. It shouldn’t be complicated to recognize that someone simply loves you. So you can be in love with the “feelings” too in a way.

✯ It’s healthy and fulfilling to have future projects with your partner. Yet, it shouldn’t prevent you from stopping a relationship when you realize you just don’t feel happy with your person anymore in day to day life. Love is not a materialistic idea of the future. Love is now and everyday.

✯ Before you can truly love someone, you must learn to love yourself and get to know yourself and what you want more.

✯ Knowing what you want from life and from love comes from experiences and self-reflection. So don’t blame yourself if you haven’t figured out everything yet !

✯ Many toxic relationships come from the place of two people that don’t truly respect themselves, that never created boundaries for themselves, that never learned to love themselves and to communicate love in general.

✯ You cannot shape someone to how you want them to be like. You cannot « change » someone, even though love can spontaneously make oneself change.

✯ It’s okay to move on and to admit that someone is simply not for you.

Here are some non-exhaustive lessons I’ve learned about love. I chose to write them as kind of statements that, of course, can be re-thought and complemented.

I guess the essence of what I’ve learned is truly that love shouldn’t be painful, and pain often rimes with being attached to/ being dependant to. Being in a healthy relationship with someone should essentially do you good.

I’m not saying everything should be easy in love. Love is NOT easy, let’s be clear. Being in a relationship is especially a moment of challenging changes, discoveries and sometimes deep growth. Growth is not always comfortable. It’s for that reason love can be so complicated. You can discover lots of things about yourself trying to be (or failing to be) with someone, sometimes hard things. I’ve discovered toxic traits in myself being in relationships/ being in love !

What I mean by love shouldn’t be painful, is that, we simply must be precautious to not mistake true love and toxic “love” that just feels too good because society values toxic traits in love so much. Because love is supposed to hurt, right ? Well… No. It’s not supposed to hurt all the time, despite the way we represent love in movies, books. We should never stay in a relationship in which we feel more hurt, sadness, anger, frustration or whatever difficult emotions, than love… Joy, happiness, confidence, trust, connection, intimacy, etc. Neither should it be complicated to recognize that someone makes us feel loved and good.

We must be precautious to not mistake love and hurtful codependencies. Of course, being in a relationship creates dependency. We are human and we get attached to the people we love. Yet, it shouldn’t be at the expense of your own happiness and your person’s happiness.

And I’m not blaming anyone by saying all that. I’ve been there guys ! I think we can, and we must actually, work on these toxic traits we all have. We can learn to love saner, with time and experiences. Firstly, because time and experiences will make us learn more about the way we function and what we want from life and love. From knowing ourselves, we can learn to love and respect ourselves the way we are before we can love anybody else. I think you cannot truly honor anyone else’s boundaries – especially when being in something as engaging and intimate as a relationship – if you haven’t created strong boundaries and a sense of respect for yourself first. Also, to find someone who’s simply right for you. Because you’ll know what you want and need from a relationship.

It’s truly a lifetime work of each individual on Earth, in my opinion, to learn to love in their own special way. Then, to find the people that’ll match their definition of love. Romantic or not ! We stay queer here.

The consequences of toxic love

I think the reason « sane love » has always been a kind of ultimate « goal » to me, is because I’ve suffered myself so much from parents who didn’t truly love each other and never teached us love. Before entering therapy, I didn’t even know it was okay for me to express my feelings, and I didn’t know the word « boundaries ». My therapist taught me what it was like to create basic boundaries for myself, at like 17 yo . And I’m still learning. I know how deep the consequences of this unhealthy/ unloving environment have been for each one of my brothers and sisters. I know my family still pays the bill of these consequences.

That’s how… I’ve eventually suffered so much from love too. I guess anyone with childhood traumas here can relate : you have to learn from zero what it is to love when you’ve been through traumas as a child. The fact is, we’re more easily codependent. I think because I lacked feeling secure as a child, I’ve always been in relationships where I needed the other person to make me feel safe all the time. The truth is, I could never ever feel safe especially because I was in a relationship and it’s an intimacy that makes me feel insecure in the first place. Yeah, I know… It sucks lol. Anyway. People don’t always realize the links, so I can only recommend you to try therapy if you struggle in love and you’ve experienced a difficult childhood !

When I think I want to have children in the future, I always have this very strong condition. I won’t ever have children until I can find someone with whom I’m sure I can create a healthy environment for my children to grow. To truly love someone, from a healthy love I hope to build with time, is a sinequanone condition to me.

I hope these words could open a little crack of consciousness or be relatable to you.
My therapist recently told me we’re all on Earth just to share with each other what we’re conscious of and grow together from that, and I cherish this idea.

Love,
Astrid