9 Reasons Why Love Feels Complicated To Us
Why is it that no matter what we do, we fall in these not so simple spaces of love?
1 — We romanticize the notion of heartbreak
I actually don’t know if we want to blame literature, music, movies or any other form of media for this one. But for a very long time, we hold on to this idea of true love — ‘it destroys you… it’s consuming… it makes you feel alive’. It’s almost like if you aren’t crying or destroyed by it, it’s not real love. Long painful love letters, alcoholism as an after effect, not being able to focus on anything else when a relationship ends, it’s all romaniticized.
2 — We haven’t uncomplicated ourselves
As human beings, we go through a lot in life — many feelings, thoughts, ideas, emotions, experiences, struggles. In this journey, we don’t always pause to process what is happening, especially internally for us. We have a lot going on, a lot that we brushed under the carpet and never confronted. A lot that we disrespected, disregarded or just pretended didn’t exist. And when we love, we share that complicated part of ourselves — it affects and impacts our relationships, our interactions, even our love-personality.
3 — No one taught us how to communicate effectively
We spend a lot of time in the beginning of any relationship trying to be the best versions of ourselves… And once we move past that, it’s a bit of a rollercoaster ride to find a space where we share who we are and what we want. I wish I was taught to be less passive-aggressive. I wish I learn what passive-aggressive meant when I was in middle school. More often than not we say ‘it’s okay’ when it’s not and try to convince ourselves to ‘let the small things go’ but can’t. We either say too much or not enough. In the process, a lot remains stuck — not moving or flowing or growing — just stagnant.
4 — Movies made us believe in a love where your partner says the most incredible words at the right time
I absolutely love This Is Us. I was rooting for the love stories in One Tree Hill. And there are scenes in The Amazing Spider-Man that made me want to fall in love again. But news flash — these are all scripted and rehearsed. In life, your partner is not always going to have the line of the day to say at the right time. They may not pick up on your every mood and they may actually be dealing with a lot of their own moods. While they may say the sweetest words once in a while, it can’t be their default setting. There will be days when they will only say ‘okay’ and ‘yes’ and ‘I agree’.
5 — We look for everything we want from one single person
I don’t know why we need one person to be everything for us — to complete us. I fall prey to this sometimes myself. Looking for ‘my person’ — instead of seeing how many people we have in the form of family, friends and maybe even a stranger who adds something special to our day. We put so much pressure on one person to be everything— it’s almost like that’s their full time job.
6 — We look to fulfil our OWN needs
Many of us are selfish… looking for someone who is perfect. Someone who is intelligent, well spoken, present, cares, makes us laugh, etc. Imagine finding this magical person who meets every criteria… what if they have their own criteria that you don’t fulfil? Imagine being rejected by someone who has an extensive list of their own? Sounds really demeaning and rude if you ask me. Any new person/old person in your life takes some adjustment and takes effort. Even my own mother who loves me unconditionally cannot fulfil all my needs. It’s taken me a long time to accept that your partner is not there to only hold me. This person wants to be held as well.
7 — We don’t know when to quit
There are times when we aren’t happy — we hold on for dear life because we are too scared of being alone. We are too scared that this is the best that we are going to find and we don’t want to risk leaving this in search for something else because what if we don’t find that either. ‘This is better than nothing at all’ seems to be a common thread.
8 — We quit too soon
There are times when we aren’t happy. We believe that ‘our relationship MUST be our happy space’ and since it’s not as of 5 minutes ago, it’s time to say bye! Have you heard people say if you don’t fight, then that’s not a real relationship. Well, I don’t know if I believe that but if someone told me, we are happy all the time, I definitely won’t believe that. There has to be some part of the day/week/month/year that it’s happy, right? Otherwise maybe your dopamine is abnormally high!
9 — We can’t handle a me, you AND us
Let’s look at 3 people — all of whom I can relate to and all of whom are problematic if you ask me:
- Person 1: All of You should love all of Me; Me+You=Us.
- Person 2: Us can’t come in the way of Me. It’s always going to be Me first.
- Person 3: You are my everything.
Many of us can’t seem to fathom that in love, there can be 3 individual/ separate/ distinct identities.
- There is a me — me was centre stage before you were even being auditioned.
- There is a you — and there should be a separate you
- There is an us — separate yet as important as me and you.
If we decide to give more importance to us, it’s unfair to me and you. And if we decide to put me or you first then us is going to get left behind.
And there are many more… but these are my top 9!
This is a self-reflective piece that I couldn’t stop writing in one of my awake-for-no-reason-at-2am moods. I am definitely not an expert on love but I hope for us to be more perceptive and aware about love, relationships, the people who matter, and of course, ourselves. Sharing more about what we can do to step out of this complicated love bubble in my next blog post! ’
