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Laina Makuzha
LOVE by DESIGN
What type of personality are you in a relationship? Whether you are the clingy type, the independent type or forgiving, unforgiving, argumentative or a peace lover, one is for sure, if you have been in a relationship you will have experienced successful and failed relationships.
And compatibility or lack thereof played a part. I have had a considerable amount of requests for relationship help by some women and men genuinely seeking meaningful and steady relationship with possible long term intentions. And while mulling this, I thought to myself: True, I’ve always loved relationships, romance and true love — even when I wasn’t sure what it was.
Just the euphoria of early romance, the comfort of having a partner with whom to share life’s many intricacies, you know — the experience of adventuring through life’s maze with someone else has fascinated me for years.
I’ve realised relationships are a place of comfort, balance or even security for many, yet if entered into without quite understanding oneself, all sorts of things can be distorted in your relationship. While there are some pretty cool parts of being single, and it is a great choice, I empathise with those seeking love or seeking to improve their relationships because I have experienced it, and know exactly how it feels to be waiting for love, sometimes searching, and also surrendering all to God.
I’ve seen my fair share of the romantic downside as well. With the highs of love come the lows of romantic breakdown: heartache, loss, and the grief of things not working out.
Regardless of how they happen, breakups aren’t easy, and it’s common to think of a relationship’s ending as a failure. How about looking at the ups and downs in love in a different way — instead of seeing the downside as just “failure”, how about using those experiences to discover more about what you really want and what really makes you happy?
Relationships can really teach us about ourselves. Whenever a relationship is coming to an end, it usually begins with the finding of incompatibilities — disagreements as small as where to eat or as large as whether or not to have kids and more.
The inconsistencies in beliefs and social preferences can also show you more about yourself even more than the other person.
Here are some points to ponder I picked in a blog by Mellissa Pennel. She said:
Relationships show us where we can grow.
There’s a saying that I’ve always liked: “Relationships pour miracle growth on our character defects.” When I was in a relationship that pushed my buttons, I realised which buttons were there to be pushed: things about myself I wouldn’t have noticed until another person made them glaringly apparent.
For example, dating someone with a lot of female friends showed me that I was pretty insecure; while at first his social circle seemed to be the problem (how dare he hang out with other women, right?) over time I realised that it was my own self-esteem that needed attention. Although this “button pusher” relationship didn’t stick, it showed me where my work was.
Through examining my buttons (rather than the button pusher), I was better equipped to do the self-work that would allow me to show up more fully for every future relationship, romantic or not.
Relationships allow us to practice vulnerability.
It’s pretty scary to open our hearts up to another person. After all, none of us really know what the future holds, right?
Those of us who have experienced our fair share of heartache have even more reason to be cautious: We know what it’s like to lay our hearts out on the line and give someone the option of smashing them to smithereens. (While it’s helpful to avoid this heart-smashing type of relationship, it happens to the best of us, and the possibility is always there.)
Yet, being vulnerable in the face of potential loss is truly the bread and butter of life. Sure, we could play our cards close to our vest and lessen the likelihood of possible harm — but in turn, we also lessen the likelihood of truly being known.
Regardless of how a relationship has ended, when I’ve allowed myself to fully open my heart to another person I am reminded that it was not a waste at all; it was a brick in the road of living my fullest life.
Arguably, no love is ever wasted
When in the throes of a relationship, we often have our heart set on not just our partner, but on our future with that partner. This is often the hardest thing about a relationship ending: You don’t just lose what you’ve shared, but the imagined future that you’d included the other in.
When that future vanishes, it’s common to look back on the shared past with regret. But what if expressing love, kindness, and shared intimacy is an end in and of itself?
As humans we love to keep our eyes on the outcome and the finish line, but forget that it’s the journey to that mountaintop that shapes us. As the quote above reads, “Tis better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all.”
Whether the act of love is in the present or the past, it existed all the same — and if we allow it to do so, it can remind us of the most beautiful side of the human condition.
Our past loves played an important role in our lives.
Each person that journeys beside us on the road of life not only shapes who we will become, but also how we feel as we get there. On the flip side, those unhealthy relationships that, on the surface, appear all wrong can help us more wisely choose a partner in the future.
While it would be great to learn lessons from other people’s experiences, most of us have to find out what we want by trial and error — from dating a few (or a bunch) of the wrong people before we can identify the right one.
Even the most painful relationships in my past helped me learn who I wanted to be with (as well as who I wanted to be) in the future.
Some endings are inevitable. Being able to see the positives in our past doesn’t mean those relationships have any business in our present. It does, however, mean that instead of looking at what we lost when something ended, we can remember what we gained as well.
Let’s keep the conversation going. I would love to exchange ideas that help build those strong happy relationships we could all enjoy.
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