‘Do you really love me?’ we ask others like our life depends on it.
And it often does… We deem this question the alpha and omega of our relationships and happiness.
‘Of course!’ I hear you screaming ‘I cannot be in a relationship with someone who doesn’t love me! It for sure wouldn’t make me happy.’
How come we often find ourselves in relationships with people who do not treat us with love, who do not care for us the way we deserve? We ASKED them if they love us and they swore, yet we don’t FEEL to be loved by them...
‘It is their fault !’ I hear your anger talking.
But honestly, have WE made a mistake somewhere?
Maybe we haven’t asked the right question. ‘I should have been smarter!’ I hear you say.
Or maybe, the question wasn’t meant to be for them…
‘What do you mean? Why wouldn’t it be for them?’ I hear the frustration in your voice.
You see, we have LEFT SOMEONE OUT here. What if we left out the most important person in ALL of our relationships? What if the alpha and omega of our happiness isn’t them but US?
‘How could have I left myself out? Of course I haven’t forgotten ME! This is WHY I want to be loved by them.’
Ok, ok… I am not sure I understand you here. My logic says: If I love me, I don’t need to ask others for validation of the same. If I feel the love for myself, it is enough of a reassurance without the need to seek it elsewhere. When I feel the love for myself, with myself, I treat myself well, not allowing others to treat me poorly. And that is what makes me happy.
Are you sure you haven’t forgotten yourself? Are you sure you haven’t put the responsibility for YOUR happiness into someone else’s hands? Are you sure you haven’t volunteered for maltreatment because your feel unloveable without THEIR love?
Or, have you asked them to love you because you THINK you love yourself - not really FEELING it? Because if you felt it, your would not NEED to feel it from them. Because if you really REALLY loved yourself you simply wouldn’t allowed others to abuse you. If you did love you, you wouldn’t let others treat you with disrespect, confident to stand up for yourself.
Ouch… You see love doesn’t hurt but the truth does. Because what you ALLOW is really a measure of how much you value yourself.
We choose those who swear to love us, yet when they swear AT us we find it hard to choose ourselves and leave... Why is it that they cheat us? Could this be because we have cheated ourselves? We say ‘Love hurts’, blaming them for many things, feeling heart broken. Could this be because we were seeking to console our broken heart? Because our hearts were broken WAY BEFORE we experienced our first love which we have failed to see...
We blame our previous partners for our hurting Self, blind to our illusions about them, and our own lies. We lie to ourselves about how much we love ourselves secretly REJECTING many things about us. We lie to them about how much we love them secretly wanting to change many things about them. And they lie back to us becase they are similarly heart broken.
‘But we lie unintentionally because we aren’t aware how empty our hearts really are’ you may say.
Yes, we didn’t know that what we believe about love, and about ourselves, isn’t true. We couldn’t know because we haven’t asked. And we haven’t asked because we thought we knew…
So before you even think of a relationship with another, instead of being so keen to aks them, you must ask yourself ‘Do I really love me?’, because loving YOURSELF as your life depends on it truly decides on your happiness.
Thank you for reading. If my article contributed to understanding yourself, please be generous and share it with others.
Copyright © 2017 Michaela Patel