The Need for Real Love
In Long-term Romantic Relationships
We are all familiar with the standard beliefs and feelings about romantic love. For instance, we think we are in love when we feel “chemistry”, or “…have never before felt this way about anyone!”
The Eskimos have nearly 180 words for “snow”, while we have only one word for the complex experience we call “love.” I think it is time to expand our understanding by identifying a few of the many different experiences that fall under the auspices of one overused word: Love.
To begin, “chemistry” is just a euphemism for a combination of lust, trust, and comfort. If we feel comfortable with someone, and believe we can trust them, at least a little, and are physically attracted, then voila! we are in love!
This level of love can be renamed lust-based love. We are lusting after sexual pleasure, as well as feeling emotionally safe. This version of love is often expressed in romantic novels and movies: i.e., chick flicks.
Another version of “love” is when a woman decides it’s time to find a mate and start a family, and she chooses a man who can provide external security. Often, she is willing to forego chemistry for reliability and ambition. This can be called security-based love.
For a man, love is usually lust-based accompanied by a desire that the woman also take care of him physically and emotionally. While they are rarely aware of it, most men are looking for a sexy mom—and if they find one, tend to cling to her like a new-born baby!
There are more variations in the experience of romantic love, but these three provide a foundation for understanding normal love. What all the normal variations of romantic love share in common is they are externally-based, and motivated by what men and women want to Get from each other. Normal love is an external quid-pro-quo contract.
For contrast, Real Love is internally-based and motivated by a conscious purpose to Grow in understanding life, each other and Nature—Share purposes, accomplishments and experiences—and Give energy, interest and attention. Real love is also innocent, and internally-based on what couples want to Give and Share, rather than Get.
Take a moment, and think about the long-term romantic couples you know, have seen in the news, or in books and movies, and how many even seem to have a conscious, emotionally connected, internally growing, and passionate response to life and each other?
Make it less complicated, and ask how many individuals do you see whose path through life fits the above description? How about you? Does either your individual life or romantic relationship fit the above description—or do they look like something else?
In twenty-five years as a psychologist, and the last ten teaching internal development, my experience is that the best normal relationships are defined by couples who like each other, agree on the external terms of their contract, and accept that without internal development their lives and romantic relationships will be dramatically limited.
However, the most common story is a couple will acquire every external success and luxury, but still feel incomplete, or unhappy. The problem is that lasting happiness requires internal nurturing provided in part, by genuine understanding.
Since no culture has ever had the information necessary to train people in how to understand and truly love each other—it is normal for people to be internally unhappy.
Typically, we react to being unhappy by pursuing approval, security and pleasure, which leaves no room in our schedules, hearts, or minds to pursue a deep understanding of anything internal—and as we have seen in the last two blogs, without understanding we cannot offer real love.
So why would anyone want to work for the experience of understanding and love? One reason is because in learning how to express love and develop wisdom, we connect to life in the most intensely satisfying and genuinely meaningful way possible.
On the other hand, one reason we are prone to destructive habits and romantic fantasies, is because we get bored by ordinary life and seek intensity. The easiest ways to create intensity are through destructive behavior, or sexual encounters and romantic fantasies. In normal life, we are not trained in how to engage the most intensely satisfying activities life offers—expressing love and developing wisdom.
Developing the ability to understand, which is the pre-requisite for love and wisdom, takes us into an open-ended adventure exploring new avenues of thought and caring that push the edge of the developmental envelope, and often takes us where no human has ever gone before.
The pursuit of understanding is exhilarating beyond imagination, raises the low ceiling of expectations that restricts our lives, and provides internal fulfillment above and beyond what we normally even hope is possible for human life.
The journey toward internal development takes work and courage. Work is needed because there is so much to learn, and courage is required because many assumptions, beliefs and feelings are replaced with accurate observations.
One undeniable joy in this sometimes difficult process is that the information CMED provides is objective and experiential, and is easily verified by each interested student.
Another joy of CMED training is that couples share a conscious purpose to develop their minds and emotions, which in turn creates an intense experience of life and love they could not duplicate through any other pursuit.
Internal development creates a lifetime adventure where every day couples can bring the energy of discovery and newness into their individual lives, and their relationship.
This is how long-term romantic relationships can retain not only the initial passion, but build lasting intimacy and a genuine emotional bond.
If you want to experience truly significant adventures that take you to new places in yourself with someone you love, and where you travel through new avenues of thought, caring, understanding, love and wisdom—then you will want to check out the training in internal development provided by CMED.