a letter to my daughter

Saying “I love you” is not love.

Being in love with you is not love.

Finding you beautiful is not love.

Having sex with you is not love.

Giving you massages is not love.

Giving you money is not love.

Giving you compliments is not love.

Helping you with your homework, chores, heavy or light-- none of that is love.
Serving you or your loved ones, even your children, that is not love either.

Neither is saying, doing or giving anything at all you have not asked for.  Even listening to you while you talk, vent or rant is not love.

These things make you feel good but they are NOT NECESSARILY LOVE.

They may in fact be toxic to you when they foster attachment to someone who makes you feel like you can depend on him to feel loved, special, needed or cared for— but who is not really there to give you what you need.

It is like sugar on berries:

Sweet but addictive and lacking real substance.
It is not love.

So what is love?

Above all, it is giving you what you ask for.

It is listening carefully to you.
It is not hurting you.

It is willingness to own mistakes when you do get hurt,

Receiving your grievances graciously,

Committing to refraining from all forms of violence against you, or being willing to learn how to do that.

Demand it.

But I love him

Many people come to my office confused about whether or not to stay in a relationship.  They report a sad, conflict-filled marriage with neither person feeling very fulfilled and say they want to leave, but cannot because they still “love” their partner. 

 

Here is what I say to them.

There are three legs supporting any relationship: attachment, compassion and happiness.  A relationship can stand on any of them alone or on all three, but only one of them can sustain a good relationship.

Attachment is the quality of being psychologically intertwined, sometimes to a very deep level, with another person.  Being attached can elicit oceanic feelings of connection or completion.  But it can also cause us to panic when the person we are attached to leaves, or fly into a rage when he or she pushes our buttons.  Attachment can run deep, but it doesn’t always give us the warm fuzzies.

Compassion is the selfless love of a mother for her child, the kind of love embodied by Christian love or by what the Greeks called agape.  It is quite simply the unconditional love that would make you stand in front of a train or gun to save someone else.  It is a beautiful heart-wrenching love that tenderizes our hearts and makes us human.

Happiness is the quality of feeling fulfilled.  In a happy relationship, you get along well on a daily basis.  Not only do your values fit, your routines do.  The relationship works because you are happy, and vice versa.  And happiness would be the leg to stand on, if you have the choice.  The other two, attachment and compassion, are intense but are not necessarily fulfilling, let alone predictors of relationship success.   

When you are with someone that makes you happy, you stay because you like being with him or her, not because you feel like you have to look after him or because it is too hard for you to leave her.  

So, instead of asking yourself if you love him, better to ask: Are you happy with him?