3 Ways to Keep Love Alive; For You and Your Partner

Definition of Love:

Noun

An intense feeling of deep affection

A great interest and pleasure in something

Definition of Relationship:

Noun

The way in which two or more concepts, objects, or people are connected, or the state of being connected

If you are a regular to the blog, you have noticed the last few posts about love have been all about self-love. This year, I wanted to switch it up and talk about not only self-love but loving someone else. If you are new, here are the two posts you should read beforehand: Self-Love (Podcast Link); How do you define Love? (Podcast Link). To summarize, my self-love journey has been a bit rough. It took me quite a few years to understand what self-love was for me and not to emulate what I was seeing on social media. Now, I will preface this is still a continuous journey for me because I am evolving and growing through life. It is also is a journey that has changed since I have fallen in love with my partner and something I have to work on each day. However, I believe self-love and love in a relationship look quite different, but you have to know what the difference is and continue to keep both to have a healthy relationship with yourself and your partner.

People always ask me some version of the two questions: “How did you find him?” “How did you know this was going to lead to marriage?” They are always surprised by my answers. First of all, the first time I met my partner he was in another relationship and I wasn’t really looking at him to be someone I would become friends with, let alone his wife.  Our second interaction was very different as our mutual friend was actively trying to get us to notice each other. I literally had no clue even on our first date that we would end up married. I chose to be vulnerable and be true to myself and leave everything out on the table to see if he would do the same and love me for good, bad and ugly.

Self-love is a continuous journey and grows through you in life.

When I was in college dating, I was always used to reinventing myself based on who I was dating. I am not sure where I picked up this habit, but I thought this was the way to get someone to fall in love with you. It also didn’t help that I felt like I didn’t know who I was after my trauma, I had no sense of what my personality was made up of anymore. I just leaned towards what was their favorite things to do was even if it didn’t make me feel happy or joyful. As I continued in my dating journey, I just started to give up that I wasn’t meant for love. It took me a few more relationships to realize I needed to learn what love for myself looked like before I could communicate to someone else how I wanted to be loved.  Some of the tips I learned along the way in this journey of self-love and love in a relationship are the following.

3 Tips on Keeping Love Alive

1. Don’t get caught up in the memories – when we stay in the past and become comfortable with our area, we never grow and we don’t really live our reality. We can’t continue in our growth of self love our grow into loving someone else if we stay in our comfort zone
2. You don’t need to perfect self love or love in general – Love and self-love are journeys, they evolve and grow as you evolve and grow. However, learning how to love yourself allows for you to tell someone else how to love you properly
3. If it don’t feel right, it ain’t right – don’t give into the societal pressure of what love and marriage is, if the love isn’t what makes you feel the way you are supposed to or doesn’t allow for you to be all of you, it isn’t for you. Move on and move forward.

Comment below on how you show yourself some self-love. Also, check out the playlist below.