Love & Relationships
Please read the disclaimer page before reading the blog.
What is love? Is it sexual? Is it spiritual? Is it physical? Is it sensual? This is like asking why. Are we here? which I do have a few theories on, but that is the subject of another post.
As someone with mental health problems, I find it extremely difficult to hold down a relationship, a job, or an intimate. I find it very difficult to express emotions that I don't have. I can be both brazen and ridiculously shy, sometimes at the same time. How mad is that?
I have had several relationships over the past 40 years, some close and some distant, some long and most short, with the longest lasting about 5 years. Sometimes what we think is love is not. We all seem to fall for the first person we go steady with, kiss or have sex with. Depending on your personal understanding of love, we are heartbroken when it ends and you split up. Well, is that love, or is that just the overwhelming feeling of rejection, betrayal or the loss of stability?
Love is just an emotional gauge for how happy and content we feel with another person. For example, I once had a girlfriend, and I was head over heels in love. She was, in my view, gorgeous, talented, intelligent, warm and sensitive, understanding and simply the best thing that had ever happened in my miserable, godforsaken life. I was always happy to see her, be with her, miss her when she wasn’t there, and worry about her – you know, totally besotted. We had so much in common, but not too much. When I was with her, I had a warm, contented feeling inside, a kind of internal peace, a comfortable, calm feeling. When I would hear her voice, see her face, feel her touch, or even do something as simple as stand next to her (not sexual), although I did obviously have those feelings for her without question, I genuinely enjoyed her company. I was able to have fun and actually be myself, having those great, lengthy conversations that began over a news item but somehow turned to life, the universe, and everything.
Unfortunately for me, her parents decided after four years that they did not agree with our relationship and chose to end it. She was unable to choose between us, as her parents made it very difficult for her. One weekend, she left, and I never saw her again.
I was left in bits emotionally; I buried myself in work, wine and takeaway food. Now, for me, I really found that being that happy really helped with the positive aspects of my life, and my mood swings were not so vigorous, and my conditions were hardly noticeable. After the end of that relationship, I became the very worst version of myself that there could be.
The key points in my view to loving someone are really very simple: you should be understanding and patient, never rush each other, and be honest – totally honest, but not brutal – and be respectful. Show interest in what your partner is doing and what they look like; basically, you should maintain the same interest in this person throughout your relationship with the same enthusiasm as when you met. Keep moving forward in life, try different things, and do things together, but also give each other space to be yourselves.
Never try to change who you are or who they are; you must love all that person is, the good and the bad, or don’t love them at all.
Love is that feeling you get when you are apart where you constantly wonder where they are, if they are OK, It is that feeling you get when your souls seem to meet when you feel what your partner feels without saying a word, when you sense something is wrong even when you are apart, when even the smallest of things makes you think of them, when you see the true beauty within them regardless of their physical appearance, It is when you stop looking at other people in that way, You know the way you do in restaurants, supermarkets, pub’s, club’s even at zebra crossings you suddenly realise you don’t do that any more, you don’t need to, your heart is content if you both feel the same then that is it right there.
That said, love for some people is not emotional at all; it is lustful and totally physical, and there is nothing wrong with this in my mind, but in my experience that will end sooner or later, as looks don’t last and the feeling of sensation wanes after a while. There is always the buzz of a new conquest, so to speak, but again, with age even that will not be the same; you will be left alone or with someone you have nothing in common with who just aggravates you. That will be a miserable way to grow old.
Even if you do find that special someone who makes you feel content and happy to the point where you believe you are in love If that person is not on the same emotional wavelength, then the cracks will begin to show in time, and the smallest of things will become major annoying issues, and slowly, surely and painfully you find yourself at the end of another five years, having to start all over again, and it gets harder to do in your 30s, 40s, 50s, etc. Probably the best you can hope for is a friendship; there are, of course, and always will be exceptions.
Most of the relationships that have not ended well I have been told recently have probably been my fault because of my mental health issues, I know I can be difficult to live with this is down to those people not listening and understanding what they are letting themselves in for as I have always been open, I find life and people especially difficult to deal with on a social level so much so that at one point I chose to not have any emotional attachment at all which obviously led to very short relationships some for only one night and some not even that long, That said in some ways that was a better way for me as I had my independence and the ability to live my life solely on my terms without having to try and adjust and compensate for someone else’s feelings and emotions after all I have enough trouble dealing with my own, so this gave me the ability to have someone there when I needed or wanted too without the commitment of having to consider the impact I might be having on someone else’s life in the long term, bearing in mind the people I was seeing understood this.
However, there is a part of me that has always wanted to be, for want of better words, normal in relation to having a long-term relationship and having someone to grow old with and enjoy life with, which you tend not to get from the above.
So to sum up, I have very complex emotional difficulties and disorders that make relationships very difficult to understand and deal with on an emotional level. This also makes things very hard for potential partners to understand as well. Let's face it, if I cannot come to terms with my feelings and emotions, what chance do they ever stand?
