Love in a relationship: Myth or Truth

Everyone wants to experience love in life at least once. Some people say that they experience true love in each relationship while others do not manage to feel it even once throughout life. What is the difference then? Why do some people confess about love so easily while others never say this? Is their love different or everyone just puts different senses in the notion of love in a relationship?

In the post below, we try to find it all out. You will try to learn what true love in a relationship is and how to distinguish love from other feelings. People have relationships with different feelings and emotions and it doesn’t have to be love necessarily. Let’s see whether love is necessary for a successful relationship at all.

What is love in a relationship?

Love is one of the most controversial topics. A relationship can be without love and vice versa. Some people fall in love at first sight and spend the whole life together while others have multiple relationships and never feel love in them. Life and connections between people are very complicated because human beings are different from animals primarily thanks to their ability to experience different feelings and emotions.

Love is a feeling and it must be unconditional. When someone loves, he or she doesn’t do it for some reasons, people love for no reason and don’t ask anything in return. Love doesn’t have to be mutual at all. Some people love while others allow themselves to be loved.  Such a relationship is also possible. Unlike all other feelings, love is not selfish. When someone loves you, she or he doesn’t require you to change your behavior or habits because they admire you for who you are.

If she wants to change you, this woman wants to love someone else but not you. You should distinguish love from other feelings and passion, in particular. Passion is something so many humans feel at the beginning of their relationship but it is fading away very soon. If people are connected with nothing but passion, they will break up right after this feeling disappears.

If they love each other, they will keep being together even without any passion. Passion is not long-lasting and this feeling is quite short. Love, in turn, is long-lasting. It cannot stop or start quickly. Only passion and affection start quickly and end quickly. Love lasts much longer, it is developed step-by-step. True love may last the whole life.

Long-distance relationship vs love

types of love

We can often hear from many people that their love didn’t overcome long distance and a couple broke up. Is distance really such a big obstacle for true love? Let’s try to make it clear. When people are in love, they often have to fall apart for some reason.

Someone has to move for work, studies, army while others just meet each other on some international dating site and have to date on distance before their marriage. All this is not easy and pretty difficult to overcome, of course. However, nothing is impossible.

If people cannot live without each other, they will fight any obstacle and distance is not even the worst of them. So many international couples who come from two absolutely different and far countries prove that very well. They were meeting each other sometimes once per six months and they managed to save their feelings and get married and unite in one country at last.

Thus, if you wonder whether a distance can ruin your love, the answer will be no, of course. If it did, it wasn’t love. People just are not comfortable with that relationship and want to move on. This isn’t love, unfortunately.

Types of love in a relationship

Unfortunately or maybe fortunately, love doesn’t have any types. Love is one and unconditional. There is only love of parents to their children, love to your pets, siblings, or soulmates. This love differs a bit but still, love is unconditional.

Just imagine how children love their parents. They don’t love them for something particular, don’t require anything, and don’t have any conditions. Pets love their owners not for something but because they do and require nothing in return. This is true and pure love, and people who experience such feelings also feel pure love and nothing else.

Those who tell you to change your way of life, job, habits, earn more, etc., don’t love you. They cannot have unconditional feelings toward you and want you to change so they could love you. Unfortunately, if you have such a relationship, your partner doesn’t love you. You don’t feel any love for your partner either if you have such claims.

Is a relationship possible without love?

As it has been mentioned above, love can exist without relationships and you also can have a relationship with no love in it. Why have a relationship then? If that’s what you think now, here is a reply — people’s relationships are very complicated. We all are different and have different needs.

Lots of people prefer having hookups instead of a serious relationship. Many of them want to date casually without any commitment. They do not pursue love because it is much easier for them to live like that. Love means not only joy and happiness but also obligations, duties, problems, hard work, and even pain.

No wonder many people want to avoid it and just enjoy their lives. However, people were created for having their matches and building unions. No matter what they say, anyone would like to meet his or her love some time. Relationships can be also based on friendship or respect.

You must know people who started to live together after years of just friendship. It doesn’t mean they don’t love each other though. It means their love was developed through years, mutual support, and many hours of common talks on various problems.

Can you imagine that many people still have arranged marriages? They do not love each other when getting married and sometimes, hardly know one another. However, almost 98% of them confess that they managed to love their partners throughout life thanks to the care and support their partners showed. It proves only that love can be deserved by your attitude to another person. Most likely, this love will be much stronger than the one that arose suddenly and at first sight.

What is the meaning of love in a relationship?

Many people struggle with defining love and understanding whether they have this feeling for their partner or not. It is really difficult to determine your feelings. Although you have very warm feelings towards your partner, you still have doubts about what they are.

Everything is easy. If you doubt whether you love your woman, you don’t. People who love their partners have no doubts about it. Here is another dilemma though. You might have doubts about whether your partner loves you. Love isn’t necessarily mutual, is it? Unfortunately, yes.

You might adore and admire someone unconditionally but don’t see the same feedback in return. This happens very often. One person does everything for his or her relationship and the second one just allows doing it and successfully uses everything done by his or her partner.

Now if you wonder whether your partner loves you or your feelings are not mutual, here are a couple of things you must pay attention to. Check the following list and see whether your partner loves you as much as you do.

A loving person doesn’t want to change you

love relationship

All people are different and everyone has his advantages and shortcomings. You know very well that perfect people don’t exist. When you meet someone, you can say that this person is perfect for you. However, when living together, the romance is gone and both start seeing the shortcomings of each other.

This is not the reason to break up though while people cannot be ideal and anyone has their positive and negative sides. A loving person will accept your shortcomings and won’t try to make you change them. He or she loves you for who you are and accepts all of your character traits.

If someone wants to change you, this is not love. Those people want to love someone else but not you. Remember that a loving partner will not put you under any conditions and won’t tell you that if you change this or that, she will love you and be with you.

Remember that love is unconditional and they do not love for something — not for your job, not for your success, not for achievements. It is very easy to love a successful person who has a stable good income and a good career, the one who has no financial issues. Loving someone who has no career or good job, who smokes or has some extra weight  is not for everybody and this is how true love can be checked.

Your partner supports you in hard times

It is very easy to love when people are happy and do not have any problems at the moment. True love is verified when hard times start. One of you may lose a job, income, and have financial issues. People may get ill, have health issues, disability, and many other problems can start in anyone’s life.

Not many people stay with their partners in such situations. A relationship without mutual love will stop right away. Someone who doesn’t love you will simply run away and will be scared of such problems. It happens very often, unfortunately. People cannot cope with difficulties and simply disappear.

If your partner tells you I will be back when your issues stop, this is not a loving relationship. It means she was with you while everything was good and she was comfortable. Once her comfort is interrupted, she doesn’t love you anymore. Unfortunately, your partner never loved you.

Loving people are always there when you need them. They support you in any situation, no matter whether it is good or bad. You overcome all challenges together and support each other no matter what. Love is about sacrificing. If you both are not ready to sacrifice something for the sake of each other, you do not love.

Love is loyal

Needless to say, a lasting love relationship is about loyalty. Those who love do not need anyone else, so cheating is excluded. Of course, we all can make mistakes. Only after betraying someone, we realize that we really love our partners. Unfortunately, sometimes it happens also.

However, when you love someone, cheating is not acceptable. It is up to you whether to forgive a betrayer but if your partner loved you, why would she cheat? Love and intimate life are one entity. It is impossible to love one person and have fun in bed with others.

These are the signs of a true and loving relationship. However, all individuals are different and have their peculiarities, so you must listen to your heart as well.