Okay, so it's a strange title, but it's true. When somebody says they love you they are usually telling a big lie.
What they really mean is, "I will be nice to you and share myself with you as long as you do exactly what I want you to do."
In detail this means that I will have all those exotic and erotic feelings about you as long as you don't dare look at another person, and as long as you fulfil all my needs of dependency, fear, and all the other hang-ups I don't really admit to myself.
The word love in the English language is a crazy word. If you look up its meaning it simply says that you love somebody, or care about them. That is really no definition at all. And when most people tell you they love you, what they really mean is, "I will let all my childhood dependency, unfulfilled need for love and attention that I didn't get from my parents; and all my fears of being abandoned, all my need to possess somebody and have them do what I wish, be projected onto you."
Most of us have not actually matured to the point of being capable of love. The very roots of love arise out of the incredible survival drives of a baby totally desiring its mother to give utter and complete attention to it. Without that attention, millions of years of survival in harsh environments, tell the baby it will die. So it holds on to that connection with its mother or carer with every jungle trick it knows. These includes tantrums, acting out sickness, sulking, anger, emotional cut off to see if the parent still cares; and if you haven't outgrown those, then you will use them in your adult relationships.
Quite honestly, few of us have outgrown them, so we are mostly five or six year olds when it comes to the business of love.
Usually we make a satellite character of the person we "love". In other words we try to make them swing around us in the way that suits us. Notice how many people have breakdowns, depression, or even commit suicide when their partner leaves them, goes with another person or dies. Those things point to pretty desperate internal situations - in other words the baby level of feeling response.
What 'lovers' are really saying is, "I will love you if - if you don't go against any of my childhood needs - if you remain my possession - if you don't do those things that remind me I am a vulnerable baby."
Mature love is when we accept that the person we care for is a separate and unique individual with their own needs and directions in life. We do not love them "if". We love them simply because they are who they are, because we respect and admire them, and we allow them the freedom that hopefully we give ourselves. This is an unconditional love. It doesn't place the conditions on the other person of only being loved or lovable when they remain our satellite. When we do that we make of them a possession, somebody manipulated by our own moods, emotional blackmail, or underhanded tricks.
To grow up and become a mature lover takes courage. Each time we try to possess the other person, lash out at them through jealousy, curtail their life through our fears and insecurities, we need to stop and say, "This is childhood behaviour. I will not let this anger, possessiveness, jealousy or emotional blackmail be perpetrated on the person I presumably love. I will face this and deal with it as a problem in my character, and will not rationalise and excuse it by saying to my partner that I love them. That is an underhanded excuse. It is not love."
So, how about it? How about growing up?
What they really mean is, "I will be nice to you and share myself with you as long as you do exactly what I want you to do."
In detail this means that I will have all those exotic and erotic feelings about you as long as you don't dare look at another person, and as long as you fulfil all my needs of dependency, fear, and all the other hang-ups I don't really admit to myself.
The word love in the English language is a crazy word. If you look up its meaning it simply says that you love somebody, or care about them. That is really no definition at all. And when most people tell you they love you, what they really mean is, "I will let all my childhood dependency, unfulfilled need for love and attention that I didn't get from my parents; and all my fears of being abandoned, all my need to possess somebody and have them do what I wish, be projected onto you."
Most of us have not actually matured to the point of being capable of love. The very roots of love arise out of the incredible survival drives of a baby totally desiring its mother to give utter and complete attention to it. Without that attention, millions of years of survival in harsh environments, tell the baby it will die. So it holds on to that connection with its mother or carer with every jungle trick it knows. These includes tantrums, acting out sickness, sulking, anger, emotional cut off to see if the parent still cares; and if you haven't outgrown those, then you will use them in your adult relationships.
Quite honestly, few of us have outgrown them, so we are mostly five or six year olds when it comes to the business of love.
Usually we make a satellite character of the person we "love". In other words we try to make them swing around us in the way that suits us. Notice how many people have breakdowns, depression, or even commit suicide when their partner leaves them, goes with another person or dies. Those things point to pretty desperate internal situations - in other words the baby level of feeling response.
What 'lovers' are really saying is, "I will love you if - if you don't go against any of my childhood needs - if you remain my possession - if you don't do those things that remind me I am a vulnerable baby."
Mature love is when we accept that the person we care for is a separate and unique individual with their own needs and directions in life. We do not love them "if". We love them simply because they are who they are, because we respect and admire them, and we allow them the freedom that hopefully we give ourselves. This is an unconditional love. It doesn't place the conditions on the other person of only being loved or lovable when they remain our satellite. When we do that we make of them a possession, somebody manipulated by our own moods, emotional blackmail, or underhanded tricks.
To grow up and become a mature lover takes courage. Each time we try to possess the other person, lash out at them through jealousy, curtail their life through our fears and insecurities, we need to stop and say, "This is childhood behaviour. I will not let this anger, possessiveness, jealousy or emotional blackmail be perpetrated on the person I presumably love. I will face this and deal with it as a problem in my character, and will not rationalise and excuse it by saying to my partner that I love them. That is an underhanded excuse. It is not love."
So, how about it? How about growing up?
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