Love in itself has no one best meaning agreed by all those who tend to provide a definition. Everyone has a different experience when in love, the good, the bad, the crazy, and the normal and its impact on their lives. Love has no manual to be followed, and this diversity is what makes love a beautiful thing indeed. Love can be described as a range of strong and positive emotional and mental states, from the most sublime virtue or good habit, the deepest interpersonal affection, to the simplest pleasure (Oxford English Dictionary, 2018). According to Wagner, it is only in the union of man and woman, by love (sensuous and super-sensuous), that the human being exists; and as the human being cannot rise to the conception of anything higher than his existence-his own being -so the transcendent act of his life is this consummation of his humanity through love. Love differs from one person to another, and because of this, it is proven to be very complex.
Integrity is quite a very important aspect of love as it entails the quality of being honest and valuing strong moral principles in a relationship. In a relationship, integrity means doing the right thing at the right time. It all boils down to being truthful with one another. Not only that, but it is a journey through various stages such as friendship, being gentle with one another, accepting influence from one another, and mutual fondness and admiration. These stages result in long-lasting and stable relationships. With integrity in a relationship, the partners rarely keep secrets, and this kind of honesty helps build and maintain a strong relationship.
We promote romance as the be-all and end-all of all loves. The purest form of love, as well as the only one necessary for our survival and well-being. Friendship is portrayed as a viable, potential side option but not a requirement. That no other type of relationship in life can be as emotionally deep, life-changing, or meaningful as romantic love, and that is where we go wrong in life. That is what people in the 21st century have made relationships be. Most people tend to ruin good friendships by immediately romanticizing them, as society has made it seem wrong to have pure friendship relationships. For this reason, many people lose meaningful people in their lives by following this so-called unwritten common law. Friendship is paramount as this will lay the foundation of any relationship that is to follow next. Friendship is a personal relationship that is necessary for long-term, romantic flourishing. Friendship, based on shared history, often grows over time, unlike sexual desire, which decreases in intensity over time. Friendship’s fundamental characteristics, such as mutual support, intimacy, and shared activity, emerge over time. Friends care about each other and value each other intrinsically, though friendship can also have instrumental value.
The act of a person feeling an attraction to someone only after learning or becoming aware of that person’s attraction to themselves is known as reciprocity of attraction. Reciprocity has a significant impact on human attraction and relationship formation. People who like each other reciprocally usually start or develop a friendship or romantic relationship. Admiration, affection, love, and respect are all characteristics of reciprocal liking between two people. There is strong mutual attraction or liking when there is reciprocal linking, but not when there isn’t. Warmth and intimacy are also important factors. Love is a two-way thing, and therefore everything has to be mutual to allow the pure flow of emotions.
We contend that gender justice is impossible without relational justice in loving and caring. Furthermore, if love is to thrive as a valued social practice, public policies must be guided by love, care, and solidarity norms rather than capital accumulation norms. To promote equality in the affective domains of loving and caring, we argue for a four.
Dimensional model of social justice rather than Nancy Fraser’s three-dimensional model (2008). A model like this would align relational justice, particularly in love laboring, with resource equality, respect, and representation.
In the short term, a decision or one’s commitment refers to the decision to love someone, and in the long term, to the commitment to keep that love. These two aspects of the decision/commitment component do not always go hand in hand; for example, one can decide to love someone without being committed to the love in the long run, or one can be committed to a relationship without acknowledging that one loves the other person in the relationship. Love is not an easy thing, and therefore each person in the relationship has to decide to stay and go through everything with the other. Whether good or bad, since that is commitment and love, life is a rollercoaster, full of emotions and uncertainty as we do not know what the future holds. Not being equally committed in a relationship can lead to serious issues down the road. In some cases, one partner may be afraid of commitment because they have previously been hurt or require more time to establish their feelings in a new relationship. Even if they do not express it openly, others may not want a long-term relationship and prefer to have relationships with other people.
It is so easy to get caught up in someone else’s feelings. After all, love I a heady cocktail of feelings that can seem to be all that matters. It is far more complex than that when it comes to love and relationships. In addition, “if you are in a relationship because you are in love, you will soon notice that the connection is slipping away.” A person who seeks authority over others to further their interests is worthy of scorn. Negotiation is said to be important in both love and business relationships. Because each partner has unique needs, desires, and tastes that will inevitably influence the other. Relationship power dynamics are delicate. Emotionally dependent partners who are willing to conceal their needs and preferences for security and stability sometimes give us power. Sometimes narcissistic or emotionally abusive spouses who value control and dominance slowly erode our authority. We start fantasizing about the day we can be with the one who loves us as much as our favorite hero loves his heroine, right? We start dreaming of our rose-filled fairy tale love story. But does it usually work that way? The same goes for relationships. Most have more downs than ups. It keeps throwing lemons at us to see how many of us can survive. Making a relationship work as simple. It takes a lot of effort, and sometimes nothing works.
Love is a beautiful thing, especially when it’s with the right person. In many cases, love fails not because we want that to happen but because overlooked things can greatly affect us negatively. Most of us want to find and marry the right person and want that relationship to be healthy, joyful, and long-lasting. At the same time, around 40-50 percent of marriages (Dr. Raul Rodriguez, 2021) in America end in divorce. Here are some of the most common reasons partnerships fail and the usual errors that cause marriages and relationships to fail.
One of the most damaging hurdles to a couple’s long-term success is a lack or loss of trust. Without trust, a relationship lacks two of the most important foundations for forming and maintaining a strong bond: safety and security. Jealousy, possessiveness, excessive rigidity, emotional infidelity, physical/sexual adultery, relational game playing, lack of trustworthiness or dependability, and lack of emotional support are all examples of trust difficulties. The precise reasons individuals seek couples counseling are frequently indicators of a larger underlying distrust inside the partnership, which is a primary cause of relationship failure.
For a pair to be on the same wavelength for an extended period is difficult. Physical attractiveness, mutual hobbies, and similar socioeconomic origins are all factors that regularly bring two people together at the start of a relationship, but they typically fade when the reality and obligations of day-to-day living set in. An example is the first date between a couple. The young woman’s date complements her on her physical attractiveness, but she rejects the apparent sexual undertones of his comment and directs it instead at herself as a sentient human being. He then extends his hand to her, but she neither accepts nor rejects it. Instead, she lets her hand remain limply and indifferently in his to gain time and postpone having to decide whether to accept or reject his advances. Whereas she treats his complement as separate from her body, she treats her hand (a part of her body) as an object, thereby accepting or betraying her ability to choose (Sartre, 1997).
Numerous studies have identified communication (or a lack thereof) as one of the leading causes of couples seeking counseling and one of the leading causes of break-ups and divorces. When one or both spouses demonstrate disdain in the relationship, this is the single strongest predictor of divorce. Contempt, the polar opposite of respect, is frequently communicated through unfavorable judgment, criticism, or mockery towards an individual’s value. This is referred regarded as “tough on the person, gentle on the problem” in communication studies.
Suppose any of the three previously listed issues apply to you. In that case, there are a few things to consider: If you and your specific other have been in a relationship for two years or less and have “grown apart,” it might be due to a lack of commitment, differing expectations, a lack of compatibility, or the normal process of trial-and-error in finding the appropriate partner. Suppose you have been in a long-term relationship. In that case, it’s conceivable that life duties (including education, employment, and, especially, child-rearing) have gotten in the way of your closeness and mutual evolution.
The longer a couple has been in a committed relationship, the more likely financial incompatibility is. According to studies, one of the leading causes of love breakdown is disagreements about money. However, a couple does not have to be married to have financial difficulties. Money difficulties touch on our most primal psychological wants and anxieties, such as trust, safety, security, power, control, and survival.
References
Akerlof, George, and Shiller, Robert. 2015. Phishing for phools: The economics of manipulation and deception. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
StudyCorgi. (2020, October 9). Romantic Relationship: Failures and lessons.
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