What’s Love got to do with it?

The “experts” generally find several normal stages of love in a couples relationship. They can be simplified to UP, DOWN, and REALITY.

UP is the initial fun part. Romance, Infatuation, Sex, Sex, and more Sex. We are crazy in love. Our partner is our soul mate. It’s destiny. No one understands us. In other words it’s everything we ever wanted. This stage usually lasts a matter of months.

DOWN always comes next. Things are not going as well. There are disagreements. We tend to think our partner was fooling us (couldn’t possibly be that we were fooling ourselves). Things get a little rocky, but if we have some maturity, we don’t give up hope for the relationship formerly known as “the match made in heaven.” Can last for years.

REALITY is the lifetime (hopefully) of working on a true loving relationship. And it is work. Sometimes painful work. Oddly, it’s not so much the work on the relationship as it is our own work to resolve our personal issues so we can bring a healthy person to the relationship. It seems to be human nature that we will try to change the world (including our partner) to fit our expectations when actually the only thing we can effectively change is ourselves.

Recommended Resources: Imago Relationship Advice has a pretty cool program for relationships. I found reading about co-dependency to be helpful. When your partner is out of control (alcohol, drugs, whatever) try Al-Anon for your own sanity. Beware of pop psychology promoting simple programs (to make money). They remind me of my favorite saying, “For every complex problem, there is a simple solution….that doesn’t work.”

I wish you peace and love.