Love and relationships are different things. There are couples with fiery and bright love — and with difficult, sick, dysfunctional relationships. There are couples with perfectly built and mutually satisfying relationships, where, in principle, there is no love. Satisfaction, convenience, pleasantness — there is, it’s hard to talk about love.
Love is one thing, relationships are another. There can be wonderful, well-established relationships, but no love. There may be passionate love, but no (not built, worthless, not established, or even difficult) relationships.
People rarely distinguish: they have love or established relationships, hence a lot of misunderstandings. For example, he and she love each other, but she does not know how to behave and constantly climbs into his affairs. For a while he endures, then begins to make claims. It may seem to them that this is somehow connected with the cooling of their love: no, this is not a question of love, but of established relationships.
Or: he is satisfied with an established relationship with her, but she is not satisfied that there is no love anymore … She demands love (see Love Languages), but he does not understand: “Are we all right? What else do you need? She upsets the relationship, after which he begins to think, “Do I need it?”
People love to dream about love, but, as a rule, it is premature for them to think seriously about love. First of all, you need to think about relationships, if only because people usually don’t know how to manage love, and build relationships more often within their strength.
I’ll give a metaphor: it’s great when the house is clean, beautiful, the windows are frilled, the pictures are hung, the music sounds — very cool. Only if suddenly the house is not yet completed, the floors are failing, there is no sewage system and the roof is leaking … time to do ruffles, music and flowers? Probably not. First you need to strengthen the foundation. In many couples, relationships are like such a house: either unfinished or destroyed. It happens when people don’t take care of themselves for years, the relationship has already been ruined, then after that they say “add love” — what kind of love ?! You make a major overhaul before talking about love!
Difficult relationships put love at risk. If he and she love each other, but communicate and behave in conflict, do not know how to negotiate — they create difficult relationships and endanger love. On the other hand, well-established relationships contribute to the birth of love. If he and she create a relationship that suits them in all respects (light, comfortable, with a perspective), then friendship easily blossoms on this basis. If this is alive and sexual attraction, then love easily flares up. Good relationships, caring for each other is the basis of love.
But only the basics. Whether love will arise on this basis is another question. Indeed, there are well-established relationships, everything is fine, everything is fine, but beauty is absent, and joy is not. Don’t worry, there’s a little more to do. If your relationship is strong and kind, you have created a foundation on which to build a house of love. Love will be, love will definitely come if your soul is healthy, and you create good relationships joyfully and with desire, you have learned to create with joy and desire. Take care of him, and from this — you have joy in your soul. Indeed, are you not happy when you can surprise, help, warm your loved one?
Video from Yana Shchastya: interview with professor of psychology N.I. Kozlov
Topics of conversation: What kind of woman do you need to be in order to successfully marry? How many times do men get married? Why are there so few normal men? Childfree. Parenting. What is love? A story that couldn’t be better. Paying for the opportunity to be close to a beautiful woman.