PERSONAL/LETTER: LOVE CONSTANTLY CHANGES

“Love does not obey our expectations; it obeys our intentions.” ~Lloyd Strom

To say that love hasn’t obeyed my expectations would be the understatement of the century.

I have not been lucky in love. I’ve been blessed with some amazing moments over the years, but somehow have managed to choose partners who did not want what I wanted, did not feel what I felt, and did not want to walk beside me into a future together.

I have really had to sit with this and try and figure out what part of this was my doing, and how to change it, because this year I don't want to make the same mistake again. Falling in love can be a slippery slope, regardless of any protective barriers we may have built. It can ease in like a light a mist that settles itself beautifully over your life, or it can blindside you.

I often fall in love with a person's looks and chemistry before I have fully gotten to know them. By this point it’s too late—I’ve already stretched my heart for someone capable of bruising it. This is what love requires: utmost vulnerability and trust. Hopes and expectations rise along with the awareness that it can slip away.

Love is elastic. It stretches and retracts and changes shape constantly. It is very uncertain. One day you are over the moon and the next disillusioned. The elastic can break. You can re-tie it, but there is now a knot. Suddenly that perfect perception of the other person is a little bit tainted. Something rocked the pedestal. Sometimes we can recover from this, sometimes we can’t.

Loyalty and commitment teach us that we are not to walk away from people that we love.But if your relationship, is unbalanced and one person is hurting, how much is enough? How many pieces are supposed to break and how damaged can we allow ourselves to get before we throw these belief systems out the window and accept that this type of love isn’t healthy?How do we do what is best for ourselves without damaging the heart and mind of someone else in the process?

For a long time I didn’t believe I would find love so I subconsciously chose partners who I knew would be a challenge..like my ex wife. I am no longer interested in this challenge. I told myself when my last relationship failed that I would never put myself in a situation where I didn’t know where I stood in someone’s life again; where I felt unsteady and unloved.

I have been tested often this year and with this came the opportunity to learn lessons. I have lived my life openly. I have experienced love and trusted the process. I fell in love, watched it grow, watched it change, and watched it fall apart.

I am searching for my future wife/soulmate. Please stop by again.