DATING: YOU HAVE TO KEEP ON GOING EVEN IF YOU DON'T WANT TO

In the beginning of a romantic relationship, it is all possible. We are going to be in love for ever. The sex is amazing. We talk about everything, plan our futures together and spill all our secrets. The hormones in our brains manufacture wildly and we feel like we are living on a cloud. Then before we know it… snap. The bubble bursts and there is whole lot of reality to face.

The other person snores, has bad breath, wants different things and does not agree with me all of the time. The fear of having true intimacy surfaces. What do I do now?

I could go out and find someone else and repeat. Or I could find ingenious methods of denial to immerse myself within, work all of the time,  watch television or try and make sure everything is under my control at all times.

Love is offensive, dark, insane, forceful, unpredictable, lonely, powerful and painful. Love will break your heart over and over again.

My heart is broken. If someone cut open my chest, they would find a heart filled with an abundance of scar tissue. Many injuries in all different phases of healing, some fresh and some crusty-old and hardened from years of chronic damage.

Romance is not the only partnership that breaks the heart, it happens in all relationship.

Mostly just people making decisions that we do not agree with or acting in a way that we do not want them to. Sometimes it is our own fears that get triggered and we can not make clear decisions.We could hide ourselves from relationship and cut ourselves off, but human beings are never happy unless they are connected. We all want to experience love and relationship.

So what can we do? How can we protect ourselves from getting hurt?

We can’t. It is all going to hurt and we are all going to cry, scream, and rage. Then we are going to grow a tiny bit and pick up the pieces and move forward. Even if we cry every day for a year, and experience the suffocation of sorrow, the incineration of anger.

There are no guarantees and no promises that go unbroken.

It is a lesson in the impermanence of life, the wakefulness that we experience through the process of change.  

Relationship is what forces us to grow the most. In partnership, we love and the act of loving is what makes us stretch ourselves bigger and tolerate more. Love makes us brave, strong and rich. It can not be controlled or mapped out. Having expectations in a relationship precludes that things will not go according to our plan.

It reminds me of fairy tales, romantic comedies and novels. Where the couple comes together at the end of the story to live happily ever after. I feel so relieved when they come together. I feel that I do not have to worry about them or about myself because they are together and happy now. I believe for a few minutes that I can rest and that it is real. Then I think, if we could fast forward a few years into the future they would probably be fighting about the kids, money problems and the dirty dishes.

Once we have had a few relationship experiences of our own we begin to understand the disillusionment of love. Romantic themes in media become far less distracting. Where are the healthy relationships models that we can learn from?

I get a thrill out of two old and wrinkled people with grey hair sitting at a table in a restaurant genuinely talking or when the come to my office. People with crooked teeth, bald heads, blemished skin holding hands on a walk.