REAL LOVE?

Call me old-fashioned, but this is how real love should make you feel—lifted. I spend many an hour working with couples of every color and gender. Often, they come to me too late, long after the irreparable damage has been done. There are those with contempt so thick you can’t cut it with a knife, while others quietly seethe. Some loudly protest the injustices they’ve suffered at the hand of their partners. Still others are so mismatched one wonders how they’ve even survived. Once, while counseling an older couple, the husband suddenly said, “You know? I just don’t want to argue with her anymore. I love her too much.” And he did. There’s hope!

As a therapist in my seventh decade, my perspective on love is this: If you have to ask me if I think your partner loves you, they likely don’t. If you think a therapist can ‘fix’ your relationship, they likely can’t. If you want your partner to change to suit you, they likely won’t. If you’re about to marry and wonder if you are really in love, you likely aren’t.

I don’t think I knew what real love was until I gave birth. The love I feel for my children is overwhelmingly unconditional, untouchable, and deeply “until death do (me) part.” It is the rare romantic partner who can live up to the bar that kind of love sets. I tell my younger clients, not only does love change with time, but the way you perceive it also changes. Thousands of songs have been written about love and the platitudes are endless:

–Love is holding hands and not caring if the other person is holding too tight or not tightly enough.

–Love is not having to prove you’re right or prove anything at all because there is nothing to prove.

–Love is not making the other person happy (or expecting them to make you happy) but sharing in their joy.

–Love lifts you up. It doesn’t break you down into your lowest common denominator as if you were a mathematical equation or squeeze you into a box.

–Love always has your back—because you matter more than any scale of justice.

And while there is truth in all of those, there is one sign that always resonates with me. I saw it in that elderly couple. ‘Real love’ is being with someone who smiles just because they’re looking at you. Perhaps James Baldwin said it best: “The longer I live the more deeply I learn that love—whether we call it friendship or family or romance—is the work of mirroring and magnifying each other’s light.”

May someone magnify yours—and may you do the same.