Love Lockdown …..Covid-19…..part 29

Love in the time of corona – how can couples cope in a relationship?

Love is one of the most profound emotions known to human beings. There are many kinds of love, but many people seek its expression in a romantic relationship with a compatible partner (or partners).

For many, romantic relationships comprise one of the most meaningful aspects of life, providing a source of deep fulfillment. The need for human connection appears to be innate—but the ability to form healthy, loving relationships is learned.

Some evidence suggests that the ability to form a stable relationship starts to form in infancy, in a child's earliest experiences with a caregiver who reliably meets the infant's needs for food, care, warmth, protection, stimulation, and social contact. Such relationships are not destiny, but they are theorized to establish deeply ingrained patterns of relating to others.

Failed relationships happen for many reasons, and the failure of a relationship is often a source of great psychological anguish. Most people have to work consciously to master the skills necessary to make relationships endure and flourish.

Millions of people have doubts every day. Nobody is immune. We have doubts about love because life is full of "unknowns."

How can we be sure of anything?

Having doubts is natural and smart and it prevents us from making rash choices. We doubt, when something is too good to be true, then it surely is.

Doubt is a feeling of uncertainty towards something, people or ideas and beliefs. 

When you’re in a relationship, you expect everything to be flawless and beautiful. You want your relationship to be surrounded with love and romance, without any trials and tribulations.

But if you have been in a relationship, you’ll know by now, how you can never avoid a rough-patch in your relationship, but can surely overcome them.

Your zodiac signs can speak volumes about your personality and also your behavior during difficult situations in a relationship.

At the same time, it can also help you overcome these difficulties and lead you towards a healthier relationship. What you need is patience and perseverance.

Therefore, if you think you still love your partner and are just passing through a difficult phase, here’s what you can do to overcome these troubled times .

Love is wonderful, love is joy, love is the greatest thing in the world… Love is also an enormous pain in the ass. Marriage is hard work.

Older people are nodding right now while young people are probably sticking their

fingers in their ears and reciting their favorite lines.

So how do you make love last? What myths about love are leading us astray and what do you have to do to have a loving relationship that stands the test of time?

Disclaimer: The information on this POST is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional advice. The opinions expressed within this article are the personal opinions of the author. All content, including text, graphics, images and information, contained on or available through this article is for general information purposes / educational purposes only, and to ensure discussion or debate. 

Thank you ….It’s like aging. You can’t avoid it. So smart people don’t ask, “How can I live forever?” They ask, “What’s the best way to handle it?”

Choosing a partner is choosing a set of problems. There is no partner with whom we’re not going to fight and get annoyed and complain about

The question is how you deal with those problems. What is found is that people who have clashing meta-emotional styles, they have a really tough time dealing with conflict.

Even minor annoyances tend to become huge fights, because one partner wants to express and the other partner thinks you should hold it in and then all of a sudden it explodes.

In contrast, when you have compatible meta-emotional styles — when people agree on how feelings should be expressed — they’re able to diffuse these tensions before they get too big and dangerous.

So there’s going to be conflict but you want to find someone that you can communicate with using a common emotional language. So communication is good. Which leads us to another counterintuitive finding…

Think Arranged Marriage.

Want to add word or two?

Yes, I know, that’s terribly unromantic.

There’s infatuation and then there’s love. Infatuation is quick, romantic and easy. Researchers call it “limerence.”

If you want the purest example of limerence, it’s Romeo and Juliet. He falls in love with her in seconds. He sees her and he just knows.

He walks over and starts talking in iambic pentameter. It’s when you meet someone and your heart starts racing and your palms gets sweaty and your mid-brain is just bursting with dopamine.

You just get that high and you’re convinced: they’re your soulmate. It’s a very, very romantic feeling. It’s love at first sight. It’s what the movies are always going on and on about.

Thinking about soulmates and being obsessed with limerence is very romantic. It’s also lazy. It’s the idea that “If I find the perfect person I won’t have to fight, change or do any work.” And that leads to the problem with limerence…

It just doesn’t last.

People in arranged marriages have no such illusions.

They don’t even know the other person. So they’re well-aware it’s going to take effort to make it work. And so they work. And so it works

Arranged marriages go in with this expectation that love is hard work, that love isn’t going to take care of itself. Because they barely know this person, there is no illusion that they don’t have to put in the work.

Instead, they know by necessity that it’s going to require an investment of effort. Not that I want my kids to have arranged marriages, but the attitude that they’re premised on, the idea that love is work, that is the right attitude.

Your comment ….? 

Success In Life Also Produces Success In Love

Do you want devotion?

Loyalty?

Someone who won’t give up on you or the relationship?

Exactly.

Marriage has plenty of trying situations. People who are particularly low in grit, when love feels like work, they’re more likely to drop out the same way soldiers do at West Point. Love lasts but it doesn’t last by itself. It’s not magic. It lasts because we can make it last, because we keep putting in the work.

So what differs between the stories told by the happy couples and the not-so-happy couples?

It’s not the content. Again, everyone experiences conflict. But couples with a future “glorify the struggle.” To simplify:

BAD: “We fought. It was awful. In fact, my partner is awful.”

GOOD: “We fought. It was awful but we worked it out and now we’re better than ever.”

Every couple is going to go through hard times and go through points where they wonder if they should still be together.

 That’s just part of being in a long-term relationship. Then, the question becomes: how do they talk about it? Some couples talk about it almost like a sign from the gods that they shouldn’t be together. Some couples find a way to glorify it.

 To talk about how it brought them together. How they made it through and how they’re stronger because of what happened.

It’s how you interpret what happened. Nobody is happy on mile 20 of the marathon. And if the story stops there, it’s not a good one.

But if you pass the finish line, the struggle makes the victory that much sweeter. And those are the stories that happy couples tell.