Have you thought about what your priorities are in your relationship?
It can feel like an odd question when you first read or ask it. It may seem obvious to some – relationships are for love. The priority is the love.
Figuring out what that means is important, what is love –
Do you expect them to make you happy?
Do you want them to take care of you physically and emotionally?
Should they be supportive?
Do they serve as your best friend?
Are they going to do the hobbies that you love?
Who cooks dinner every night?
The simple answer of love being the priority in your relationship has a lot more behind it.
Society pushes upon this idyllic relationship. Anything outside of that is wrong and abnormal. Clearly the man is supposed to bring you flowers and chocolates. That is what movies, sitcoms, and advertisements tell us.
What happens in real life when you are in a relationship and you never receive flowers? Does that mean he doesn’t love you or doesn’t love you the right way?
While I will always agree that love is a priority in a relationship, I will always say that what defines that love needs to be looked at closely.
What does love mean to you?
What you have been told love is your whole life can be completely false. There could be no truth behind it at all.
Your husband doesn’t have to be romantic and set up candle light dinners. He doesn’t have to pick up all your hints about that new bag you really want as a gift.
Or maybe its all true. Maybe he does need to be romantic and set up those candle lit dinners.
You have to decide for you what love means. There is no right or wrong answer, or should be’s or shouldn’t be’s. Only what you define love as. What you feel love as.
What it is usually made to mean
Love becomes a set of rules that we set.
Talk to a group of younger women that a dating and they have a list of things they want their future husband to have. For some that list is small and others could fill up many pages. The list will cover everything from how tall he is to what type of job he has to what he thinks of certain topics.
All of us have that list in our mind whether we are conscious of it or not. You may have never written it down or thought about it but somewhere in your thoughts is what you have defined as the perfect man that equates to the perfect love.
What it can mean
When men fall out of our set or rules and list of wants, we make it mean that we can’t love them or they don’t love us. They aren’t perfect so therefore it can’t be.
Love is a feeling. Love is not a set of rules or guidelines. It isn’t a list of wants and desires. Love is always available.
The way we feel love is the same way we feel any emotion. It all starts with our thoughts which we have control over. That control gives you the power to make love mean whatever you want it to be and to change that whenever you want.
Unconditional love
Unconditional love is love that has no conditions. Those rules and preset expectations do not apply. Unconditional love means loving someone no matter what they do. They can do nothing to change how you feel.
You create the feeling of love for them always. You can take it to an extreme and even if they cheat on you the love is still there. Now that doesn’t mean you stay and it doesn’t mean you condone that behavior but you make decisions with a clear mind. You can approach those situations out of love for you and love for them.
Unconditional love means love always no matter what.
Why unconditional love should be the focus
In a relationship your number one priority, the main focus of your relationship, needs to be unconditional love.
Any other focus, any other want, need or rule, is guaranteed to cause issues and cause you pain and suffering. You set yourself and the relationship up for failure when you set forth the rules and expectations.
No one is perfect. No one is going to 100% of the time meet what you want. They especially won’t be able to because we usually don’t tell them. Even when we do tell them they are under no obligation to do it. You may have found someone that checks off your lists but what if something changes? Will that effect your love?
Then you truly don’t have unconditional love.
What if…
What if he changes?
What if he cheats? What if he lies? What if he is no longer trying?
What if (enter your own thought or argument here)?
So what. So what if he doe any or all of those things. They can mean nothing. They can change nothing. If you make that choice. Unconditional love means always loving regardless of what happens. You don’t love unconditionally for them. You do it for you.
What if he cheats – you still love unconditionally. From that place of unconditional love you make a decision on whether to stay in that relationship. You decide what you will make that cheating mean.
Every day you get to decide if you want to stay with that man. Which is a glorious thing especially when every day you are deciding from a place of unconditional love.
What to do when it’s not…
Unconditional love can be tough to wrap our minds around. We want to hate them for doing things like cheating. But, when we act out of hate and spite we get results that are fueled by that. When acting from unconditional love it can be a peaceful experience. You will be able to make decisions and actions from a clear place.
When the relationship and the feelings you have are far away from unconditional love there are ways to get back to where you want and need to be. You need to reset your relationship.
I have a free guide on how to do that that you can grab here.
Get Help
It may all feel overwhelming and as if there is no way you could love that person unconditionally. Whether that is because of what they are doing or a block that you have in your mind.
On our own we can do a lot of work and get better at managing our own mind. But sometimes it takes someone outside of us to really help us understand what we are thinking and how that is affecting us and our relationships.
Get the help you need by finding someone to talk to. You can get started with a complimentary session with me here.
Final Thoughts
The world pushes this idea of what love is at us constantly through many different mediums. Your job is to push back against what society defines as love and figure out what it means to you.
Pushing aside the rules, wants and expectations to find a clear path to what it can mean for you. It can be so simple. Unconditional love can be an amazing part of your life if you let it. No one can keep it from you and no one can give it to you.
When the relationship feels far away then you may need to Reset Your Relationship. Or get help with someone from the outside.