Reflections on loving - Part 5: How the media corrupts our views on romance, relationships and marriages

I've always been deeply interested and fascinated on learning about relationships and marriages.
It's a dream of mine one day to implement courses on love and relationships in the education curricula, as I believe it's a subject that is so complex and that actually requires a lot of learning and understanding in order to make it thrive.

Love is a concept that for the majority of us, appears as exciting, magic and appealing.
The digital era that we are in loves to feed us with picture perfect thoughts of how love is supposed to be and make us feel, the so called "relationship goals", how to know if we found "the one", and so on.
And we get envious of these these "happy looking couples" and start to fantasize the idea of love and relationships.

We live in a society that glorifies and magnifies the search of the so called "true love".
There's this idea that someone out there is made for you, and against all odds, that person will love you unconditionally and fit all of your broken pieces.
I've been addicted to that illusion my whole life.

Falling in love with someone is probably the most magical and euphoric feeling in the world.
Your stomach gets filled with crazy butterflies, you can't help but think about your lover all the time.
When you get a text from that person, you get swept off your feet.
This is it, you think that this time, you found the one.
And then months pass by, years goes by, and for some reason, the excitment is not the same as it used to be.
The butterflies are not as strong.
You don't get excited anymore when your love texts you.
It pisses you off when your partner doesn't act the same way as he used to.
Love is changing, but you don't like it.
Love starts to hurt.
And then the person you thought was your "forever" is now "growing apart" from you.
So you both part ways and eventually find someone new to start the same cycle with.

Even though the person is different this time, every relationship must go through a similar cycle, which is the one below.

HONEYMOON PHASE

The honeymoon phase is a real phenomenon.
It's a biological stage during which your brain produces a lot of dopamine, which is a chemical messenger that stimulates euphoric feelings.
During the honeymoon phase, the romantic love you feel for your partner activates the same part of the brain that is inhibited with addictive drugs.
The saying that love is like a drug is not a lie!

The honeymoon phase feels like sitting on clouds.
You want to spend every waking moment with your lover.
Having sex 3 times a day, and still it doesn't feel like enough!
You're drunk on love.
Your partner is the center of your universe, and you idolize him.
He's freaking amazing in every way!
You wonder where he has been all of your life!

Unfortunately, every good thing has to end someday!
This romantic phase eventually fades in the relationship.
Scientist have not found a precise amount of time for the duration of the honeymoon phase, but on average it lasts between 12 months to a couple of years.

The end of the honeymoon phase does not mean that the love is gone.
It means that the dynamic between the two partner changes.
The way we perceive our partner changes, and that is completely normal.
The flaws of each partner are now exposed, and the importance of being acceptant of it and adjusting ourselves to our partner is huge, because otherwise the relationship will hit a crisis point.

It's after the honeymoon phase that the couple is challenged with internal and external stressors of life, which can either make or break the relationship, depending on their willingness to put in the work to do so.

The truth is that there's no such thing as "growing apart" or "falling out of love".
They are the result of love being neglected and love that has not been cared for and nurtured.
The only type of love that exists in this world is called "human love".
And it's far from being always ecstatic and blissful.
It's imperfect.
It's difficult.
It comes with pain and sacrifice.
It's about giving kindness, and not keeping track of the count.
It's about being a team and seeing beyond the imperfections.
It's something that you have to fight for every single day.

In this era we live in, we value our own instant gratification, above anything else.
We are ruled by our ego.
The problem is not our spouse.
It's that we are so attached to being right.
We don't choose love freely and unconditionally.
We choose love, because we want something out of it.
And when we don't get what we want and shit hits the fan and it takes too much persistence to fight for love, we run away. Only to find ourselves repeating the same dysfunctional pattern over again.

No relationship is perfect.
Every relationship is dysfunctional in a way.
However, a sustaining love requires a lot of effort, time and energy everyday.

The biggest misconception social media throws at us is that love will make life always beautiful, and that we'll be happy together for eternity.
In our current era, more and more couples are getting engaged so quickly.
But the truth is that the divorce rate is very high in western countries. (50%)
You pretty much have "a chance" out of two to get divorced.
There's obviously many factors that come into play, but it just breaks my heart when I see how much social media makes us crave and want relationships and marriages that don't even exist.

These were my thoughts on the misconceptions of loving!

Thank you so much for taking the time to read me!
It means a lot!
I'd love to hear about what you guys think on the topic!
Feel free to keep the conversation going down below!

And until next time,
choose kindness everyday, as I always say! 💗