I’m of the opinion that love is easy and shouldn’t be one of those illusive things that you have to work really hard to understand.
While I’m all for taking “Is He In Love With Me?” quizzes on the internet until your heart is content, and for spending a bazillion hours having conversations with your girlfriends about how he MUST love you because he responded with a heart emoji to your “Good Morning!” text. And even for repeatedly convincing yourself that the shouting matches you have with your Lovah bring the two of you “closer.” Honestly though? NONE of that is really necessary.
Shh … Be still for a minute and listen to me. When you find true love, it’s about finding peace. Not uncertainty and drama.
If you’re taking every quiz you can find with the word “love” and a question mark in the title and having marathon conversations with your girls or trying to see just how many of your guy’s buttons you can push to keep your relationship interesting, what you have, sweetie, is a bad case of doubt and fear (and excessive adrenaline, which by the way, your years of dating may have gotten you addicted to). But it’s not love.
I can say this now that I’ve found love. Back when I was looking for it, you couldn’t have sold me this theory for a million bucks. So I’m not judging you for your thirst for drama and suffering in relationships because it keeps things exciting. I, too, once believed lust + drama = love. But when we know better we do better. So that’s why I want to share with you that nunofthat is the formula for love!
If you feel you have to keep things stirred and shaken up in your relationship in order to feel loved and relevant, or you are one big constant fireball of emotion and uncertainty because that’s just the way love feels, you are mistaken, honey. Sorry.
The calm spirit of love is even referenced in the Bible: “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” (1 Corinthians 13:4-7)
You’ve probably heard these verses repeated at more weddings than you care to count, and there’s a reason for that. It’s literally the manual on love we’ve been searching for! Forget the quizzes, girl. Use this checklist as a barometer for where your love stands against the Infinite One’s definition.
Patient? Check. Kind? Check, Check. Zero envy, boastfulness, pride, and dishonor? Boom! There it is. If you don’t already know, being at peace should be enough in a relationship. It actually feels pretty good when everything is in balance.
Now, don’t mess up and mistake peace for boringness. Just because a time bomb isn’t exploding in the middle of your living room doesn’t mean the guy sitting quietly next to you on the couch doesn’t love you. It means he’s comfortable with you and likes your company! The BEST WAY to know if you’re in love with someone is when the two of you are doing NOTHING. Just quietly being in each other’s space. And you are content.
Memorize the Bible’s checklist, and you never need to have another “does he or doesn’t he?” conversation with your girls again.
How does all of this play out?
Let’s say he’s on his phone or intently watching Game of Thrones, and you’re feeling left out or lonely. Be honest and tell him how you feel. (Contrary to popular belief, guys are not mind readers). Give him a chance to self-correct. “Love rejoices with the truth.” Say something like, “Babe, I’m feeling a little left out when you’re on your phone so much.” He may grab you and bring you close and STILL keep the phone in his hand. He may put the phone down. Or he may respond: “Oh. Hmm. Too bad for you.”
Say what now?!
Remember the checklist, girl. The CHECKLIST!
His “so sad, too bad” response could be reflective of an isolated, momentary instance of selfishness. Love is “patient,” so you let it slide. If YOU love HIM, you know he isn’t perfect, and you don’t go from 0-60 in no time flat and call him every expletive you can think of. Because love is “kind.”
You see how this works?
Love is all about a million and one tiny discords that can be overlooked for the greater good of the relationship. Because “it keeps no record of wrongs.”
But even if you decide this is just one wrong too many and cements the fact that this insensitive jerk isn’t the guy for you because his response is reflective of a pattern of selfish behavior you’ve witnessed before but can no longer ignore, you should still operate from a place of love. And when in love do as the in-love do, continue to treat him with respect because love “does not delight in evil.”
So you:
1) get up quietly and call your girlfriends to come over to do something fun
2) pack his bags and leave them without commentary “to the left, to the left everything he owns in the box to the left” of the door as we’ve been instructed to do by the badass philosopher of love also known as Beyonce
3) open your phone and quietly create a Tinder account
4) lean over, give him a kiss goodbye, say, “Adios, my friend,” and push him gently out said door
5) move on with your life
See? Zero drama.
Your actions speak loud and clear all on their own without you having to try to win an Oscar for best actress in a dramatic role. You know what else I learned? All of the drama drains you emotionally and rarely works at keeping him around long term anyway. Trust me on this. ‘Cause back in the day … oh, honey, I was an award winning Drama Queen!
But I learned all that unnecessary drama leaves you emotionally unequipped to go out and find the peaceful “easy like a Sunday morning” kind of love you deserve. The emotional stability you gain from living a drama-free life sets you up to calmly find the love of your life. IF true love is what you sincerely want, you gotta drop the drama in order to find it. And you will. How can I be so sure? There are no guarantees but “love always trusts, always hopes.” So try it.
You can thank me later with an invitation to your wedding to Mr. Right.
Leave a reply