Page 385 - The Truth Landscape Format 2020 with next section introductions-compressed

Love – Fiction and fact

Conditioning and beliefs create misconceptions that affect our views, choices and intelligent decisions in the area of love. There is a
mass of misinformation that we accept as true that can have an adverse effect on the outcomes of our experiences of love. Romantic
novels, television programmes and our assumptions about relationships help perpetuate many of these misconceptions.

As we discuss each misconception, cast your mind over your present and past relationships and ask yourself how many of them have played a
part in the outcomes you have experienced.

Love is enough

• “If I just keep loving him things will turn out ok”
• “We can get through anything together if we just keep loving”
• “Ok, so she puts me down all the time, I love her so it will work out”
• “She is so insecure, I have to be her pillar of strength as well as my own, but love will get us through.”

Love is the most powerful emotion known to man yet love alone cannot resolve issues like these just by believing it will. The danger in believing that love is
enough is that the real problem is masked by our refusing to honestly face up to the real problem lying underneath.
Love can “fool” us into believing :-

1. If we avoid facing our relationship problems, by telling ourselves: "If we love each other enough, none of these issues will matter."
2. I can stay in an unloving relationship even when they are not working by telling myself, "If I just love her more, she will change."
3. That "If I had only loved her more, I know I could have saved the relationship."
Love is the foundation for any good relationship. But if a relationship is going to survive and grow, it needs a lot more than love. Sadly believing that
love is enough can cause you heartache and pain because it convinces you to stay in relation ships that are not healthy. People with poor self-esteem or a
childhood history of neglect or abuse create for themselves a victim or martyr type personality that becomes habitual and often attract
relationships they find difficult to leave. They convince themselves that if they just find a way to love their partner more, their destructive actions
will fade over time and be replaced with the true love that they themselves display.
FACT : YOUR partner's behaviour is determined by their character that has nothing to do with how loving you are. Love alone is not enough.

FACT : Most relationships that fail, do so because the couple make premature commitments before they have identified whether they are truly compatible or Page385
not. Many are consumed with the romantic illusion of love and it is only when faced with trauma, that they are forced to try to make the jig-saw pieces fit.