Page 138 - SILFlip

addressed early on. Hope of promise, the wish that this is the relationship that will nourish our very souls, yet accompanied by a fear that this is transient and temporary or worse yet a con or some stupid mistake. Stability and security helps us to overcome that fear. In the beginning we didn’t know, so there was fear of loss. With deepening love we should have enough stability to reduce the fear of loss. When there is a strong individual fear of loss that may stem from a lifelong fear of abandonment, making commitments in a relationship can be difhicult if not impossible. That lifelong fear often causes people to sabotage their relationships.
If you learn to love with intention, and if you dedicate and re- dedicate yourself to the work of loving, you reconcile those two seemingly paradoxical worlds — the drive for novelty and the comfort of familiarity.
Back to the Beginning Again
The initial phase of becoming a loving partnership is, if nothing else, a period of wonder and “discovery”. Before we know anything about a person, we know nothing. Getting to know something about a person means we have to intend to learn about them. It is a very active information gathering process. Intention is always an active process. In the beginning, we search for the nuggets of personality that are sweet and tasty; and even when they are not so sweet we make believe they are, or convince ourselves that bitter can be good as well.
Staying in Love: Secret Recipes For Making Love Last 138