True love: signs and features of building a healthy relationship. How to distinguish love from falling in love? Is there love

Love is a feeling so subtle and ephemeral that it seems to many that it does not exist at all. Because love is often confused with other, no less strong, but not so deep feelings. Or maybe it's true, there is no love? In any case, how is the feeling that arises between opposite sexes? Here is maternal love - there is, but the other is not. In our article “Does love exist between a guy and a girl”, we will try to understand: does this feeling have boundaries and does it exist between a man and a woman, or is it customary to call other feelings love?

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Photo gallery: Is there love between a guy and a girl

Probably, to give an unambiguous answer to the question "Does love exist between a guy and a girl?" it is forbidden. In any case, it cannot be universally recognized and one with which absolutely every person will agree. After all, many of us vehemently argue that there is no love in this wide world! But why do they say so - that is the question. Perhaps just because of the love that once broke their heart.

To say that love between a guy and a girl does not exist is perhaps stupid and pointless. By doing this, we simply cross out all those bright lives and happy couples who reveled in their feelings and gave happy tenderness to each other. What is this if not love?

Opponents of this bright feeling argue that love in its pure form does not exist, that it always has some underlying reason, let's say, an interested party, which deprives Love of that bright innocence that it is characterized by. But let's leave this commercialism: not all lovers need something from their beloved.

Although no, it's a bit different. We all need something from our loved ones. And, first of all, we are talking about tenderness, warmth, care, passion. We need feelings, we crave sensations. We want to relive again and again the sweet moment of the first touch and kiss, look into our beloved eyes again and again, looking for another declaration of love in them. And you want to call all this "sympathy with elements of self-interest"?

First of all, love is characterized by an all-consuming feeling of attachment to a person. It seems that without it you cannot eat and drink, even breathing becomes difficult. You feel an urgent need to see him every second, squeeze his warm hand, hug and just be there, at least touching your favorite features with your eyes. You say that attached is also characteristic of other strong feelings - for example, friendship. But, you must admit, if the person is your close friend, you will not feel the emotions described above. Of course, without a friend you will be bored, you tend to spend time with your good comrades. But when a loved one appears in life, even the closest friends involuntarily fade into the background.

Love is caring. This is a desire to save you from any trouble, misfortune, not to let anyone offend you. Caring gives rise to all those sweet and sincere, tender moments that true love abounds. Here you are walking through the winter park, inhaling the sharp fresh smell of frost. And he so carefully, but persistently bandages your hat with earflaps so that the prickly wind does not blow into your ears. He asks if you put on gloves, and if you forgot them at home, he will warm your palms in his all the way. He will straighten your scarf with motherly tenderness, all the while trying to cover their chin trembling from the cold. And when you come home, he will immediately send you to the bathroom to warm up, and he himself will prepare scalding hot warming tea.

What other feeling is characterized by such sincere concern? Now we are not talking about a mother's love for her child, since the call of blood and maternal instinct are stronger than all other feelings, this love never passes, you cannot burn it out of the heart.

However, probably, true love, which once happened between a man and a woman, is also unlikely to be burned out. You can try to forget her, run away from her, hiding behind another person. You can even get so carried away by him that for a moment you forget about the one you love for many years and whom you cannot forget. You can even be happy with a new man, but sometimes, on a dark night, when a new soulmate will sleep peacefully hugging a pillow, you don’t, no, and you will remember that same guy, beloved, best. And sadness will suffocate you, fall on you like a snowball. It is impossible to forget true love, and if you forgot it, then it was not love, but the strongest love, bordering on slavish affection and devoted tenderness that emanated from you. You can't betray true love. But if you understand that you have no way out and a return to your former love is impossible, then you need to learn to perceive it as a happy page in life and rejoice that it happened to you. Otherwise, she will eat you from the inside, depriving you of the opportunity to rebuild your female happiness.

Although, perhaps, it is impossible to say so categorically that there can be only one love. After all, such a statement means that we often talk about love and lie, although in fact, when the words of love fly from our lips, we are really sure that we love. And you should not trample on these feelings so cynically, saying that they are false and invented, since there is only one love in life. Maybe love is a very common feeling and it can visit us more than once. After all, what else, besides strong, real and, most importantly, mutual love, can bring us such sincere happiness, give us such a keen desire to live and be loved?

As long as the human heart needs love, Love will exist and blossom within us. Sometimes bring pain, disappointment and resentment. Although, it is wrong to call such a feeling "love". Love is a light, weightless feeling that makes the heart sing, not suffer. And if it brings pain, then think about it: is it love? Perhaps you just have a manic attachment to a person, but he does not want to belong to you? Should you allow such destructive sensations to linger in your soul? After all, while away your life on that. Who will never appreciate your efforts, do you run the risk of missing a real feeling that you simply don’t notice because of the blindness and closeness of your heart?

To find love is a great happiness, to keep it is a real art, to make it burn more and more every day is a piece of jewelry. However, believe me, love is worth it! Love is worth all the sacrifices in the world, only true love will never force you to make any truly serious sacrifices.

In our country, many people understand the phrase “true love” as the so-called “beautiful” love between a man and a woman: courtship during the candy-bouquet period, dates full of romance and walks under the moon, gifts to the second half and new impressions from relationships. It is believed that all of the above is a guarantee of happiness in the family until the end of days. Everything changes, you just have to look at the divorce statistics. The period of dreams and walks under the moon gives way to ordinary days. The first family quarrels appear, the spouses begin to notice shortcomings in their partner, and there seems to be no passion. What is going on? It is at such moments, when blind passion leaves, that a much stronger feeling should remain - love. This feeling is unfamiliar and incomprehensible to many, when all that the heart requires is for the beloved to be well. So what is love? Does it exist between a man and a woman?

Love is…?

Each person understands this word differently. It's hard to describe what love is. You can talk about it for a long time. There can be many manifestations of this feeling, and therefore it is characteristic of everyone. For example, love between a man and a woman , to the Fatherland, to God, to employment, to life and peace. This is one of the most beautiful feelings on Earth, but at times it can also lead to negative consequences. It all depends, of course, on how you experience it.

Many philosophers have tried to describe love, but the explanation of this phenomenon is still difficult. The feeling appears suddenly when you do not expect it. It is born as if from a small coal and over time, especially if love is mutual, it flares up into a real fire. It is impossible to plan, prevent, program or simulate falling in love. It can only be felt with the whole heart.

The love between a man and a woman is incredibly strong. At the same time, there is such an attitude towards a partner in which your half becomes much more important than yourself, and the whole world as a whole. Not just emotions change, the very perception of the surrounding reality changes. Through love, people learn a lot of new things, realize life in other colors.

Stage 1 - sympathy

There are several types of love, and the most "harmless" of them is sympathy. We show sympathy for people we love and like.

Stage 2 - tender love

The next stage after sympathy is falling in love. This is a much stronger kind of love. Relations between a man and a woman often begin precisely after mutual love. This type is most often and most clearly manifested between adolescents, and it can occur both in the same age and in older people, for example, to popular actors, artists, artists, teachers, etc. Often, falling in love goes to the next stage - to a strong Love.

It happens that falling in love, especially if it manifests itself to a person of an older or younger age (for example, to an artist, that is, such love is “out of reach”) ends sadly. It captures all thoughts, does not allow you to make informed decisions and draw clear conclusions, develops incredibly quickly, suppressing the voice of reason. Falling in love is such a feeling when thinking about one particular person does not allow you to live in peace, the human brain is always busy only reflecting on good memories of the narrowed / narrowed and his / her idealization. At such moments, a person loses all meaning in life without a loved one. Against the background of such sensations, poems, songs are created, books are written and absolutely unthinkable acts are committed.

At an older age, love quickly develops into passion under the influence of hormones and various situations: strong feelings, a holiday romance, or any events that coincided with hidden fantasies.

Stage 3 - stormy passion

The most important stage of love between a man and a woman is passion. Quite often, in such relationships, selfless love goes by the wayside. And sex between a man and a woman becomes the main driving force. It is a very deep, uncontrollable feeling. This is a game that flares up more and more until the appearance of routine, boredom and routine. Such relationships are based solely on the partner's sexual attractiveness, insane attraction and physical pleasure. It is not uncommon for such enthusiasm to become painful for one of the partners and develop into an incredibly difficult phenomenon - mania.

For ordinary people, passion is a temporary stage of love. If we turn to statistics, it will show that this feeling lasts an average of 5 months to 3 years. If you have ever heard the expression “love lives for three years”, then this statement refers specifically to the opinion of the scientific community that by the third year of a relationship, hormones are released in the brain less and less, and, accordingly, feelings subside. However, in itself such a phenomenon is a fire, a hunger that is not quenched by anything, delight and lust.

Stage 4 - romantic love

A wonderful stage in a relationship is romantic love, when the foundation of great love is laid. This is a stage when people get pleasure from their feelings and emotions from each other. Usually, it is with this development of relations that the reproductive function is ensured. Now everyday life will prevail over the feeling of romance and passion. It is at this moment that the “pink” glasses break for the majority, and the partners begin to notice the shortcomings. However, there are couples in which the above elements of relationships accompany their family all their lives. It can be concluded that romantic love is the final stage before tender love in the family.

Stage 5 - "true" love

Family love is a feeling that develops between people who want to always be together. This absolutely normal love between a man and a woman exists when they become one and are ready to accept all the joys and sorrows of a partner. After all, to love truly means to accept a person completely and live his life.

Signs of a "true" feeling

When two people truly experience love for each other, they will overcome all obstacles and difficulties just to be together. Their relationship is accompanied by a constant struggle for their feelings, despite gossip or other people's speculation. Love settles where understanding and mutual support reign.

The real feeling cannot but be mutual. Such sensations as lust, sexual attraction, passion - this is just a desire to completely possess someone, dictated by one's own egoism.

In any circumstances, a really close person will always be there to support and say comforting words. He will cover his back in the most difficult moments in life. No matter how difficult and hard it is, you can always find spiritual strength to help the person you love.

A woman who is in search of true love will never exchange for a "one-day" relationship with a person she is not sure about. She does not need to prove anything with her relationship to relatives, acquaintances, or anyone else.

We become better, prettier and more attractive next to our beloved. But you cannot sacrifice something or do anything that is at odds with personal interests. Of course, no one will argue that building a family is hard work, but it should not become a burden.

How to show love?

There are literary sources about the "language of love", which claim that all people imagine its manifestations in completely different ways. Some people like tactile touch. A certain part of people tries to spend a little more time together, and there are those for whom gifts are an obligatory sign of attention.

In addition, both sexes interpret love in their own way. First, men and women represent love in different ways. Secondly, ideas about the manifestations of this feeling in relationships also differ. Very often, these differences become an insurmountable barrier in a relationship.

Every person aspires to this sublime feeling and yearns for it. For men, love is absolute unity, complementing each other, an obligatory part of which is respect and trust. It is impossible to show love to a person whom you do not trust and simply do not respect. Those who have a more “masculine” type of thinking (the vast majority of men) expect trust and respect from love. Those who are of the "feminine" type (the majority of women) also crave both respect and trust, but their expectations are inextricably associated with actions that are aimed at manifesting these feelings.

Men also like to be hugged, but moderately enough. At the same time, girls expect expressions of feelings for them to be regular and unrestricted. A lady who presents a bouquet of flowers to a representative of the strong half of humanity will never achieve the same effect (after all, men have a completely different perception of love and appreciation) as a man who gives flowers to a woman. You should not express a noble feeling in the way you like it. Show it in a way that pleases your partner.

"Love" is a very interesting word. We say it quite often. "I like chocolate". "I don't like oatmeal." "I love Sasha". "I Love Mom". "I do not like rain". But if we are asked what “love”, “love” is, we are unlikely to be able to give a quick and clear answer. And of course, different people will give different answers. Perhaps you have never thought about this topic. “What is there to think? Don't I know what love is?

On the one hand, you are right. Love is inherent in all of us, love is a natural state of man. On the other hand, the average modern man has gone so far from his natural state that there is little love left in him. And the word " love" has survived in the language. That's what they call any affection.

However, this is not only a problem of modern man. Delusions have always existed. Remember the story of Romeo and Juliet? In ancient times, this story was composed, but even then the author called the relationship of the characters love. But was there really love in Romeo and Juliet's relationship?

Alas, art has the ability to convincingly present lies as truth. Trusting the beauty of art, we involuntarily trust the thoughts of the author. And the author does not have to be a sage and a know-it-all. For us to remember him centuries later, he must be a brilliant artist, nothing more. How many artists of all times and peoples are misleading us, poetizing their delusions of youth!

The geniuses of ancient times are echoed by the modern "pop" of all genres, which will be forgotten faster than dirty puddles dry up in sunny weather. But we trust this foam too. And how not to believe if everyone sings the same thing?

Let's dispel this romantic fog and talk about love soberly and seriously.

What is love

Love belongs to the sphere of non-material, to the spiritual area of our life. And the spiritual is cognizable by us only in part. No one can say that he knows everything about love. But, nevertheless, many properties of love are known, some patterns of its strengthening and disappearance. And the knowledge of these individual qualities of love is of great value for that person who wants to love and be loved.

What love is not

Let us begin by considering those qualities or definitions that are unfairly attributed to love.

"Love is just a side effect of sex drive."

This delusion does not deserve even detailed consideration. Its fallacy is already obvious from the fact that there is love between parents and children, love between friends, and people with an undeveloped or extinct sexual sphere are also capable of loving. Love can be directed to objects with which sexual interaction is impossible. Condolences to those who think so.

"Love is a feeling."

Certain feelings are just one of the qualities of love. It is more correct to say that love is a state.

When a person is in a state of love, he is in this state entirely, and his whole life changes. He has more love for all people. He awakens new talents or flourishes previously discovered. He has more vitality.

If there are only feelings, but not all these changes, this is not love.

"Love is passion." "Love is torture." "Love is pain". "Love is a disease."

This is the most common mistake, so let's take a closer look at it.

The root of this mistake is in our childhood. Unfortunately, almost all of us are unloved children. Very few can boast that their parental family was perfect. That mom and dad were each other's first and last. That they were always together and truly loved each other and us children, giving us the necessary fullness of their time and their love.

And if we have received at least a little less, then, without realizing it, we are trying to compensate for this in love relationships. That is, to compensate with the love of other people for us the love that was not received from our parents. If in love a person strives more to give, think and take care of the happiness of a loved one, then in passion a person engages in vampirism. In passion, we tensely control how they treat us, whether they give everything to us, whether they let someone else into our hearts. Passion is characterized by jealousy, imaginary sacrifice (or salvation), when we are ready to do a lot for a person, but in exchange we demand his soul, completely depriving him of his freedom. Passion is selfishness, and selfishness is the opposite of love.

And who likes that they deprive him of his freedom, jealous, demanding, pulling all the juices?

Therefore, passion relationships are always painful. Where there is passion, there is torment, and pain, and illness.

The saddest thing is that all the love hopes of a passionate person are doomed from the start. With the help of other people, parental love cannot be repaid. Everything falls through like a leaky vessel. You need to close the gap first...

Great dislike in childhood leads to intense passion, which psychologists call addiction. The expression of this passion can be not only love addiction, but also drug, alcohol, gaming, etc. These are diseases. And, unfortunately, very common. There are far more dependent people than people who truly love. Therefore, the voice of addicts is louder. Their untruth about love is more widespread than the truth of those who know how to love.

Romeo and Juliet also suffered from love addiction. This can be judged already by their gloomy end. Love does not hurt or kill. Love is a creative state. The lover is already happy that there is a loved one, that he is alive and well, that there is love. And addiction requires possession. Addiction torments and often leads a person to thoughts of suicide. However, Shakespeare's work speaks enough about the dislike of these unfortunate young people by the parents. Therefore, the whole picture of the disease is obvious - from the beginning to the end.

"Everyone can love."

Rain falls on everyone from time to time, but water is retained only in the whole vessel. From the leaky one, it quickly flows out. Therefore, only spiritually holistic, adult people are capable of loving. To gain the ability to love, you need to grow up, conquer your addictions and passions.

"There is love at first sight."

There is love at first sight. But the path from falling in love to love is long and difficult. According to psychologists, true love comes on average 15 years after the start of family life.

"Sex does not interfere with love, but rather helps."

People are constantly looking for excuses for their weaknesses. “The fact that I often eat sweets has nothing to do with the fact that I have an extra 15 kg of weight. I'm just not lucky with the figure. “The fact that I allowed intimate relationships with men has nothing to do with the fact that I still cannot create a normal family. I'm just unlucky in my personal life."

Actually, it's connected. The fact that for several millennia of human history women who lost their virginity were not married was not some kind of taboo taken from the ceiling. People knew for sure that family life with such a woman would differ in quality from life with the one who was married to a virgin. With her, such love will not work, such a family will not work.

There are psychological explanations for this phenomenon. They say that a woman will remember previous men. They say that, having shown weakness before marriage, she can show it in marriage, that is, change.

But there is also something on a spiritual level. Sexual intercourse between a man and a woman is not a purely physiological process. It somehow affects spiritual structures, forming invisible bonds between people.

Many women remember that their first man was very important in their life. If it was a relationship of love, and virginity was lost, then parting was experienced by them very hard. If there was no sexual intercourse, the separation was much easier. This means that intimacy formed an invisible but strong bond between them.

It's great if this strong connection is with the person with whom you want to live your whole life - with your husband. And if not? With the second man, the connection is already weaker, with the third - even weaker. What kind of connection do you have with your husband? 3rd or 10th?

If Bulgakov's words about sturgeon are true, that it is only of the first grade and no one else, then about love relationships - even more so. And our ancestors agreed only on the first grade. And we, imagining ourselves as gourmets and subtle connoisseurs of various benefits and conveniences that civilization gives us, in the most important thing, often eat just garbage.

Of course, all of the above applies to men as well. Indeed, at the second end of the invisible thread emanating from the woman is a man. Therefore, a man is no less responsible for maintaining his purity than a woman.

What happens? The husband is connected with several women by connections of past intimate relationships. These women are still connected with someone. The wife is also connected with several men. And they are not the last in the chain. It turns out that we do not have families, but some kind of perverted super-Swedish families. In them, we are invisibly united with people, some of whom we might not even shake hands with ...

There are no scientific explanations for this phenomenon. But the fact remains, and everyone can see its confirmation in their lives: with each new intimate relationship, we waste something in our souls, and it is more and more difficult for us to love. Each new crush (accompanied by sex outside of marriage) is inferior to the first love. At the same time, passions may increase, but passion will not replace love for us ...

The path to love is not through sex, but through friendship. The reason that people are in a hurry to get closer physiologically, psychologists call their inability to get closer spiritually. People, especially young people, have not learned to communicate, to talk. They know how to get close only in the most primitive way. But, alas, sex without communication, without friendship, is not much different from masturbation ...

I understand that most of you reading this article are no longer virgins. Don't be discouraged! Fortunately, spiritual injuries are treatable—by spiritual means. Although, like bodily treatment, such treatment requires time and labor. The integrity of the soul can be restored, invisible bonds can be broken.

The path to healing is repentance. It is necessary to stop repeating old mistakes and repent. The amount of labor is proportional to the number of crimes committed against one's soul. I don't know if complete healing is possible without such sacraments of the Orthodox Church as confession and communion. With them, it's definitely possible.

What love really is

"The lover seeks to give, not to receive."

If a passionate, dependent person has nothing but a hole in his spiritual body, and therefore is a consumer, then the lover has in himself a source of warmth and light. And he who has a source of light in himself cannot but shine.

The sacrifice of a loving person, in contrast to the false, selfish sacrifice of an addict, is sincere. The lover does not count what he has given, and does not bill the beloved. It is important for him that his beloved be happy in the highest sense of the word. His joy is to please his beloved.

"Love does not limit freedom."

Being independent, self-sufficient (he does not need anything from his beloved), the lover is free himself and does not seek to limit the freedom of his beloved. His sun is with him in any case, therefore, no matter what the beloved does, his “sun” remains with the lover.

Of course, a lover seeks to be with his beloved, but not to such an extent as to violate the freedom of a loved one.

"Love is the pinnacle of virtue."

Love is the highest of the good qualities of a person. Perfect love includes all virtues. If even one vice has been preserved in a person, his love can no longer be perfect.

Here is how the apostle Paul enumerates the good properties of love: “Love is long-suffering, kind, love does not envy, love does not exalt itself, does not pride itself, does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not irritated, does not think evil, does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; covers everything, believes everything, hopes everything, endures everything. Love never fails” (1 Cor. 13:4-8).

Why is love incompatible with evil? Because if there is something evil, this evil will manifest itself in relationships with those whom we seek to love. Suppose a husband loves his wife. But not free from such vice as envy. And it will happen that his wife will achieve great success in the professional field. And in some social circle she will be given more respect than her husband. Because of his envy, the husband will resent his wife, hold a grudge. His love will suffer damage because it is imperfect.

If there are several vices? Love is doomed...

And imagine the person whom the apostle Paul describes. He is patient, merciful, not envious, not selfish, not selfish, always calm, does not suspect others of something bad, does not gloat, covers up the mistakes of others with silence or a kind word, trusts others and hopes for them, endures all difficulties. Agree, you can live with such a person. And as with a friend, and as with a spouse, and as with a father or mother. With such a person it is good, his love is reliable. It is impossible to quarrel with him! And it is easy for us to love him - with friendly, conjugal or filial love.

"Love is a gift from God."

Our understanding of love will be flawed if we limit ourselves to the idea that love is within us, and do not think about where it comes from to us, where it even came from. After all, the data of modern science refute the possibility of spontaneous generation of a living cell from nothing. They also refute the possibility of the appearance of a person by an evolutionary path uncontrolled from the outside (the universe does not yet exist for as long as it would take for this, according to the theory of probability). And even more so, there is no reason to believe that such a miracle as love appeared by itself, as a result of accidents at the micro or macro biological level.

The only theory of the origin of love known to mankind is that love is given to us by God. By His love and infinite creative power, we were created by Him. Out of love for us, in order to save us, He sent His Son to us to preach and heal our sins of suffering. Those properties of love that we know, and which we have listed above, fully correspond to the properties of God. God loves us selflessly. He wants nothing from us, except that we be happy. He does not depend on us. He shines on all of us, both evil and good, giving us all the blessings of the earth. He is merciful and easily forgives us. He gave us a complete, even terrible degree of freedom.

And love for another person He gives us. What is love? Perhaps this is a look at another person through the eyes of God. God, under external dirt and tinsel, sees in us an immortal, beautiful soul. He sees not only how badly we live, but also how beautiful we are in separate moments of life and could always be. Mutual love is when God opens two people's eyes to each other. He, as it were, puts us on his knees opposite each other, hugs us and says: “Look, children, this is what you really are!”

It is no coincidence that in mutual love a person who loves us helps to reveal our talents and good qualities: after all, he sees all the good that is in us, almost as clearly as God Himself.

And holy people love everyone. This means that, being in God, they see through the eyes of God of all people. And that's why they love us so much that it's strange even to us how it is possible to love us like that. After all, it would seem that we ourselves know what we are. And for some reason, God values the soul of each person more than the whole universe!

"Love is almost always mutual."

Since love is given by a God who wants us to be happy, it is not surprising that true love is almost always reciprocated. In rare cases, non-reciprocal love can be given to a person to solve important creative problems, to comprehend some truths.

In most cases of "unrequited love" we are dealing not with love, but with passions.

Does love depend on us

I have singled out this question because it is the most practical of all questions related to love.

If we accept the truth that love is the pinnacle of virtues, we will have to abandon the myth that love is like good weather, it comes and goes on its own, regardless of our desire. This myth is invented in order to relieve oneself of responsibility for the murder of love. After all, we are able to recover from vices and acquire virtues. If we don't, we kill love. Love cannot stand our evil. Annoyed by our passions, we jump off the knees of God (after all, He has given us complete freedom, He does not keep us by force from Himself) and stop seeing each other through His eyes. And after close communication, we now see each other's shortcomings much more clearly! ..

What are we focusing on in our lives at the moment when we fall in love? On a career, on pleasures, on making money, on creativity, on some kind of success, on fluttering in the networks of some kind of addiction.

This means that we are almost never worthy of the love that we receive for nothing. After all, everything we are concerned about does not lead us to the virtues, and therefore does not bring us closer to love.

I am deeply amazed when I think about the faith of God in us, His patience and love, which prompts Him to give us a spark of His love again and again. After all, He knows how we will dispose of this love in most cases.

How should we, in theory, treat this gift of love, which "accidentally appeared"? Realizing that love is the most beautiful and valuable thing in our life, we should immediately reconsider the priorities of our activities. When a child is born, much in the life of parents is pushed aside, giving way to caring for him. Likewise with love. When love came, it's time to realize that love came when we were completely unprepared for it! Because we have few virtues, which means that we do not know how to love. It's like the lack of food for the child from the parents. Of course, we will put in the first place work on ourselves, caring for love. Otherwise, this child will die of starvation. Otherwise this love will die.

This is what we should do if we understand anything in this life.

How do we really do it? In most cases, for us, falling in love is just an opportunity to get another pleasure, the pleasure of sex with a person who is especially pleasant to us. Instead of cultivating virtues in oneself, one gets an increase in the vice of fornication. This is the same as taking a newborn child by the legs - and head against a stone. What care is there for his food, what are you talking about! ..

How God believes in us, how He endures this and still gives us sparks of love!

Or maybe he doesn’t give it to many, knowing what they will do? Maybe that's why many people say that there is no love, or they only know passion, that the sparks of love never reached them?

Even if you belong to these last ones, all is not lost for you. Let's start learning to love now, overcoming our vices, and God will give us His spark. And if we intensify our work when falling in love comes, then we will keep it and in time we will know the depth of true love.

How to work on yourself?

You need to overcome bad habits and do good deeds. Good deeds - only really good ones - are necessary to bring us closer to love. Because a person usually does good out of love. And if we, not yet having love in ourselves, are already trying to do good, love gradually grows in us.

But what if you are already married and are afraid of losing the love that you have?

If you are afraid of losing, then you will find the courage to work. Family life is in itself a school of love. She constantly, several times a day, puts us before the question: “Who will I obey, my love or my vices?” This question arises when the wife asks (or does not ask) to take out the trash can when we are lying on the couch. This question arises when the husband came home late from work. This question always arises when our selfishness tries to get the better of our love. Always say to yourself, "I choose love." As one well-known man confessed in his essay, he, after many ordeals of family life, made it a rule never to allow himself to say even in his mind about his wife: "I don't love." This is a wonderful recipe. It just means that a person always chooses love between passions and love. He made this a rule for himself, because he knows that he wants to keep this love for life. It takes effort and patience. But love rewards all efforts with a vengeance!

Overcoming love addiction

To the question of how to overcome the tendency to love addiction, I will answer with a figurative example.

Imagine two countries - Russia and Belarus. Russia has oil fields, Belarus does not. Therefore, Belarus is dependent on oil supplies from Russia. This is an unpleasant state for Belarus, which leads to conflicts between the two countries.

How can Belarus get out of this dependence?

Whatever values Belarus offers Russia for oil, dependence will still remain. And if, instead of Russia, Belarus buys oil in another country, it will again be a dependence. Therefore, there is only one way out of dependence - to look for and discover oil deposits on its territory and start extracting it. If Belarus produces a lot of oil, then Belarus will not only cease to be dependent on oil-producing countries, but will itself become a country on which others will depend.

The same is true for people. In order to stop depending on the warmth, love of people, you need to start generating this warmth, this love in yourself and sharing it with people.

Another example is from astronomy. There are stars - hot celestial bodies that emit light. And there are black holes - superdense cosmic bodies, which, due to their monstrous gravity, do not release anything from themselves, not even light, they only attract and absorb. In this example, the addict is like a black hole, and the stars are kind, generous people.

This means that a person ceases to be dependent if he begins to shine on other people and warm them with his warmth.

What is oil in the first example and light in the second? The “resource” that all people need so much is love. This is the scarcest and most expensive resource in our time. No matter what anyone says about the value of money, fame, power, pleasure, without love, all these things are not encouraging. And the one who has love is happy, even if he has nothing else.

Therefore, when we, overcoming our addiction, learn to shine on people, we need to carefully look so that our love is exactly true selfless love. And not by mercenary trade - I do or give you something material, and in return I expect gratitude or love. This is what dependent women do in marriage, and then they are surprised: “How is it, I gave everything to him, lived for him, and he left, ungrateful!” No, you didn't give him everything. You gave him only time and labor. It's great if it's done out of love. And you gave him your time in an unconscious calculation of his love. That is, at the level of love, you were a vampire, tormenting him with expressed and silent expectations. And it is not surprising that he could not endlessly be a donor (although outwardly he could seem like a lazy person giving nothing).

Therefore, let us learn true love, true selfless luminosity. Remember, as in Mayakovsky: “Shine always, shine everywhere, until the last days of the bottom, shine and no nails! Here is my slogan and the sun!”

The question may arise - where can Belarus get oil if it simply does not exist on the land of Belarus?

This is where love differs from oil. If there is oil, it is there until you use it up. And love comes when you give it. And the more you use it, the more it is in your reservoirs. By striving for true love, by doing genuine good deeds, you will see how your heart is filled with love.

Love does not come from nowhere, just as life does not come from nothing. Love has a Source - like an inexhaustible reservoir of oil, like an endless ocean of light, in which there are more stars than molecules in the ocean.

This Source is so rich and so generous that it gives us love without demanding anything for Itself and only rejoices because it fills us with love.

The time will come - and if you follow the path of love and want your love to be perfect, you will discover this Source for yourself, then you will see that you have found more than you were looking for ...

Dmitry Semenik

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This is one of the most mysterious categories of human existence. On the one hand, we cannot imagine our life without it, we are looking for and waiting for it, we value it above everything in the world.

On the other hand, invariably chanting this bright feeling, mankind in its entire centuries-old history has not found a more or less clear definition for it. An amazing picture emerges: everyone knows, but no one can really say what exactly it is about. And others, on the basis of their own sad statistics, even begin to doubt its existence. Maybe it's really time to understand, finally, that there is no love? There is passion, attraction, fear of loneliness, habit, comfort, falling in love, madness, sex, calculation, instinct. And there is no love. Understand it and calm down. And to do specific everyday things, without wasting time on meaningless searches and expectations. And everyone will be happy...

Ode to love

Putting aside groundless optimism and excessive pathos, let's say right away and without bluntness: Love exists . Moreover, it is nothing but the basis of our existence.

Young children do not ask philosophical questions, but they are the ones who know the answers best of all. Look at the baby, open to people and confident in their friendliness. He breathes the love of those around him, feeds on it, grows stronger thanks to it. There is a lot of evidence that without love and warmth, children die. Love is necessary for the formation of the personality of the child, just as food and oxygen are necessary for the growth of his bodily shell. He does not yet know about the tricks and tricks of this world, and therefore loves and believes without fear. And it helps him survive.

What's in the minds of teenagers? What do young maidens dream about when they walk under the moonlight on summer evenings? All about the same, about happy love. Of course, in youth we understand it somewhat differently than in early childhood. But the essence remains the same - we crave affection, emotional intimacy with another person. We see the main task of our life in finding such relationships, they seem to us overvalued. In fact, it is. Whether we like it or not, love always, throughout life, remains for us "a matter of prime necessity." “It is not good for a man to be alone,” God said looked at Adam, and made him a wife. Since then, every human person comes into the world with an urgent need to love and be loved. And this need does not diminish with age.

We cannot be happy, our life will not take place without our acceptance and awareness of our own "I". And the “I” of each person is revealed due to the meeting with another “I”, that is, with “you”. To be ourselves, we need to see ourselves reflected in someone else's eyes.

Happiness - if we are reflected in the eyes of a loving person, because the one who loves accepts and appreciates us for who we are, without requiring any proof of our significance from us.

Want a definition of love? Please. Love is a continuous confirmation of the uniqueness of another person. Uniqueness - that is, the totality of all qualities. "It's great that you are in this world!" - we constantly, without hesitation, send such a signal to the one we love. There is no room for judgments here. Love does not judge, does not seek its own benefit, does not compare, does not blame, does not look for flaws and does not determine merits. It is impossible to love FOR some specific merits, because then you will have to dislike for weaknesses and blunders. Each person has both strengths and weaknesses, and if you love, then you love everything - both those native eyes, and the wrinkles around them, which inexorably multiply over the years, and the figure that changes, perhaps not for the better with the birth of children, and difficult, but "the most wonderful in the world" character.

A loved one cannot be divided into advantages and disadvantages, he simply exists and thereby brings us joy.

This is the attitude we seek in love. After all, nothing fills life with more joy and inspiration, does not cause a greater desire to move on, as a full and unconditional recognition of the value and uniqueness of our personality. It is no coincidence that, being in a state of stable and reliable relationships, a person is most productive, full of ideas and creative forces.
Yes, life is rarely like a fairy tale. We ourselves are not perfect, and therefore our relationships are full of flaws. And as a result, the feeling given to us for joy often turns into its complete opposite - it becomes a source of pain and suffering. Well, this does not refute its true purpose.

Love is a gift, and gifts must be handled.

About the dangers of common truths

Man is an antinomic being. To achieve spiritual harmony, he sometimes needs to simultaneously solve seemingly mutually exclusive tasks. So the need for love exists in us side by side with another, no less important - the need for separation, independence and freedom. Paradox? Not at all - elementary logic. In order to be aware of your feelings, you need to be aware of yourself, and self-awareness begins with feeling the boundaries of your personality and separating yourself from others. Can we say that our arm or leg hurts if we do not feel our own body? If we don't know which leg is ours and which belongs to someone else? Similarly, it is impossible to understand your feelings without feeling the boundaries of your soul. Before you say the cherished “I love you”, it would be nice to realize what kind of “I” we are talking about and what I mean by the word “love”. Of course, we are all adults and are used to considering ourselves fully accomplished individuals who understand the meaning of the words we utter. But still…

"I am you, you are me"- Murat Nasyrov sang, and thousands of voices enthusiastically echoed him, unanimously agreeing with such a formulation of an ideal love relationship. Indeed, nothing can compare with the charm of incipient love, with the delight that you experience when you meet a loved one on your way. Together with him, it is as if you find yourself again. We are no longer alone! After all, next to us there is someone who feels, thinks, breathes with us in unison. We are so similar, we are so comfortable together. It seems that there is no greater happiness than to merge, dissolve in each other, become one.
However, sooner or later, in a tight ring of hugs, it becomes crowded. There is a desire to slightly unclench your hands, to step back a little, to feel yourself again. And if this does not work out, tender hugs turn into a hard vice, the union from voluntary becomes forced. But in love we are looking not for prison, but for freedom. And this is quite natural: happiness cannot be forced.

“She loves him so much that she can’t live without him”, - we say, not even suspecting that the second part of the phrase does not confirm the first in any way. Love is always a free choice. A person for whom a partner becomes the main condition for survival, in fact, has no choice. He maintains relationships not because he likes them, but because without them he simply cannot exist. No matter how cruel conditions he is placed in, he will endure and adapt, if only to maintain the union at any cost. After all, with his collapse, he risks losing himself. While suffocating, you do not evaluate the quality of the air you breathe - you inhale what is. "Without you, there is no me..."- Well, who will voluntarily agree "not to be"? We are more ready to put up with a flawed existence than to abandon it altogether.

The sacrifices that have to be made in this case can be extremely destructive. “He beats means he loves”, “I love him so much that I can endure everything from him” ... What kind of suffering is not justified by love! In reality, we are talking about a completely different feeling - about addiction, insidiously and imperceptibly sneaking into love and distorting its true meaning.

Dances, princes and Chinese philosophy

American psychologist Paul Mayer compares the union of love with a pair dance on ice. Two skaters move to the same melody. “They rush along the side hand in hand, clinging to each other and, as it were, making up one whole. Here they are moving apart and begin to describe diverging circles on the ice, and then they come together and slide together again ... ”Of course, both are tuned to the same wave, listen to each other, correlate their movements with each other. But still it is a dance of two separate artists. Each of them is individual and valuable in itself. And the better the dancers control their own body, the more virtuoso their joint performance is. What happens if the union suddenly breaks up? Can they dance alone? Of course. Let it be a completely different, solo dance, but the skill level of the skaters will not suffer from this.

Now imagine a dancer who is unable to skate without support, going out on the ice with the expectation that he will be “pulled out” by a stronger partner. It is unlikely that the performance of such a duet will be distinguished by inspiration and looseness of movements. Rather, it can be assumed that one will cling to the second with all his might, paralyzing his movements. One will think only about how to stay on his feet, the other about how to keep him. There's no time for creativity - not to fall.

But it also happens quite differently. Sometimes life turns into waiting and searching: “That's when I will meet him (her), then ...” Until he has met, one can only dream and hope. Time seems to freeze, the events taking place at the moment seem insignificant. This is not life yet - this is its rehearsal, and real life will begin after the cherished meeting. "Where is the one who will make me happy?" - a myriad of women trampled their shoes in search of such selfless men. Looking around, it is easy to see that not many have succeeded. And the point is not at all in luck and not in the fact that men are now crushed, and the knights have died. It's just that no one will make a person happy until he himself learns to be one. If we live with a sense of inferiority, the "unstructured" of our own personality and our own life, no handsome prince can fill our inner emptiness. Any, even the most reliable support is not enough for someone who does not know how to skate. No matter how hard our partner tries, we, as "inept figure skaters", will always be dissatisfied with the quality of the "dance", we will crave more and more confirmations of love, but we will never have enough. Such "love" is extremely demanding and insatiable.

The person who coined the phrase "Looking for my soul mate", obviously, did not differ in personal maturity. However, this insidious analogy has surprisingly firmly taken root in our minds and continues to lure new victims into its poetic nets. Still would! After all, it's so beautiful - to feel with a partner a kind of black and white circle, a kind of yin and yang, tightly pressed against each other. However, try to separate these halves of the ancient Chinese character. You will get two independent figures, each of which in itself has a very finished shape and clearly defined boundaries. But this cannot be said about a person who feels the fragility and uncertainty of his independent existence. So another image suggests itself - an inept skater, convulsively clinging to a partner, without which he cannot stand on his feet. And this, you see, is not so poetic at all.

About extremes that converge

Dependent relationships look different. It can be a despotic husband and a downtrodden wife. Or, on the contrary, a henpecked man and a self-confident woman, sighing that she got such a "klut". There are a lot of scenarios according to which addiction works. But for all the seeming differences, they are united by one thing - there is no happiness in these unions, because there is no freedom in them. Both partners cause each other suffering, regularly come to the conclusion that this can no longer continue, and yet remain in their roles. Something stubbornly keeps them in the circumstances, something prevents them from abandoning traumatic relationships, changing or interrupting them. This is something - the lack of clear boundaries of personality. Dependent unions are the lot of "inept skaters", those who feel insecure in the living space, and therefore are in dire need of a strong partner. But to find such an altruistic dancer, ready to bring his vital interests to the altar of someone else's helplessness, is almost impossible.

In creative duets, partners are usually at the same level of professional skill - otherwise their joint work will be ineffective or will not make sense at all. According to the same law, in life we strive for those who are at the same level of personal maturity with us - such people are closer to us, more understandable, more interesting, it is easier to reach mutual understanding and establish contact with them. If we feel like “halves”, that is, we are not aware of our completeness, then it is precisely such “halves”, the same “inept skaters”, who are looking for someone to grab onto in order to feel more stable, will attract us. This is how co-dependent relationships arise, in which each of the partners seeks to find their identity in the other.

Such unions cause a lot of pain, but the dependent person does not accept other relationships. For example, the wife of an alcoholic can hardly be considered a happy woman, but she cannot be called a passive victim of circumstances either. Her fate is her choice. As paradoxical as it sounds, she needs a dependent husband no less than he needs her.

People with insufficiently secure self-identity and an underdeveloped capacity for setting boundaries fall into two categories:

some take on someone else's burden and neglect their own,
others shift their burden onto others.

First type- these are super-responsible, very caring "donors" who always have too many responsibilities. Second- irresponsible people in need of care. These two types are looking for each other, trying to make up for the lack of self-sufficiency. The over-responsible finds someone to be responsible for. A person with undeveloped responsibility, in turn, is looking for a guardian, dreaming that he would set boundaries for him. The family of an alcoholic is one of the options for developing such relationships. Controlling her unreliable husband, taking on his family responsibilities and his responsibility, a woman gains a sense of her own significance and self-worth, the very one that she so lacked in her independent life. Without such a husband, she is a “half”, next to him she has a feeling of integrity. The only trouble is that this feeling is imaginary.

In co-dependent relationships, partners are fed by a common illusion: "The closer I am to you, the clearer my identity." In reality, excessive intimacy leads to exactly the opposite results - it fetters, enslaves, drives into a corner. Both partners are suffocated by this bondage, but they cannot give each other more freedom. After all, it is worth one to take a step back, the self-identity of the second will be threatened. Such a pair resembles Siamese twins. If they are separated, they may die, but together, most likely, they will not survive either. With emotional codependency, partners feel that they cannot stand separation from each other, but their union also turns out to be destructive.

Codependent relationships are not always easy to recognize, sometimes from the outside they seem just perfect. They may not have alcoholism or any other obvious manifestations of psychological dependence. It's not about that. True love differs from dependence in the position of partners, in whether they cling to each other or their life together consists of two independent lives. It is important that they say, declaring their love: “I Want live with you" or "I I can not live without you". After all, it's not the same thing at all.

Where does the search lead?

If you suddenly discover in yourself a lack of self-sufficiency, a lack of clear boundaries and an inability to independently manage your life, do not rush to conclusions: this is not only your problem. No one has perfect boundaries. We all sometimes take on someone else's burden or do not want to bear our own. In the end, we are nothing more than just people, and therefore we can make mistakes. And if these mistakes do not cause serious damage to your life, if you are generally satisfied with the way your relationship with your loved one develops, you should not worry too much about small mistakes.

If you have changed many partners, but none of them justified your expectations; if your marriage has come to a standstill and you see no way out either in divorce or in continuing the relationship; if your first husband was an alcoholic, the second left his entire salary in slot machines, and the third one disappears at work around the clock (or does not want to work at all); if you have the feeling that you are constantly stepping on the same rake - in these and similar situations, it's time to think about where your addiction is hiding. Where your borders are not solid but dotted. Where you need to improve your skills as a single skater so that a joint dance begins to bring satisfaction, not suffering. You will have to deal with yourself, no matter how great the temptation to discover and begin to eradicate these shortcomings in a partner. And what, in fact, can we achieve from him if we ourselves do not really stand on our own two feet?

If we do not recognize our boundaries, do not protect our dignity, do not see the limits of our own responsibility, in the same way we will not be able to notice the boundaries of another person, respect his dignity, recognize his responsibility. If we do not understand the value of our own personality, then the value of another person in our eyes will be doubtful. Therefore, before demanding love from others, think about how you perceive yourself. Is there attention, recognition, gratitude, care in your attitude towards yourself - in a word, all those manifestations of love that you expect from others. If you can't stand tobacco smoke, will you tolerate people smoking in your face? Can you take care of yourself in this situation? Or is it easier for you to protect other people's interests than your own? Well, if your needs don't seem that big to you, it's no surprise that others don't pay attention to them either.

Well, as always: you start a conversation about high matters, about love for your neighbor, and as a result - again about yourself. So what to do? You can run away from others, but not from yourself. Children grow up and leave, partners ..., their constancy is also always in question. Our "I" - this is the main support, this is the only thing you can count on in life. We have to respect it and protect it. So before you say “It's great to have you in this world!” to someone, learn to say it while looking in the mirror.

True, there is another way out: not to learn anything, but to lock your heart with a key, convince yourself that there is no love, and stay away from all attachments in order to avoid new disappointments. After all, by opening our heart to another, we risk being rejected, ridiculed, betrayed, insulted. Nobody is immune from this.

Life is generally dangerous. It gives us very few guarantees, but for some reason we value it as the greatest value. Maybe just because there is love in it. And if so, then it’s worth taking a chance and letting this mysterious feeling into your soul. And if you treat it as a gift, and not as a punishment, it will transform our lives, even if it remains unshared. The main thing is that love lives within us. After all, without love, everything is nothing.

Mind without love makes a person SMART.
Faith without love makes a person a FANATIC.
Honor without love makes a person arrogant.
Power without love makes a person a rapist.
Truth without love makes a person a CRITICAN.
Wealth without love makes a person greedy.
Education without love makes a person TWO-FACED.
Duty without love makes a person IRRITABLE.
Friendliness without love makes a person a hypocrite.
Justice without love makes a person cruel.
Competence without love makes a person UNCOMPENDABLE.
Responsibility without love makes a person UNCERTAIN.

Text: journalist Evgenia Vlasova ()