Beauty and passion are not love. Love is a choice. We can only love people if we unconditionally accept them, warts and all.
This can be a hard statement to swallow. I know, I have struggled with it since puberty.
Take a moment and evaluate why you love your significant other. Or what you want in a significant other if you are still searching for “the one.”
Go past the physical…go deeper.
Seriously, beauty changes. For example, when I was in high school, Kate Moss was the ideal of feminine beauty. Today, it’s Chloe Kardashian. These two women couldn’t be more different! Why should I hold myself or my partner up to these standards?
Ask yourself, what are the qualities you value in a partner?
Wait, don’t make it about fulfilling your needs. You are the only person that can complete you! (Ignore all those unrealistic Hollywood standards! You are smarter than that!)
In the past, I often jokingly said, “I would never divorce my husband because I trained him, so why would I let another woman benefit from my hard work?”
This thinking is insulting to my husband and myself. He isn’t a dog. I don’t need to improve him. I need to unconditionally accept him for who he is…no limitations, no standards—just acceptance.
Sounds easy, right? It’s not. But I put the effort in every single day.
William Shakespeare helped me with this. My favorite love poem is Sonnet 130. I’ll share it with you now. I added the emphasis.
My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips’ red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.
Ok, once you get past the ol’ timey language and listen to what he is saying, the message is beautiful.
He loves her because she isn’t perfect. He loves her because of her flaws. He knows she’ll age, as beauty always does, and he doesn’t care…why?
Because love is unconditional. It always has been that way; we just forget in this modern world.
So finally, make that list of what you value in your partner and love unconditionally.
