What Real Love Looks Like

Most people are confused about what’s love and what isn’t. You may have a rush of heat when a man walks in. Maybe love’s scary and exciting, like sky diving. Or safe and comforting, like a fire in the fireplace on a cold night.

Not everyone wants the same kind of love.

There are some constants, though. When you truly love someone, some actions and motivations will always be there, no matter who you are or what kind of relationship you want. In his book, The Last Lecture, Randy Pausch leaves this advice for his toddler daughter: Look at the guy's actions, not what he says. Knowing he won’t be there when she’s teenager entering the world of dating,a dying Pausch recommends his daughter take words of love with a grain of salt. Behavior, though, that tells a truer story.

When you are loved by someone, that person will generally place your best interests at a high premium. In other words, while he may not always put you first, the one who really loves you isn’t going to do what’s bad for you. It’s not love when another person acts out of his own fear and yells at you or hits you. That’s something other than love, no matter what you did.

A person who loves you will—most of the time—like and enjoy you, too.

This is tricky because sometimes the people we love do stupid, self-destructive things. It’s hard to like them then. But, overall, when you’re in a relationship, your significant other needs to like you…find you amusing and intriguing and interesting. All that makes relationships easier. There will be difficult times in all relationships. Liking one another makes it less difficult to work through conflicts.

The most elusive aspect of a loving relationship is that it makes you better. If the relationship you’re in drags you into bad, destructive behavior, you need to question the foundation of the interaction. Love makes you better. This isn’t to say that it’s always easy. Growth can be painful, frustrating and infuriating…but it helps you deal with stuff you need to handle.

It’s really important to realize, too, that love isn’t one-sided. This isn’t all about him or all about you. There needs to be a balance—a benefit to you both—or this isn’t good for either of you. You need to be challenged to grow, face your fears, believe in yourself. Your partner needs the same.

If you find yourself in a relationship that encourages you to sever connections with those who’ve been important to you—if the relationship only thrives when the two of you are isolated from others--this isn't love. You might need to end some destructive, bad relationships, but most likely, not all your other relationships. You can’t live a life with only one person in your world.

Does being with your lover make you better? This is the bottom line. Love enhances. While it doesn’t always make life easy, love helps you become who you want to be. Before you jump into a major life change, make sure the relationship you’re in is good for you.

"He's So Controlling!"

Some people need to be told what to do. At least, that’s what he says when you protest his dictating to you. Or maybe that’s what you think about him. When you’re in a relationship, you are affected by the other person’s behavior. Your partner is impacted by your choices, too, so he gets to tell you what to do, doesn’t he? Shouldn’t you have a right to say what your partner should do?

Maybe you should, but you don’t.

Generally, this issue comes up in intimate relationships or between parents and children. Every now and then, a person seems to want to manage everything about everyone. You might have had a boss like this.

Like so many of your relationship conflicts, it doesn’t usually start with wanting to do harm. You probably don't even think of it as you trying to be in charge all the time. But others don’t like being controlled (and those who do like it have other issues, all together). Your loved ones don’t like you telling them what to do. You probably don’t like being told what to do, either.

But the desire to manage your own feelings, can lead to you taking actions that others see as an attempt to control them.

The desire to control another person’s choices and behavior usually stems from two angles: 1.) you want to protect and/or guide someone you care about, 2.) Down deep, you’re trying to make sure you don’t get hurt. Both motivations for controlling someone’s behavior are motivated by a reasonable, some would say loving desire.

You don’t get to tell the people you love what to do. It may seem like you should be able to do this, but attempting to control others only leads to eventual heart break. In the beginning, your partner might see your controlling actions as charming because they indicate that you care. This won’t last. After a while, love gets worn down by attempts to control.

Relationships involve risk, as well as, big rewards. The risk of suffering loss and grief. The possibility of pain. But control—telling the other person what to do—doesn’t remove the risk.

Trying to control the other person implies a lack of trust. Sometimes, it seems like the controlling person doesn’t believe in his or her partner. Like you expect to get screwed. This subtle message has a debilitating effect on relationships. Control can also leave the impression that you think your significant other is foolish or clueless. Neither message makes your love one want to cuddle up next to you.

Control is the result of fear and anxiety. You can be loved—and can tolerate the risks in loving—without relying on putting a bit in your lover’s mouth. You can have faith, in both yourself and your mate.

Sadly, trying to manage another person to diminish the possibility of being hurt, actually has the opposite effect. You may be causing your own crisis.

Perfect Kid

First of all, there is no such thing. No matter how much energy you put into your parenting, no matter how smart and beautiful your kid is: Perfection isn’t a possibility. If you think your kid doesn’t screw up, doesn’t make ridiculous mistakes and bad choices, you’re not paying close enough attention.

The truth is that perfection, in this life, isn’t a possibility. Striving for it will narrow your world and hound you with the fear of—and the likelihood of—catastrophic failure. In fact, if you live a “perfect” life, any failure will feel catastrophic and failure isn’t avoidable. For you or for your kid. In fact, you need to make friends with failure yourself. Screwing up doesn’t feel good, but the avoidance of reaching out and not achieving will make for a sad life. You’ll find yourself not reaching out unless you can be assured of success and when does that happen?

You may have surrounded your kid with the best, given her everything you didn’t have. Been there for her despite not having had a parent stand by you. You’ve probably put a lot into your parenting. Heartache and money. You’ve tried to give your daughter or son everything within your power. You may have lavished time and money on him. Maybe you even gave him too much, but he never went without(like you may have).

But perfection isn’t achievable. It’s not even a smart goal. You won’t get there and neither will your kids.

Your kids are no more perfect than you. Like you, they screw up sometimes. Some of their mistakes will seem understandable to you. Not that big a deal, really. The kid may be crying and wallowing in remorse and you’re shrugging. (Actually, the more remorse a kid has, the more easy you’re likely to feel.) Still, there will be mistakes that shake you.

Your child may steal from a friend or classmate when you’ve always prized honesty. He may lie to you when all you’ve asked is for him to tell you the truth. She may choose friends you know immediately are trouble. She may drink and drive as a teen. You probably say you don’t expect him to be perfect. You know he needs some learning experiences. Sadly, learning experiences don’t come to anyone without leaving a few scuffs.

Just expect your kid to screw up. Sometimes in a big way. You can minimize this by stressing the ability to make choices. You’d be surprised how many kids don’t see their own power. This is one of the hardest parts of parenting, but you really want your kid to have some experiences that come only through making mistakes. You want them to strike out on their own and make bad choices. Don’t rescue them from their consequences. They really need these to learn. And you want them to choose these bad choices earlier, rather than later. The consequences of earlier bad choices are smaller than the choices people make as they get into adulthood.

The kids you see on news magazine stories—the bright and wealthy youngsters who make really, really bad choices—they didn’t think about the outcome of their behavior. You want your kid to get a specific link between action and consequence. Don’t rescue them and don’t distract them from their consequences by yelling and screaming more than you can help. You don’t want them to miss the consequence and just remember that you got mad.

Don’t aim for a perfect kid with a perfect, unmussed life. Instead, try to be the best you. Parent as authentically as you can. Look at your own struggles and learn from them.

Your kids are watching. Hopefully, they’ll get helpful messages.

Love Without Pain

The problem with loving another person is that you automatically care what happens to them. You care what they do or what others do to them. They matter to you.

They are significant to you. Where there is significance, there is the possibility—let’s be honest—the probability of emotional distress. Pain. The old saying that you only hurt the ones you love, may be just part of the range of possibilities. But if anyone’s gonna hurt, it’ll be someone who cares.

It’s only natural to try to minimize this. Some individuals believe that keeping a grip on loved ones is a good defensive maneuver. After all, who doesn’t want some power in a relationship? Most people will say they look for a partner who’s trustworthy. One they know will never hurt them; someone who will always behave in a loving way. None of us want to get involved with people who’ll cheat, lie about money or fail to commit to the relationship.

But lots of people end up in just this situation.

Sometimes there is no huge betrayal. Sometimes you just can’t make a relationship work. There is no way to guarantee that love won’t involve loss and pain. Still, even when you’re just trying for self-preservation, power can seem like a dirty word. Kind of like control. If you’re running the risk of being hurt, shouldn’t you be able to tell your partner who to talk to and what they can do?

Sadly, no. If you love another person—be it a partner or a child or your sister—you put yourself in the position of feeling pain when they’re hurt. When they hurt themselves or when they forget to make your experience a priority. It sucks, but it’s pretty non-negotiable. When you try to control the other person’s behavior, like not allowing your partner to drive a motorcycle or bungee jump, you interfere with their choices. You also run the risk of your loved one coming to resent you.

Resentment is relationship poison.

Many people believe that relationship confers the power of being able to tell the other person what to do. Usually the argument goes that the other person gets to tell you what to do, too. But even then, this doesn’t work. People feel unfree and resist being told what to do or you don’t realize everything you needed to tell your partner.

Loving another person means putting yourself in a vulnerable position. You love, you care. The tricky part is that you cannot control another person, in order to protect yourself, without negative consequences in the relationship. If you try to tell your loved one how not to hurt you, you run the risk of introducing major complications into the relationship.

You get to decide how you function in the relationship--and functioning well can be a challenge. Handling your personal issues is a big job. It's what you need to focus on, however. The only control you really have over the other person's behavior is your power to decide whether or not you're in the relationship. If you are a loving individual, there’s a good chance that the person in the relationship with you—partner, child, sibling, whatever—will care about the relationship. They will not want to impact you and will hopefully be aware of how their choices impact you.

There is no guarantee, however. Your loved ones may choose foolish, stupid, thoughtless things. They may take actions that leave you shaking your head and leave your heart feeling bruised. You may try talking to your loved one and still nothing changes. Sadly, at this point, you can stay and watch. Or walk away.

This may sound harsh, but it is ultimately your only ability to manage the impact on you. You have to decide. If you have a sibling whose life choices are self-destructive or a parent who refuses to care for himself, you might be best served to put distance in the relationship. You don’t have to cut them out of your life, but you need to accept their choices and put some distance between you to buffer your own heart.

Distance in a relationship can feel wrong. This kind of situation can hurt like nothing else and it is a choice only you can make.

Love fills up and enriches life. It also brings vulnerability, but walling yourself off in a self-protective, relationship-avoidant mode hurts worse. Actually hurts your health. All you can do is love and accept…sometimes, that’s really hard.

You Can't Always See the Results

Every action has a result…it just may not be immediate. Some people struggle with seeing the consequences when it comes to choices they make. One definition of insanity is to repeat the same actions, thinking you’ll get a different result, but what if the result isn’t clear right away. The tendency for many is to keep making the same choices. Individuals tend to keep trying things that are comfortable for them, but it’s important to recognize the power of these actions.

Every action has a reaction; every choice has a consequence. You just might not see it right away.

We learn through consequences following choices. Some choices result in good things—showing up on time and doing a good job generally results in the boss valuing the employee. (This may not always be true, but it is more often than not.) Smile at ten strangers in a day and chances are you’ll get more people smiling back than not.

Your behavior has consequences.

Actions lead to reaction. Stealing from the company, generally results in being fired and, maybe, prosecution. Incarceration is a likelihood for those who break the law. Running out into traffic usually ends in getting hit by a car. Cheating on your income tax gives you a higher likelihood of owing penalties to the IRS.

Choice and consequences.

We get confused, though, when the consequences of an action are delayed. Eating poorly, getting no exercise and smoking will result in diminished health and a greater likelihood of an earlier, uglier death. But you don’t die from one puff of a cigarette or one very fatty meal and, besides, people who eat disgustingly healthy and run marathons can die of a heart attack, too. But statistics tell us it’s much less likely.

Some choices are incremental, small steps that, if continued, will lead you in a specific direction. Just not quickly. We can't always see what we're choosing. Immediate consequences are so much more clear. Stick your hand in the fire, get burned. Now that’s immediate.

Delayed consequences can be just as harmful as ones that follow right after an action. But you might not see the results. You might get tempted into thinking that the choice doesn’t lead to a specific outcome. There are spouses who cheat and never get caught. There are cheaters who’s marital partners decide to look the other way, for a variety of reasons…. But cheating is a leading cause of disrupted relationships. Cheating ends marriages. Maybe you don’t get caught the first time you stray, though. You might get away with it, and then you might think your actions in this area have no consequence. But even if a wronged spouse looks the other way, the relationship suffers. Emotional dry rot.

Think hard about the choices you make. This is your power. This is how you exert some control over your life. You’ll probably have things you don’t like happen in your life, things that are not a result of any choice you make. You don’t have absolute control, but that doesn’t mean it makes sense not to use the power you do have.

Choices. Certain actions lead to specific reactions. Choose what you want.

Strive for Spectacular Failure

You’re not always going to be right or act right, no matter what. That’s just a reality of life. But avoiding failure at all costs, costs way too much.

In The Last Lecture, a new book by Randy Pausch, a computer science professor diagnosed with terminal cancer, the author talks about going for your dreams. He advocates pursuing the things that really matter to you, even if you’re not sure you can reach these. Even if you’re afraid you can’t reach them. He’s even given awards to his students who have reached for—and failed to reach—high goals.

Failure isn’t lethal, but not trying anything new and risky may kill the life in your life.

There’s no denying that it feels bad to fail. The fear of this experience is pretty much universal. Most of us hate failing. You can’t live an engaged, successful life, though, by staying in bed with the covers over your head.

Some individuals grew up as “the good kid” in their family. Maybe another sibling got in trouble a lot. Maybe their parents gave them a preferential role. Regardless, there are some who are very attached to always being seen as doing the right thing. This can be a handicap because the process of making choices involves the possibility of making a choice with consequences you don’t like. This is how human beings learn. No risk means limited learning.

The important thing is to reach for what you want. Try big, new things. If you’re paying attention, you’ll find the lessons in your failures. Don’t ignore these. Take your failure and look at it as objectively as possible. Use it. With the information you can gather, you have a better chance of aiming more accurately next time. Any large endeavor will naturally involve learning. Learning brings with it the possibility—the probability—of failure. You will fail. You need to process these experiences in order to have a chance of reaching for and finding your dreams.

If you’re going out on a limb, make it a spectacular limb. Go for the gusto. Reach for your own dreams and know that these will evolve as you go. If you’re involved in pursuing what you want, you’ll get clearer about what you really want. Failure can help you with this.

Don’t be ashamed of failing. The greater loss is in not going after what you want.

Traumatized? The Unrecognized Reality

If you’ve ever witnessed a crime…ever been the victim of abuse, sexual or otherwise…ever served time in a combat zone…or been involved in a natural disaster, you may be suffering a post-traumatic reaction and not know it.

Traumatic situations leave a lingering stain on your psyche. This can lead to abusing alcohol or drugs and can make relationships difficult. You may struggle with depression or anxiety. Close associates might tell you that you have anger issues. All these feelings can be overwhelming. You might just think you’re crazy.

Maybe. Maybe not.

Traumatic events in your life might be having more of an effect than you think. The rapidly expanding field of neuroscience is discovering the process of brain development and how early childhood trauma can disregulate a child to the point of extreme dysfunction. These children are typically prone to respond to stress by shifting into a hyperarousal or disassociative state. This generally results in a higher than normal heart rate and other physical symptoms. Misbehavior is common. Traumatized kids may live in stress states. If they’re not understood, they can be labeled with a variety of inaccurate psychiatric diagnoses.

Exposure to traumatic events can have a significant impact on you, even when you’re an adult. Trauma survivors develop symptoms, in an attempt to find normal lives, that can be both distressing and harmful. Survivors tend to want to forget their horrific experiences and move on, but forgetting isn’t easy…and isn’t actually helpful.

Soldiers returning home from war have clearly been exposed to horrific images and terrifying events, but trauma can be just as dreadful when it’s closer to home. A larger percentage of individuals have suffered through traumatic episodes than previously recognized. If these events impact a large group of people (wars, bombings, etc) and gain a lot of media coverage, individuals usually know they’ve had some impact from the disturbing events. When the traumatic experience is less public---physical or sexual abuse as a child or adult, being involved in a significant traffic event, witnessing the violent or unexpected death of a loved one---some individuals swallow their distress and try their best to soldier on.

The result can be post-traumatic stress disorder that’s unrecognized and untreated. Like an internal injury, the impact on function is still present. Relationships can fall apart. Individuals may feel like they don’t know why they’re behaving the way they are.

There is help. With understanding and support, you can incorporate the event and move forward to live an unshadowed life. With knowledgeable professional intervention, individuals who’ve self-medicated through various means, or adopted other self-destructive habits, can be helped to heal.

Never think you can’t move forward. Sometimes, though, the crutch is more destructive than the original injury. Left untreated and harbored in the darkest parts of your mind and memories, traumatic events will do you harm. Talk to a knowledgeable professional. Don’t give up on yourself.