Romantic affection is a deeply innate human trait. No one really understands why or how it happens; it just does. But really, why do we develop romantic attachment towards someone else? When love is mentioned, the conventional understanding is some sweet, emotional, overwhelming feeling of infatuation, affection and butterflies-in-the-stomach feeling.
Falling in love runs deeper than that. Humans are more emotional than rational. We have emotional needs. The need to be understood, validated, desired and valued by someone else is innate in every person. Having affection for someone more often than not happens when we see that person with whom we can be open and transparent and yet still have all these emotional needs met in our interaction with them.
Falling in love is spontaneous and immediate and doesn’t feel like effort at all. But it’s the opposite when the conversation moves to sustaining a relationship. Staying fully committed to another person in a romantic relationship or marriage for life is not a walk in the park. For most of us, it doesn’t come naturally.
These days, love has been narrowed down to feelings, emotions, affections, and moments of overwhelming rush of emotions. No thanks to movies, fiction stories and social media for this myopic perspective of love. This only tells the beginning of a love story, which is very short-lived. The remaining part of any love experience with a person is taxing emotionally, mentally and psychologically. The excitement won’t always be there all the time, as fiction stories and movies make us believe. Relationships eventually transition from the effortless overflow of emotions into the phase where intentional building of a relationship needs to be done. This is where it gets difficult for most people.
A relationship is a union of people from different worlds. Everyone carries a personal history, their version of reality that is distinct from the other person's in varying degrees. Each person is a product of different childhood upbringings, cultural environments, family structures, and life experiences. These inform their assumptions, expectations, opinions and even morality. Two people can have contrary views on an issue and expectations at opposite ends of the spectrum on the same situation. One partner might have lived an experience daily for over a decade of their life that the other has never experienced for a minute. What’s obvious to one would be totally strange to the other. When any two persons decide to build a life together, friction is inevitable. How they manage this determines the success of their relationship. One might say, "Then just be with someone you’re compatible with." That’s not a solution; friction is bound to exist with any person. Siblings or even twins do disagree. Offense and conflict are the inevitable cost of community.
Qualities like patience, tolerance, forgiveness, grace, and kindness are necessary in relationships, and it has to be mutual. The fact that both persons involved (most relationships normally involve two persons, but we have seen interesting variations in recent times) are starting off from different life perspectives should ordinarily provoke mutual generosity of these virtues to preserve the relationship. It is even more necessary because their differences will not reveal themselves at the beginning, they only come to life when circumstances unveil who both are to each other. So, kindness and patience are very necessary otherwise, emotional reactions every time unfamiliar circumstances present themselves would collapse the relationship. A relationship must be treated as a breathing, living thing, because it is. Extra care, concern, and commitment are required to nurture any living thing (humans, plants and animals) from conception to maturity. A relationship must be treated that way.
Building a relationship involves continual adjustment. That is, from the point of differences that partners start from, both have to continually learn how to change to become more of what the other wants. They have to both adjust and compromise, with a mutual shedding off and replacement as appropriate to ensure their continuous existence as partners. Both partners must learn how the other thinks, feels, learns, resolves conflict, feels loved, etc. Over time in this journey of continual adjustment, communication begins to feel like telepathy. Both are now experts on each other mentally, emotionally and psychologically. Getting to this point is impossible without a daily dose of mutual forgiveness, overlooking, tolerance, endurance and a host of other virtues. Shared experiences and constant, transparent communication help to build trust in this journey. You learn to trust your partner because you see their heart fully every time, even when their actions seem not to be in your best interest.
Over time, the love crystallizes from emotions into one built on shared history, mutual perspectives, and daily efforts from both parties to become the best for each other. Love moves from just affection to tangible conviction. Many relationships never get to this stage because a lot of people give up too early. They expect the whole relationship to be as effortless as the affection that started it. The compromise and emotional restraint needed for a relationship to work are always too hard for most people.
Whenever there is friction, people assume it means the relationship itself shouldn't have been, and they break up. Conflict is just part of the process of learning how to build life with another person, not necessarily a sign of incompatibility. It is part of the process of learning to coexist. How long the cause of conflict persists after multiple resolutions or whether both parties are even open to conflict resolution are better indicators of incompatibility than the occurrence of conflict itself.
Many people fail to think of relationships as long-term commitments. This is something that must be understood right from the start. It is for the long haul, even if it is just a year. This mindset will make both partners be gentle and patient with each other, since they both have a long way to go together.
Love is a serious commitment. Emotions fluctuate, and affection can vary in intensity. But a relationship that will survive is one where the commitment of the partners transcends the presence or absence of any dwindling variable. Love is something that happens to people, but a relationship is something that you choose and commit to build.
When two people have decided to choose each other daily no matter what, that is the beginning of a relationship that lasts in love. The foundation of a relationship is the intensity of the affection at the beginning, but the strength of the commitment built on that affection is what ensures it endures.