entertains, educates & inspires marriages
Find Marriage Answers
life advice
Why It’s Not Enough to Expect Love from Your PartnerWe often place love and joy in a context of receiving it... perhaps we have it backwards.
Pixabay
In order to feel joy the power is locked within each of us.
“ Knowing that joy comes from loving rather than being loved, you’ll want to love as much and as frequently as you can.”
|
An excerpt from "The New Model of Love: Naturally Supercharge Your Relationships"
The old model of love stipulates that you derive joy from being loved. However, you don’t experience the joy of being loved. And having more people love you doesn’t increase the joy you experience. Despite all the flaws of the old model, we have held on tight to that model because we haven’t seen a different model. This different model is the new model of love.
The new model of love states that being loved gives you zero joy. No joy whatsoever. And any joy you feel that seemingly comes from being loved comes from you doing the loving. Loving gives you joy; being loved does not.
You no longer need to worry about whether your partner loves you. Whether they love you or not is none of your concern because their love does not affect your level of joy.
In the past, [my wife] Brigitte often asked me whether I loved her. She needed the assurance that I still did love her because she couldn’t tell whether I did from my actions or words. She wanted me to tell her I love her every day. Relationship experts speak from the old model of love when they advise you to tell your partner you love them every day.
However, I knew I loved her, so I didn’t feel the need to tell her every day; she should have known from my actions. Everything I did was for her, yet she didn’t see it. She would often see the contrary, despite all my efforts.
The new model of love will relieve Brigitte of the need to worry about whether I love her because whether I do love her doesn’t affect the level of joy in her life. All the joy she might experience comes from her loving me, not me loving her. So, to ask whether I love her is pointless.
She need only worry about whether she loves me, for whether she loves me directly and palpably affects her level of joy. The more she loves me, the more love she experiences. The more love she has for me, the more joy she experiences. My love within the context of the new model of love is irrelevant to the level of joy she experiences. Only her love is relevant within that context.
The old model of love, where rejection means certain death before the age of twelve, no longer applies for people above age twelve. Beyond this age of independence, rejection may still feel like you’re going to die, but in reality, you cannot die. Beyond this age, you can survive without adult love and care, so rejection is no longer a threat to your life or well-being.
You’re stuck in the old model of love. It still feels like you’re going to die, so you avoid rejection. One way to avoid rejection is to prevent the possibility of rejection. You avoid putting yourself in vulnerable positions where you could get rejected. However, this avoidance almost certainly guarantees you never get a chance to experience love. You deprive yourself of the joy that comes with loving others.
The fear of rejection is the fear of others not reciprocating your love. In the new model of love, you need not worry about rejection because you don’t need their love. You know their love has nothing to do with the level of joy you experience. As such, you don’t care whether they love you or not. The only determinant of your level of joy is your love for them. If they don’t reciprocate your love, you can still fully experience the joy of loving them. The loss is theirs because they don’t get the opportunity to love you and experience the joy of loving you.
Imagine offering a delicious dessert to your object of love. You say, "Come eat this exquisite dessert with me." If they decline your invitation, in the old model of love, you get upset, and you refuse to eat the dessert as well. You forgo the benefit of the dessert just because another declines your invitation to join you in benefiting from it. Getting upset and no longer loving them just because they reject you is akin to refusing the dessert just because they refuse to eat it.
Whether they eat the dessert has no bearing on your enjoyment of the dessert, unless you refuse to eat it too. Not eating it is analogous to no longer loving them just because they refuse to love you.
Knowing that joy comes from loving rather than being loved, you’ll want to love as much and as frequently as you can. In relationships, you’ll want to love as much, as often, and as long as you can. You won’t want to stop loving your partner, no matter what he or she does.
We often place a condition on loving. However, in the new model of love, you now understand that if you withdraw your love, it is you who will suffer and not the person you love. Withdrawal of your love means you stop experiencing the joy of loving. It means you stop eating your dessert.
A refugee, an engineer, a business development manager, a banker, a product manager, and an investor, Charles Lim Wu is the author of "The New Model of Love: Naturally Supercharge Your Relationships" and the creator of a new movement called Modelism. Wu is a successful investor in real estate, shares, and start-ups. Visit him online at www.thenewmodeloflove.com.
The old model of love stipulates that you derive joy from being loved. However, you don’t experience the joy of being loved. And having more people love you doesn’t increase the joy you experience. Despite all the flaws of the old model, we have held on tight to that model because we haven’t seen a different model. This different model is the new model of love.
The new model of love states that being loved gives you zero joy. No joy whatsoever. And any joy you feel that seemingly comes from being loved comes from you doing the loving. Loving gives you joy; being loved does not.
You no longer need to worry about whether your partner loves you. Whether they love you or not is none of your concern because their love does not affect your level of joy.
In the past, [my wife] Brigitte often asked me whether I loved her. She needed the assurance that I still did love her because she couldn’t tell whether I did from my actions or words. She wanted me to tell her I love her every day. Relationship experts speak from the old model of love when they advise you to tell your partner you love them every day.
However, I knew I loved her, so I didn’t feel the need to tell her every day; she should have known from my actions. Everything I did was for her, yet she didn’t see it. She would often see the contrary, despite all my efforts.
The new model of love will relieve Brigitte of the need to worry about whether I love her because whether I do love her doesn’t affect the level of joy in her life. All the joy she might experience comes from her loving me, not me loving her. So, to ask whether I love her is pointless.
She need only worry about whether she loves me, for whether she loves me directly and palpably affects her level of joy. The more she loves me, the more love she experiences. The more love she has for me, the more joy she experiences. My love within the context of the new model of love is irrelevant to the level of joy she experiences. Only her love is relevant within that context.
The old model of love, where rejection means certain death before the age of twelve, no longer applies for people above age twelve. Beyond this age of independence, rejection may still feel like you’re going to die, but in reality, you cannot die. Beyond this age, you can survive without adult love and care, so rejection is no longer a threat to your life or well-being.
You’re stuck in the old model of love. It still feels like you’re going to die, so you avoid rejection. One way to avoid rejection is to prevent the possibility of rejection. You avoid putting yourself in vulnerable positions where you could get rejected. However, this avoidance almost certainly guarantees you never get a chance to experience love. You deprive yourself of the joy that comes with loving others.
The fear of rejection is the fear of others not reciprocating your love. In the new model of love, you need not worry about rejection because you don’t need their love. You know their love has nothing to do with the level of joy you experience. As such, you don’t care whether they love you or not. The only determinant of your level of joy is your love for them. If they don’t reciprocate your love, you can still fully experience the joy of loving them. The loss is theirs because they don’t get the opportunity to love you and experience the joy of loving you.
Imagine offering a delicious dessert to your object of love. You say, "Come eat this exquisite dessert with me." If they decline your invitation, in the old model of love, you get upset, and you refuse to eat the dessert as well. You forgo the benefit of the dessert just because another declines your invitation to join you in benefiting from it. Getting upset and no longer loving them just because they reject you is akin to refusing the dessert just because they refuse to eat it.
Whether they eat the dessert has no bearing on your enjoyment of the dessert, unless you refuse to eat it too. Not eating it is analogous to no longer loving them just because they refuse to love you.
Knowing that joy comes from loving rather than being loved, you’ll want to love as much and as frequently as you can. In relationships, you’ll want to love as much, as often, and as long as you can. You won’t want to stop loving your partner, no matter what he or she does.
We often place a condition on loving. However, in the new model of love, you now understand that if you withdraw your love, it is you who will suffer and not the person you love. Withdrawal of your love means you stop experiencing the joy of loving. It means you stop eating your dessert.
A refugee, an engineer, a business development manager, a banker, a product manager, and an investor, Charles Lim Wu is the author of "The New Model of Love: Naturally Supercharge Your Relationships" and the creator of a new movement called Modelism. Wu is a successful investor in real estate, shares, and start-ups. Visit him online at www.thenewmodeloflove.com.
Leave a Comment
|
|
|
|
threshold | life | money | sex | blog | married life social network | partners | directory | wine club | podcasts | newsletters | subscribe | advertise | contact us | press releases | archives | privacy policy
Copyright © 2023 Hitched Media, Inc. All rights reserved. | hitched - entertains, educates & inspires marriages |
