Love is patient… Love is blind… Love is a choice… Love is a decision…
Love can actually be all about perspective.
What can begin as adorable quirks that make you smile to yourself about your beloved, over time can turn into irritating habits that cause friction. New love is a beautiful, exciting, exhilarating thing. In time, it will hopefully develop into old love – patient, deep, truthful and fulfilling.
If you are at a point (as everyone reaches) where there are niggles and resentments, take stock. Were these little foibles of your partner once endearing? Has your reaction changed, rather than their behaviour? Could a change in perspective bring about the peace and patience required to reach a new understanding?
Let’s look at a couple of typical scenarios and what perspective can do.
When you partner is busy around the house or in the garden and won’t stop to spend time with you
- You can choose to see them as neat-freaks, obsessed with appearances and disinterested in intimacy or:
- You can appreciate the effort they put in to make your home well-run, organised and a lovely place to be
When you have a difference of opinion
- You can argue and point out where they are wrong or:
- You can engage in an interesting debate and be open to learning something new. Once upon a time, remember that you loved hearing their view of the world!
When your partners mood is dark due to a personal or professional problem,
- You can hassle or resent them for their dark mood, thus making it worse, or:
- You can use it as an opportunity to be supportive and communicative, the way you would like to be treated if the situation was reversed
When you feel distant or disconnected
- You can sulk quietly or rant to your friends, and see every perceived wrong as a deliberate action or:
- You can reach out, be loving and romantic, and make the first move.
Love and life can be complicated. The fact is, your viewpoint has a huge bearing on how you react to a situation. Do you choose to react with love, kindness and compassion, or with impatience and frustration? If it is the latter, it is never too late to make a change. Bad habits are easy to fall into, but they can be changed.
Take a moment and spend five minutes reminiscing to yourself about the moment you first knew you were in love; about the things that gave you butterflies. Allow yourself the time to smile and recapture that feeling, and then try to react to your current situation using that point of reference.
Chances are, that will make an enormous difference. If someone is close enough to wake you with their snoring, they are probably close enough to cuddle, and that is a great thing. Practice love, kindness and gratitude and watch yourself fall in love all over again, anytime.