What’s It Like to Really Be in Love with a “Good” Man?
As frustrating and cliche as the saying is, you will know true love when it hits you.
All other “loves” before true love will feel irrelevant and almost comical by comparison, not to say they meant any less to your personal development. They led you to now.
However, when you find someone who genuinely loves and cares about you and is loyal to you, all other “loves” pale in comparison.
I’m no expert when it comes to romance. I’ve made many mistakes. I’ve acted crazy on the quest, like many others before and after me. I’ve mistreated myself and others and misnavigated too. We are all accountable during the quest in some way. We’ve all hurt and been hurt. The chase to find a partner can make us mad, especially when it doesn’t work out, but when it does, the feeling is quite the opposite.
Real love is security. It’s honesty and transparency, rolled up into a ball of comfort and safety. Real love allows for a free flow of vulnerability, without the fear of the other shoe dropping or retaliation.
Your past fears or struggles aren’t eradicated in the process but accepted and shown empathy — maybe, for the first time. There is a shared understanding that a healthy relationship is worth working on, and you do work on it. It’s not perfect or without mistakes or consequences, but it’s worth working on.
True love inhales you with an open heart, mind, and eyes.
It doesn’t mean you’ll never fight or struggle again, but have someone to strongly stand alongside you as you go. You can proudly stand on your own two feet next to each other in support and friendship. True love is worth working on and there is shared responsibility for the development and growth of the relationship.
Sometimes, it hurts to love this much, but you will never know a sweeter pain.
Maybe you haven’t believed it before — God knows I haven’t, but true love really is patient and kind. It is never mean-spirited, even in our worst moments. It is always presented with good intentions, even under our most unflattering life lights. Trust me, there will be many of these lights shown. When you love someone good, or, in my case, a very good man, he shapes this light into soft focus and lets it dim in understanding.
True love makes every cliche saying you’ve rolled your eyes over before or expressed disbelief in reputable.
True love really is what it is implied to be.
The most important thing to know about really being in love and finding true love, though, is that you will never get the true love you want from someone else until you can give it to yourself.
You are worth working on and loving. You are worth accepting and understanding. You have value. You are worthy. You are not so alone. You are growing. You are allowed to fall, to fail, to stumble. You are allowed to feel care, comfort, and security — to really know it.
You are allowed to be human.
You are allowed to and encouraged to find this within yourself, because on the path to true love, what makes the biggest difference is how you show care to yourself. If you don’t care about yourself, if you see yourself as crazy, as someone without value, you will never find the real love you deserve.
Being in love with someone good means you will never be made to feel like you’re too difficult to love again.
Once you find and practice the true love you deserve internally, you will set yourself up to find it externally. How you treat yourself shows others how to treat you.
The most impactful relationship you will have in your life is with yourself. Someone who recognizes you in the way you envision your best self is a reflection of the self-care you’ve shown and worked on.
True love — with others and yourself, is a lifelong journey. It is never one-and-done. It must be nurtured over time to thrive and blossom over generations.
The genesis of true love must stem from you.
In my case, after much trial and error, I’ve found a real man, a good man, a wonderful man, who empowers me to live these values and feel this way because I have discovered a self that encourages the same.
He isn’t perfect, but he’s perfect for me. I’m not perfect, but I am for him. We are for ourselves and one another, and there is nothing more whole, genuine, or meaningful in this life that I could ask for.
I am grateful every day for this form of self and the man I’ve found to challenge, empower, accept, support, and love me wholly.
