Tripod of Love

I want to spend more time reflecting on a concept that has been true in my relationship with my love from the start, because I believe it is so important.  It's also something that I've felt reminded as my love and I have been announcing our engagement.  There is what I feel is a tripod upon which true and healthy love sits.  I love her.  I love me.  I love us.  More specifically, I love her for her; I love me for me; and I love us for us.

I love her for her.  A part of loving someone is seeing them for themselves and wishing that to increase.  I love all that made her who she is, and I love her for all the ways that she is, including all the ways that differs from me.  A change in any of that would change the person in which I fell in love, and there is no reason I would ever want that for her.

Similarly, I love me for me.  It took quite a long time to feel out and become the person that I love to be and who my love loves.  She does not wish me to lose that, either.  In my opinion, love is not a battle where you have to surrender who you are.  I've been in relationships where that wasn't the case.  However, in a relationship based on love and not control, I feel it is based on two individuals choosing each other and maintaining the freedom to make that choice.  It is empowering, not limiting.  I don't have a lot of experience in that kind of relationship, but I love it.

Finally, I'd say that you must love the union, separately from yourself amd them.  It is easy to feel pressure from outside to compare your relationship to the past or to others.  But, your walk together is YOUR (as a couple) walk, and it had been magical because it was yours.  When you fall in love, you create a new thing, and it grows from birth with all the missteps and joys to mature into something amazing.  So, feed and water it and let it thrive.

I hope this provides useful information for you, and I hope it helps.  I've learned a lot of lessons over my life, and I feel I owe it to others to share that wisdom.