All human relationships, whether of love or of friendship, carry a feeling within themselves. Some people are lucky enough to be able to begin a relationship already feeling, for the other person, everything a healthy relationship requires. Among other things, both parties have taken the trouble and the time to make sure that the seven (7) prerequisites are met.
However, there is another category of people who think and believe this: "Today, I do not necessarily feel everything it takes to live a healthy and full relationship. But I will learn to love him with time."
Is this undertaking commendable?
Is it even achievable?
Is the game worth the candle?
What are the risks tied to the failure of such a venture?
These are the questions we shall try to answer.
Is this undertaking commendable?
In itself, the plan of learning to love has nothing pernicious about it. It is even noble. We may add that the very beauty of this plan lies in the fact that it gives a chance to someone who, in principle, would never have had one.
Besides, we must consider that the people who decide to embrace this plan carry within them a share of disappointment. That disappointment may be conscious, unconscious or even unsuspected.
When the disappointment is conscious, they know what they are getting into. The parameters are known and the actions are well measured. On the contrary, when the disappointment is unconscious or unsuspected, everything becomes complicated. Indeed, the person has no clear idea of the reasons driving them to set out on the path of learning to love the other. The plan is then less commendable. And so it is that many similar undertakings have ended in divorce or in bitter failure.
Is the plan even achievable?
"Fake it till you make it". According to some research, pretending to be in love with someone can in fact create real feelings of connection and intimacy. If you are comfortable with that person, try behaving as though you were in love with them.
All in all, the plan of learning to love a person is achievable in itself. It does, however, require three inescapable conditions:
- a person who deserves that efforts be made in order to love them;
- a person willing to make efforts in order to end up loving the other;
- a context favourable to the development of romantic feelings: the frequency of the meetings, the adventurous spirit of one, the gift for pleasant surprises of the other, and so on.
All of this is meant to make the plan attainable.
And yet, is the game worth the candle?
It sometimes happens that we find our type without the feelings following suit. For example, your dream has always been to settle down with a tall, attentive man with dark skin, a square head and square shoulders, who owns a house and holds a job in the legal field, such as a magistrate, a judge or a lawyer. You may well have met your ideal man and found your Prince Charming in him without feeling any love for him.
In such a situation, you could decide to learn to love him, and the game would be worth the candle.
However, even if this beautiful woman, for example, fulfills you but does not really match the image you had of a partner, we could all agree that it is truly not worth risking learning to love her. Indeed, even if you were to succeed, it would be null and void. Hence the question of the risks.
Finally, what are the risks tied to the failure of such a venture?
In a relationship where love is not reciprocal, the one who does not love may be happy for a while so long as they keep acting as they do, and the one who loves believes they are loved. But that happiness is short-lived. In fact, we are in the typical case of an unbalanced relationship. The one who does not love invests too much effort for results that the one who loves almost always finds insignificant. The relationship becomes draining for the former, and the couple slides insidiously onto the road to a break-up, be it consensual or acrimonious. Indeed, the risks of failure are far too great to be taken lightly.
Broadly speaking, before learning to love, make sure that your prerequisites are met to a minimum degree and that you are truly prepared both to pay the price and to bear the risks.
Let us end now with a small question: do we learn to love a person who already loves us? Or do we learn to love a person whom we hope will love us in return?
M. Z.
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