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Once a year,
there comes a time when the collective masses celebrate their affection
for one another. Whether it's directed at your spouse or your
girlfriend/boyfriend, this occasion's primary focus is love. Of
course, I'm referring to Valentine's Day.
Urban myths suggest that
Valentine's Day was created by greeting card companies as a cash cow to
make up for the space between Christmas and Easter. In fact, the
origin of Valentine's Day has many versions, with one dating back to the
end of the Roman Empire. Emperor Claudius II, nicknamed "Claudius the
Cruel," abolished marriage because he believed his soldiers wouldn't
leave home because of their loved ones. A priest by the name of
Valentine thought that Claudius' decision was unjust, so he married
couples secretly. Claudius discovered what Valentine was doing and had
him jailed, where he later died on February 14th, on what we now know as
Valentine's Day.
Although Valentine's Day
revolves around love, let's not forget the many other emotions that
accompany it; emotions such as hate, jealousy, anger, frustration, and
happiness. This raises the question, "What is love?" Is it
all these emotions boiled into one, but kept at a simmering level?
Anyone who has experienced
love in a relationship knows that it is a complicated emotion. As
we grow to love somebody, we may also grow to hate certain things about
them. We nit-pick at the little quirks of each others'
personalities and habits. What was once cute or endearing at the
onset of a relationship can become annoying and frustrating.
Arguments can sometimes elevate to the point where we say hurtful things
that we don't mean. When we hate something about a person, it's
usually not on the same level as when you hate someone for, let's say,
committing a crime against your family. It's usually kept on a
more personal level.
Jealousy can also be a
factor in love; it's an emotion we experience fueled by passion, when we
question our partner's trust. For example, you're at the office
Christmas party, and you see your partner flirt with a co-worker -- in
most cases, jealousy arises inside of us. Just like hate, jealousy
has varying degrees; in excess, it can be a relationship killer. A
little jealousy is normal, and most partners find it cute because the
act that took place was, in most cases, relatively harmless. When
jealousy becomes extreme, it can be detrimental to the relationship;
partners become angry, controlling, clingy, suspicious, and challenge
their significant other's every move. Biologically, there is no
chemical cause that creates jealousy, but it is usually the result of
lack of self-confidence that has us questioning our partner's attraction
and love for us. It's our own insecurities that can lead to
excessive jealousy and may cause our relationships to fail. On the
other hand, a little jealousy can be healthy. As St. Augustine
said, "He who is not jealous is not in love."
Anger and frustration are
also a part of love. We get angry and frustrated with each other
from time to time, and that's normal because, once again, it's in our
nature. When two people spend a significant amount of time
together, there will eventually be some anger and frustration.
Anger in a relationship can start from something as simple as an
argument or disagreement. We can't always agree with each other on
every topic -- it's just not possible. When a disagreement
happens, it may lead to an argument if both sides believe they are
right, and thus in many cases cause anger towards each other. This
is, in fact, a normal occurrence within a relationship, because as we
all know, there is no such thing as a perfect relationship. It is
also in how you deal with your anger which will determine the direction
of the relationship. If one acts irrationally and always "loses
it" when they are angry, the relationship will most likely have no
future. If you deal with your anger appropriately, usually
disagreements get solved, and you move forward.
One of the more positive
aspects of love is happiness. Being happy or content with the
state of a relationship is probably the most important factors to being
in a successful relationship. When you enjoy spending time
together and making each other laugh, you experience the "brighter" side
of love. Love at its best, so to speak. You remember all the
things that made you fall in love, and many times it's the small things
that you usually love about each other the most. Through all the
hate, anger, frustration and jealousy that can occur during a
relationship, no matter how mad you may get with your partner, you may
find yourself going back to that person over and over again by thinking
of the reasons as to why you fell in love with them in the first place.
This is the power that love
has, like a drug in many ways; no matter how much you have, you just
can't get enough. And just like a drug, when it's taken away from
you, there is always withdrawal, and in this case, it's in the form of
heartbreak. Heartbreak occurs when the person we love leaves us,
whether it's for somebody else, or for their own personal reasons.
Heartbreak can be exceptionally hard to deal with for most people.
Again, like drug-related withdrawals where your body has to get used to
not being in your system, we have to get used to not having this person
in our lives anymore.
So this leads me back to my
first question, "What is love?" and if it's all these emotions boiled
into one, but kept at a simmering level. When you examine it
closely, love comes with a variety of emotions, like a package deal.
You can't have one thing without the other; we all come across these
emotions at some point or another in our relationships. Love is
hard to describe, many of us don't know what love really is, or whether
or not we have experienced it ourselves. Keeping our emotions in
control is important to creating a strong and lasting relationship.
Love is an experience that
we should enjoy while we have it, and as Lord Alfred Tennyson once said,
"It is better to have loved and lost, than to never have loved at all."
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