It is a common belief that each person only falls in love three times during their lifetime. However, each one of these happens under a very different light from the one before, and each serves a very different purpose.
The First Love
The first love happens when we are young, sometimes as young as the time we are in high school. This love fulfills the dreams of our youth and fulfills our idealistic belief of what we expect love to look like – just like the fairy tales.
This love fulfills our need to live up to society’s expectations. We jump into this love headfirst believing that this person will be our only love (even if it does not feel quite right) and convince ourselves that this is how love should look like. This love focuses more on how others perceive us versus how we actually feel.
The Second Love
The next love, the second love, is hard love. This is the love that teaches us lessons about ourselves and what we need to feel loved in any relationship. This love brings with it significant pain – the pain of loss, deceit, and lies.
During this love, we believe we are doing things differently, but we are not. We tend to hold steadfast to this love because this relationship is different from the last one. However, this one is the one where we will grow. This is the one where we will experience pain. And this is the love where we will realize what we need out of our next relationship.
The issue with this love is it can tend to become cyclical – repeating the same issues over and over and expecting a different result. Unfortunately, each time through the cycle the ending is worse.
Read Full Article Originally Published in Elephant Journal
