N.1 Love Search Rule on how to find true love

There is a shortcut which you can take, in my opinion, if you are searching for love and need a quick 'rule of thumb'. It is the rule I learnt with my last (and by far the best) counselor/therapist; you can quick-jump  here , but you will probably need to read the whole page to truly understand what it means.

First of all, the secret to a truly successful love search is, absolutely, all the time, this: 

TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF! (scroll down the page)

 

I am not talking about taking care of your health, your body, your mind, your career, your finances, your appearance and so forth.  Taking care of oneself (some people may say 'loving yourself') means all the above but it goes well beyond that.  It means through and through, in every aspect.  I am not advocating being selfish, especially not if you are in a relationship! I am however advocating a fundamental shift: every choice in your life, especially your emotional life, must be carried bearing in mind the question: 

by doing this, am I taking care of myself?

For example.  Let's say I have fallen in love.  It all seems fine and wondeful.  However, I have stopped eating significantly because 

1) I want to look slimmer to my potential partner or current partner

2) I just don't feel like eating because my stomach is always in a knot because of the emotions I am experiencing.

Well, in brief, if I act as described above, I am NOT taking care of myself.  So, at any cost, I must re-address the balance so that I take care of myself first and foremost.  There are so many reasons why this is the number 1 priority.  Here are a few:

• I will make better choices if I am in a strong, healthy, balanced position psychologically, physically and emotionally.  I will also be a much, much better lover, partner, spouse.

• If I am not 'whole', I will probably seek to substitute what's missing in me or in my life with several unhealthy choices and behaviours.  I may even want my boyfriend, partner or spouse to 'compensate' for what I am not giving myself.

In the section about the three different types of relationships, I have given the analogy of the garden to explain what makes a good, lasting relationship and what is, on the other hand, a bad relationship. I will use the same analogy to clarify the above point, though with a different angle.     

Let's say that my mind, my body, my emotional state, my hopes and dreams and all other essential aspects of my life form a beautiful garden, a garden which will attract potential love partners and will want them to come and sit in it, enjoy it, hopefully stay in it.  Now, if i spend time acting in a way which prevents me from taking time, spending energy, making the effort to maintain this garden in its healthy, magnificent state, eventually this garden will suffer.  If I don't water it nor nourish it appropriately, if I don't remove weeds from it and so forth, the garden will eventually be in a very sorry state!  It may even die! If it is no longer healthy and magnificent, who will want to come in, sit in it, enjoy it?  Nobody!  Definitely nobody with a healthy mind!  Only those who aren't really searching for love (those who don't really care about our garden) may come in and spend time in it:  they may use it as parking space, or as a dumping ground;  these uncaring, selfish toxic individuals who couldn't care less for our garden but only wish to use it for a while;  for them any space is the same, because it's not a garden and definitely not the specifics of our garden which they seek.  Who would want those individuals in our garden anyway?  We want caring, healthy, giving individuals, those who love OUR garden, appreciate it, respect it and may even wish to help with its flourishing!

Got it?  TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF 

You may say:  oh, well, what if I don't take care of my garden and look for someone who will do it for me? 

Are you serious?  You are the only person who really knows the plants, the soil, the needs for light or shade, or how much water, etc. 

Nobody else will ever take care of you as well as you can.  And even if you do find a love partner who will help your garden to flourish (and you should indeed be searching for relationship partner or spouse who contributes to your life-flourishing, read on about useful vs useless to further clarify this) you cannot expect anybody else, no matter how capable or willing, to do the work for you.  It's not only not fair on them (because we also need to help them with their own garden, so to speak) but it is also IMPOSSIBLE.  A great relationship partner or spouse will want to learn how to best allow your garden to flourish; he/she will treat it with care, admiration, respect and will even contribute to taking care of it, but the primary responsibility is YOURS, always YOURS.

Even if you found a super-boyfriend or girlfriend who could fully take care of your garden (which is impossible for the reasons highlighted above), eventually he/she would resent having to take so much time and energy away from his/her own garden (their own flourishing) and, ultimately, their own garden would suffer, which in turn would hurt the relationship (if their garden suffered it would no longer be the garden you liked so much when you two met, would it?).

So, can you see how it's all related?  How it's all connected?  How your searching for love and further on, how the success of a relationship or marriage are both based on you taking care of yourself if you are to be successful?

I hope that, by this simple example, I have clarified a concept which seems to be obvious but is, in fact, quite complex.  We will probably talk about this in many ways in the coming months.  It is, however, the key to true success in life and love.  When my last (and best) counselor/therapist taught me this, it struck a chord immediately and it truly helped me.  I therefore wish to share that lesson with you and, hopefully, you can assimilate it and adapt it to your own life and love experiences.

Now, how do we extend this concept to form the best diagnostic tool to determine whether a romantic partner, a spouse, a boyfriend or girlfriend is good for you or not? 

Simple.  Ask yourself: 

is he/she useful to me?

Wow, you'll wonder if I'm promoting using people!  No, ABSOLUTELY NOT!  By 'useful' I do NOT mean that your relatioship partner or spouse, or date throw money at you, does he/she do your laundry, does he/she clean your gutters' etc. per se.  Because I assume you love your love partner or spouse and you act lovingly towards him/her; I assume that, because you are searching for LOVE,  you are not just 'using' this person!  I am borrowing the word 'useful' (which my own great therapist borrowed when he was teaching me to 'learn to diagnose' a potential romantic partner or a relationship) because I am trying to simplify and clarify an important point.   The most important, in my opinion, the key to your emotional success. 

So, to use the analogy I have used throughout this page, does your romantic partner contribute to your flourishing as a person, as an individual?  

Does he/she, at the very least, provide an emotionally  comforting, safe 'place' for you, where you can be yourself and relax?  (You can refer to the 'REVOLVING RELATIONSHIP' I described on the '3 Relationship Types' page).

And, if you are truly searching for lasting, fulfilling love, is he/she supporting and encouraging you in our own growth and development?  Is she/he providing the conditions which allow your own growth?  (You can refer to the 'EVOLVING RELATIONSHIP' I described on the '3 Relationship Types' page). 

If the answer is yes, he/she IS 'useful' (so, you see, I am borrowing this word but I am using it in a different way) to you and your life; you 2 seem to be onto a great path to love, emotional happiness and fulfillment (provided your relationship continues this way and, if it 'wabbles', provided you seed good counseling or therapy to make sure that it returns to being that way).

If the answer is 'no', then your romantic partner is USELESS to you and your life and you need to revisit your love search strategies.  I am not advocating, if you are in a marriage, to just 'jump ship' of course, but you could seriously use some good counseling or therapy (the 2 of you probably, together or separately), to learn what love is. 

♥ What's a true soul mate?  Find out here

♥ Learn to really know your loved one on this page

I will write one article in the future to illustrate the above as clearly as I can.  I will also be more than happy for you to ask me questions in the meantime.

Successfully searching for true love begins with learning how to love in general, how to love oneself, life and then (and only then) 'the other'.  

Understanding what falling in love means and what processes take place when you do helps you greatly in your searching for love. Read about falling in love here

Do you fall out of love often and keep resuming your love search?  Or is your romantic partner falling out of love with you and you don't understand what's going on?  Click here.

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