A lot of things are blamed on movies, especially our high expectations of love and relationships. People watch the actors and actresses do the sappiest, sexiest, most romantic things for love, and wonder where they are going wrong. They wonder why their romance is tepid compared to fire they see on the big screen. Many people take it a step further and spend a huge chunk of their life in search of the perfect romance. One that reads like the movies they watch.
Somewhere in the back of, most, people’s, subconscious minds, is the knowledge that relationships take work. For the people who don’t fully accept that idea, they still know of it. They have heard it said at least once at some point. They may have even been told by a trusted friend or relative who was trying to be helpful. The bottom line is, even though it’s logical to expect that anything, worthy of having, would require some effort to maintain. But our hearts like to try to convince us to put on the good old rose colored glasses.
People jump at the chance to test the theory that true love is naturally effortless, any chance they get. And what they always end up with is disappointment and a feeling that the relationship was not meaningful or real. They chalk up all the positive experiences, and good things, that happened between them and the other person, as being fake or superficial.
Staying in denial about what it really takes to encourage depth and substance in a relationship, not only cheats you out of good experiences, but may also prevent you from recognizing true love when you have it.
Every relationship goes through times when it is effortless and easy. Those times do happen and they are real. It just so happens that for the purpose of romantic movie making, those are usually the times that are highlighted the most. But even in the movies, if you pay close enough attention, you will realize that most romances grow in leaps and bounds, after the two people get through a traumatic event or hard time, together. During the period of time when the relationship is being tested, the people are rarely at their best, but somehow the couple stays together, and it’s also about the time they fall in love.
In real life it works the same way. People are not always at their best, and even when they are, they are not always in the best situations. Life is not always easy or fun, and sometimes it has a way of affecting people in less than desirable ways. To say that it’s always easy and effortless to be around an unhappy, or stressed out person, would be a lie. And this is where the work comes in.
Sometimes it’s not easy to deal with another person’s problems and yours at the same time. To work at making your relationship solid, is to work around life and what it may throw at you and the one you love. The work is in the figuring out how to stay connected and hold on to each other, when life’s details seem to be pulling you apart. It can seem like work to be considerate of somebody else’s feelings at all times. But without all of these efforts you put forth, you would never get to reap the benefits. All living things have needs to thrive, including love.