Last update: April 15, 2016
We have to go back to our most tender childhood to start making a collection of all those messages stored in our memory, which led us to completely deform the concept of love.
Many of us, returning home and telling us that a boy or a girl was teasing us, received as an answer: “Don't pay attention, it means that he / she likes you”; if during adolescence, however, someone ignored us completely, our friends told us that this attitude was due to the fact that "you want to make it interesting in your eyes because he / she likes you".
And so there are endless phrases and situations from which we have extrapolated various absolutist messages tremendously harmful to love: "If he loves you, he will make you suffer", "he treats you with indifference, because he wants to attract your attention" or "he is jealous because he cares about you and cannot bear the idea of ​​seeing you with someone else".
How can we get rid of this toxic teaching about love? Because love is not that. If love squeezes or hurts, it's not the right size; it is not made for you, because it does not make you grow, it only oppresses you.
Let's dispel the myths of romantic love
If many current behaviors are extracted from the patriarchy in which we have lived, love could not be outdone. This idea of ​​love enveloped in passion, lust, jealousy, suffering, violence and malaise not only hurts women, but also men, who must take on a role of "supermen" that can be light years away from their true sensitivity and their way of understanding relationships.
However, it seems that if both sexes depart from what is dictated for their gender, they will not be able to obtain the passionate and ideal relationship that all society expects, the great love story.
In reality, however, this love is a far cry from true successful couples. Psychologist Robert Sternberg was the first to study the types of love that exist and in none of them did jealousy, violence, control over others or isolation from others appear in his definitions.
The damage caused by the messages of the big media
For some reason it is difficult to find the social origin behind the sick idea that is harming people, but love is easily located if you have the courage to approach it with a critical attitude.
Some of the messages that come to us from movies and songs are subliminal, on the surface these are good movies, but in reality they do not represent a natural relationship, the stories are full of pseudo-romantic clichés that only fuel even more the dysfunctional idea that some have received as children about the relationship of couple.
A woman does not have to be saved, nor does a man have an obligation to save her from anything or anyone. People, men and women, must try to be emotionally self-sufficient and being with another person who completes them and brings greater wholeness to their lives.
Dysfunctional ideas about love don't just come from film, television or music. They are found in all human spheres, which is why when violence and mistreatment take hold, it is tremendously difficult to establish prevention at all levels. However, only in this way can change be achieved.
Not long ago a book called “Marry and Be Submissive” came out on the market. It is not a book with an ironic title to attract the reader's attention, it is a book that, as the title clearly indicates, was designed to "teach" women how to be good brides.
Aspects that seem to indicate that love "is not the right size"
There are many factors that indicate that the relationship you have entered into is abusive, dysfunctional, annihilates you as a person and causes you to constantly feel toxic emotions:
They ignore you
The person next to you doesn't care when you feel bad or when something is okay. He just ignores everything he has to do with you, he only cares about what you can give her and the benefit she can get from the relationship.
It takes no part in your decisions
He makes plans with you only when these involve your adaptation to what he / she has already chosen: your opinion does not count for spending free time together. He is just looking for a plan that suits him / her and you are just one more person, who has no right to make decisions.
They isolate you
The person you are with is annoyed when you go out with your friends, who "casually" always criticizes: this person he practices selfishness as a direct cause of the lack of self-esteem he suffers from.
Jealousy is not a symptom of love, but of fear, of everything and everyone, because her insecurity doesn't make her feel up to it and at any moment she believes you can cheat on her with someone else. It is her wounded ego of hers that she fears most, much more than the fact that she may lose you.
They ridicule and boycott your aspirations
Your partner does not respect your ambitions: constantly boycott what you want to do in life, it ridicules your career, academic, or personal aspirations. Constantly adopt a haughty and ironic attitude towards what you say.
His favorite phrases are "I don't even know why you try", "It's absurd to try now, you don't have the age to do it anymore", "but in this way will you earn more or not?" or "you do it as a first step to leave me".
Forget the principles and look for a love that suits you, that does not squeeze or hurt
In this life it is better to be alone than with a person who only makes us feel bad, a person who we hope not to see when we get home or who is already asleep, so as not to have to put up with another of his impertinent questions.
Loneliness is wonderful if you know how to benefit from it and it will always be better to be with a person who does not oppress us, that it does not belittle us and that it does not control us to always obtain an advantage.
Forget about fairy tales and principles. Take the reins of your life and change the fairy tales and principles turned into a toad with a true story. A story in which both protagonists practice love and understanding that allow the relationship to be much more interesting and lasting than those that sell us some films.
Images courtesy of Ania Tomicka
