Written and verified by the psychologist GetPersonalGrowth.
Last update: 15 November 2021
Sometimes it is not love that ends, but patience, this which they say is holy, because it resists all adversities and which always ends up giving what it should.
How can we not offer everything for a person with whom we have built an emotional and vital bond and even a life plan?
It is clear that it is justified when we give in on several occasions, we forgive today, tomorrow and the day after tomorrow and we wait a little longer with the hope that things will improve.
There are those who say what patience is a virtue, but it is clear that this dimension cannot be applied to all areas and that, moreover, it must have limits.
We cannot spend a lifetime being patient and seeing how our rights fail, to our needs as beings who need reciprocity, care, affection and gratitude.
Love requires commitment, willpower and patience, but up to a certain point.
Patience in love is not the same as passivity
As we have said, it is often customary to define the concept of patience as a virtue. It is the faculty that people possess postponing certain things that do not bring satisfaction, because it is thought that this waiting, in the long run, will bring better things.
There are those who justify themselves by using this word as a dimension to be assumed.
Things are bad, but what can be done? You have to be patient. What can we do if this is the case? We can't change it, so it's better to be patient "...
Patience should not be confused with passivity
This is actually the key here. We can be patient, we can make patience our best virtue, because it helps us to better analyze the situation, to observe, to be reflective.
However, this whole inner process must allow us to see the true reality.
A patient person doesn't have to be passive. The passive person makes tolerance his way of life, allowing abuse until you experience on your own skin how its integrity is shattered. We must never allow it.
The benefits of being patient, but not passive
When a loving relationship is established and maintained, patience is a pillar that we must recognize day after day. It is clear that we do not have to like every aspect, behavior or habit of our partner, but we do not have to act impulsively by reproaching him and shattering the relationship.
We are patient, we respect and tolerate because we love, because we also know that in every couple there is a time in which things harmonize, in which everything fits together and in which the respective needs are learned at the same time.
Patience in turn requires emotional clarity. We need to know where the limits are and understand when they are harming us as people, as members of a romantic relationship.
We must not be passive in the face of needs charged with selfishness, in the face of the position of always coming before the other. We must not close our eyes in the face of deficiencies, nor be impassive to the emotional pain caused by the voids, by contempt or subtle mistreatment exercised through poisoned words.
This is how patience must fall, remove its veil to see the truth.
When the patience runs out ... What do you do?
When patience runs out, disappointment comes, because we are already aware of our reality in all its nuances. In all its chiaroscuro. This doesn't mean we have to instantly break up with the person we're with if we love them.
It's time to talk, to make it clear what the situation is and say what you feel and need. It is not about escaping the problem. If this relationship interests us, we will do what we can to keep it going.
In order for a relationship to thrive or to cease these deficiencies that have hurt us, the effort must be mutual. In the instant in which one offers more and the other resorts only to excuses, patience is completely lost and, with it, disappointment turns into an unfathomable abyss.
Patience is not the ability to wait, but the ability to understand that we deserve better
Immagini per gentile concessione: Anne Soline, Victoria Kirdiy
