How many of us have learned how to truly love? How many of us have learned how to respect, support, and genuinely cherish that one person that makes our hearts beat like crazy? How many of us have learned how to build and nurture happy, loving, and fulfilling relationships?
Regardless of how easy you think loving someone is, the truth is that there’s art to loving someone truly and unconditionally.
To love someone this way means that you need to:
1. Be willing to understand them.
Being willing to listen attentively to your partner and trying to truly understand what you hear is what characterizes genuine, pure love. It’s what shows that you’re aware of and appreciate your significant other’s ideas, beliefs, and perspectives on life.
It’s what shows that you respect their opinions regardless of how different they are from your own. It’s what shows that you want to know what they carry in their soul. It’s what shows that you truly want to know their essence and deeply connect with them.
2. Be willing to accept them.
Loving the person you’re in a relationship with for who they are is a prerequisite for building a strong, loving, and lasting relationship.
Because loving someone truly means accepting and appreciating them exactly the way they are, with all their annoying habits, whims, quirks, insecurities, and fears. It means understanding that their weaknesses and imperfections don’t define who they are and they don’t determine their worth. It means knowing that their flaws are what makes them unique and special.
3. Be there for them.
Loving someone truly means never making them beg for your attention and love. It means never making them question your feelings for them and what number they are on your list of priorities.
Loving someone truly means being fully present. It means devoting your time and attention to them without expecting anything in return. It means being there for them when they need you the most. It means making sure they know they’re never alone.
4. Be honest with them.
Don’t keep secrets from them. Don’t beat around the bush or sugarcoat the ugly truth only to make them feel better about themselves.
Because loving someone truly means always being honest with them. It means telling them the truth even when they’re not ready to hear it. It means never putting yourself in a position in which you’d need to lie to them and hurt their feelings.
5. Open up to them.
Do not build walls around yourself. Instead, share your feelings, opinions, worries, fears and insecurities with your significant other. Let them know what makes you happy and what makes you sad in life. Let them see what you carry in your soul and connect with you on a deep emotional and mental level.
6. Be kind to them.
Treat your partner with kindness, patience, compassion, and generosity. Treat them with respect and dignity.
When you make a promise, make sure you keep it. Show your significant other that you value them. Show them that they can always rely on you for help and support. And never forget that not everyone can meet your expectations.
7. Support them.
Be there for them when they’re going through a rough period in life. Be their crying shoulder. Their rock. Their greatest help and support.
Let them know that they don’t have to deal with their problems on their own. Let them know that their problems and pains are your own, too.
8. Be willing to forgive them.
We all make mistakes. But, when you truly love someone, you’re willing to forgive them. You’re willing to give them a second chance. You’re willing to let them put right their mistakes and make it up to you. You understand that holding a grudge against them and carrying resentment and bitterness in your heart will never benefit you or the relationship.
