Love is not Charity

Just had a conversation with someone and the gist of the conversation involves questions of going back to her ex. Perhaps it is not so much about what she has decided, but rather, the reason why this even came up.

'I feel sorry for him'. 

I think we need to establish an important principle: that love is NOT charity. Nobody enters into a relationship because they only want to give; there must be a mutual fulfillment of needs. In an absolute sense, relationships that purely give or take pretty much ends up in MH370-type disaster down the road. Everyone enters into a relationship because some aspects of your needs are reasonably being fulfilled, in which you are also then motivated to fulfill your partner's needs simultaneously.

There is no room for charity in love.

There are a number of substitute emotions that can mask the authenticity of love. Sometimes, it is not always external; it could be our inner desire for companionship crying far louder than our natural feeling for the other person. Often, we are assailed by personal insecurity or by self-limiting belief  (e.g. I don't think I can find someone else better or no one loves me like he/she does... so might as well try again).

One cannot expect time to alter the reality of things; there are reasons why certain things ended the way it did. Therefore, one must anticipate that these reality of things will continue to haunt us - regardless of the amount of time you put between 'then' and 'now', especially if these are fundamental challenges.

Time does not resolve fundamental challenges; it merely distort our understanding in the resolution of these problems and creates an illusion of change. Fundamental problems require critical self-negotiation and conscious acceptance in the trade off. If you cannot accept the situation in the past, then going back is just relearning an old lesson. If you have come to a genuine acceptance, then the need to reconcile with what you have traded off is paramount because (going back to the earlier principle) you are in a relationship not for charity. People often downplay or minimizes this traded off equation - thinking that they can manage effectively - but only to ghastly discover how it gradually transform into some demonic resentment later on in life.

One MUST be able to resolve this dissonance at this level; if not, it is probably around-the-world in eighty days in bitterness. Twice the strength.

Cheers,

Yunhaier