Why is love not a gift but a challenge?

When we think about love, we imagine lovely

pictures of romantic kisses, exciting adventures, and
living happily ever after. Why do we always forget
about the other things that stand behind these nice
images? Why don’t we remember fights, tears, and
broken hearts? The answer is simple – we don’t want
to. It is easier to take love as a dream, not reality.
Such unrealistic belief are the root of all the
conflicts in romantic relationships. We should
remember that love is not a blessing or a present of
fate. It is a complex and fragile structure build on
the foundation of mutual respect, understanding, and
trust. And we have to work on our relationships all
the time. Otherwise, they wont last long.
The most important thing that we have to
understand is that there is no perfectly compatible
partner for every human being. Moreover, most
people are totally incompatible. We are too weird for
each other. Would ou like to meet a person who
behaves and thinks exactly like you? If your answer
is “yes” try to recall all the episodes of your life that
you regret about or youre ashamed of. Have you
changed your mind? Nobody is perfect, so we have
no right to demand perfection from others while we
keep making mistakes.
True love is our willingness to be as compatible with
our partner as possible. We have to be ready to
teach them and to learn from them. That one more
essential aspect of good relationship. Our partners
are the only ones who can honestly tell us about our
weakness. Parents don’t do that because they love
us to much. Our friends don’t do that because they
don’t care about our self-development. But when we
hear the words of criticism from our love ones, we
take it as an attack.
Remember that our partners don’t want to humiliate
us or make fun of us. They simply try to make us into
better people.
Another problem that we frequently face in romantic
relationships is our partners unwillingness to share
his or thoughts and feelings. Lets imagine a typical
situation: your boyfriend or girlfriend is in a bad
mood and doesn’t even try to hide this fact. You ask
a logical question like, “whats wrong?” os “is
everything okay?” and what do they usually do?
Right, they say something meaningless and then
start sulking.
The explanation of such irrational behavior is simple:
they want to be understood without words. You see,
in our imaginary world, true lovers always guess
what is on our minds. They don’t need any hints
because they love us so much. Nonsense! Of course,
they love you. But it doesn’t mean that they can read
your thoughts. Your partners are not the parents of a
two-year-old child who cant speak properly. They will
do everything to comfort you, but you have to tell
them whats wrong. There is nothing difficult about it.
You see, being loved is easy and delightful. Loving is
much more tricky, in truth, loving is a skill that has
to be trained. Many people think that loving doesn’t
require learning and that we can love someone
following our emotions and instincts. That so not
true.
True love is challenging, hard work. It is teaching
and learning. It is your willingness to become a
better person for your lover. Love can be a gift, but
only a deserved one.