Dating : My greatest failure: not knowing what love is… (or at least what I now think it is)

I was in a relationship for seven years. Basically, I grew in all aspects of my life with that person. One day, he decided he wanted to go abroad and study. I decided to stay and continue my work, that for me was successful. We both decided to stay together and make it work, knowing it was going to be hard and that we had to give the best of us. I committed, he dumped me (hope this doesn’t sound resentful is just my reality).

I traveled to his place every time I could, I send him gifts, called him, write to him, and mostly I continue our relationship as normal. One day he told me: “I don’t love you anymore, I don’t know if you are the love of my life, I don’t think that if we marry we will stay together forever”.

I was devastated, I tried to do everything in my power to make it work. I did everything for him, to a point where I didn’t know what I was doing or who I was.

I grew at a home with a very strict dad and a very liberal mom, as you can imagine that didn’t work. My parent’s decision to divorce, in my opinion, was the best. It was really hard for me, it still is; sometimes I worry if I am going the same path, sometimes I am jealous of families, and sometimes I am scared to love. Additionally, I was taught that love was magical, and it was just as a fairy tale.

I had a high school sweetheart who was all magic and novelty. Later, I had I boyfriend who showed me loyalty and true character. Finally, I met what I thought was the love of my life and my greatest failure.

I failed because I didn’t know who I was, I failed because I forgot to love myself more than loving him, I failed because I trusted his words and not my feelings, I failed because I did all the work in the relationship. But most of all, I failed because I didn’t know what love is.

I am certain that love has a broad definition but, definitely, my last definition was wrong. Disney and divorce ruined my vision of love, which I won’t bother to explain further. I want to share my new definition:

Love is a decision.

You must choose every day to care, every day to be a better person, to respect the other, to be yourself, to be individuals, and to never go to sleep with a pending argument.

My decision is to love him, and his rejection has been so cruel. I know I have to keep on, I am trying my best. I thank him for a lot of thing in my life, but most of all for leaving me because it has taught me to love myself and how I want to love: I hope that eventually, I will be with my “true love” because we booth decide it is that way.

Today, I lay in an empty bed (well no that empty because “our” dog stayed with me — I will talk about it in another post) knowing that I have no idea what love is and how should I love but knowing that love is a decision.