A relationship requires more commitment and less sacrifice. However, many people believe that true love requires constant sacrifices and concessions, and the greater they are, the more genuine the bond will be.
Assuming that this premise can lead us to build unilateral power relations licensed for emotional extortion and the loss of one’s identity.
- It’s not all true in love.
- Graham Greene said that we all came into this world with an authentic and noble sense of love.
- But that at some point we ended up moving away from him.
Perhaps it is all because of the classic model of romanticism in which we were educated, which has made us believe for a long time that love and suffering go hand in hand.
We mix affection so much with the idea of sacrifice that we come to evaluate true love based on these two ingredients.
Seeing it through this prism leads us to understand this feeling almost as a kind of god that requires great concessions and painful offerings for us to be truly worthy of it.
So let’s not get to these extremes. We understand that while relationships sometimes require occasional sacrifices, this practice cannot become the norm.
True love needs first and foremoscy a commitment, it must be a source of daily realization and never a pyre of suffering on which we base our dreams, identities and values.
“We have given real forms to a ghost, the ridiculous invention of the mind, and we have made the idol, we sacrifice our love at his altar. ” – Gustavo Adolfo Becquer-
Sometimes sacrifices are needed. On certain occasions, we expect the partner to take this important step: leave their city or country of origin to start a life with us, leave a job, postpone a project, etc.
Is there a time when, in fact, you have to go for miles, take root, mobilize homes, reformulate the future, draw new life maps?
However, these acts should always be carried out on a voluntary basis. More than that, the person should interpret them as an advantage, never as a pity, the perception of gain must overcome the feeling of loss, so there has to be a clear balance.
Change should be interpreted as a useful act to strengthen the bond, a courageous decision that serves to further strengthen commitment.
Sacrifice, on the other hand, does not always feed commitment in itself, as it often brings suffering. There is a sense of loss and experience comes at a cost.
A study conducted at the universities of Toronto and Berkeley has shown something important that needs reflection:
The Psychology Laboratory at the University of Berkeley conducted the study mentioned over three years, brought together 80 couples, and aimed to analyze the impact sacrifices could have on a relationship.
When resignations were constant and people continued without expressing their emotional cost, they developed self-esteem issues and feelings of frustration and unhappiness.
A relationship requires more commitment and less sacrifice, so if it is necessary to resign for your loved one, it is necessary to specify the emotional and personal cost of this decision, it is necessary to verbalize the feelings and specify what each action consists of. taken by the couple implies.
We already know that a relationship requires more commitment and less sacrifice, yet we remain conditioned by the idea that love and sacrifice go hand in hand, so it is common to choose to silence the weight of each renunciation.
What’s even worse is that some people even rationalize these concessions thinking they’re the best option, which are the right ones.
So, situations can arise in which someone tries to tell themselves that quitting their job was the best option, that leaving that hobby, that house, that project, that habit, that friendship is the right thing to do because, at the same time, finishing, only love counts.
This reasoning can be maintained for a month or even a year, but there will come a time when the balance will become unbalanced.
The day will come when losses will be greater than profits, and frustration can occur, even accompanied by hatred, a hatred directed at the person we cease to be ourselves for.
We need to understand that loving is not making sacrifice the norm. Each link should promote our personal development and not harm it. Therefore, a relationship requires more commitment and less sacrifice.
One can do almost anything for the other that improves the quality of the link, however, we must have clear limits: we can never do anything that makes us someone we are not.