Love expectations out of touch with reality
Hillary Smith
Fifty percent of all American marriages end in divorce. Why? What is it that people are mistaking for love?
When people are introduced to their partner, a chemical is released into their brain causing nerve endings to spark.
This feeling could be expressed as love, or lust, but 50 percent of couples are not basing their marriage on lust.
Why do they think they are in love when they are really creating a fairy tale?
Dr. Greg Baer, author of Real Love, describes this feeling as, “imitation love”.
As people grow up, they are exposed to fairy tale love, romance novels, and movies filled with only perfect love.
What people learn through these falsified images sets them up for failure in their relationships.
A man most likely isn’t going to ride up on his white horse and rescue a damsel in distress. All these stories have done is place expectations and obligations all over people’s love.
“The media is the problem,” stated Scott Ray an MCC student.
How much longer are people going to allow Cinderella and Prince Charming to show them up?
Stories like Cinderella leave out the stuff behind closed doors. In real life a Fairy God Mother isn’t going to sprinkle her fairy dust and make everything all better.
Romance won’t always be around unless people make it.
A student from MCC, Tiffany Hatfield said, “I don’t think love just exists, I think it grows with experience and time, and if you both aren’t willing to work on it, you just let it deplete.”
Think about how much work people put into the very beginning of a relationship. Not only are they concerned about their appearance, but they’re thinking about flowers, dinner reservations, flirting, holding hands, nervousness, always trying to impress, and the list goes on forever.
People need to ask themselves if that is easy for them. Starting a relationship is a lot of work, but all the brain chemicals people are drugged up on blind them from that.
So, when two months or two years pass by and things begin to get comfortable, what happens? All that work has paid off.
They got what they wanted. Or did they?
Susan Horton, a psychologist here at MCC who specializes in love, asks, “Is this chemistry blinding you from true compatibility?”
Out of all the fairy tales people were told as a child, love is the one they never get cleared up.
By age ten most kids know Santa Clause and the Easter bunny aren’t supplying the goods.
“No one sits us down and says love is hard!” Horton exclaimed.
People are left right on believing Prince Charming will make his grand entrance.
“How does every fairy tale end?” And they lived happily ever after.
“What comes next?” Horton asks. “You’re in for a solid dose of reality!” She stated.
Some say, good couples never argue. That is one of the biggest misconceptions out there. Every couple argues, some are just better at it.
“Be a good problem solver and approach the argument in a respectful manner”, Horton advises.
Is love worth it? Will people continue to wonder if they will be one of the survivors or will they join the other half of America?
Scott Ray is married and has a seven month old daughter named Kaitelyn at home.
“I love my wife!” Ray exclaimed and he suggested, “be aware of false expectations, keep the romance alive, and most importantly, be able to forgive.
