The Three Types of Love We Experience In Our Lifetime

While we may fall in love with many people over the span of our lifetime, we can break down the type of love we experience with these people into three categories.  Because even though people are different, our reasons for falling in love with the can be counted on three fingers. Curious to know what these three types are? Read on!

First love- When we are young

The first type of love we experience is our first crush.   This usually happens in high school. This love is innocent but intense.  It’s our very first experience with love emotions and sexual urges, and we find ourselves bonding strongly with our partner.  

The way we live this first type of love is largely based on what we’ve seen in the mainstream media.  

We want our relationship to look like what we see at the movies or on Netflix.  We want it to be all-consuming, exclusive, and to walk around the school hand in hand then make out in our first car for hours on end.  It doesn’t matter if the partner isn’t right for us (and they rarely are; few people end up marrying their high school sweetheart, even if it makes for a lovely daydream!).  

What matters is that the relationship looks fairytale beautiful and that we can update our social media feeds with plenty of photos of us walking arm and arm on the beach, kissing with the sun setting in the background, and looking into each other’s eyes.  

High-school lovers want everyone to see that their relationship is perfect, even though in reality it is far from the truth.

Our second love is a hard lesson

The second type of person we fall in love with is one with whom we do not fit well, but with whom we feel we should “work on the relationship” for our own good.  This is a relationship that is most often conflict-filled, but we tell ourselves that all relationships have their issues so we should use these rough patches to learn something about ourselves.  

Much of the relationship is spent imagining how good it could be “if only”.  

If only he didn’t smoke, gamble, ogle other women, could stay in one job, was a better lover, father, husband…It is not a balanced, healthy relationship but you think that if you work at it enough, you will resolve all of the negative parts and somehow turn this relationship into gold.  

You may repeat this type of love over and over again with different partners.  

This is a toxic relationship, especially for your self-esteem.  You remain perpetually in a state of disappointment because your partner does not give you what you need, while continually thinking that all of your efforts will one day bear fruit and suddenly he will become the loving, attentive and supportive partner you believe he can be “if only”.  

The only thing you gain from the second type of love is drama and adrenaline, as you experience the highs and lows of trying to fix the unhealthy dynamic.  

This is magical thinking but because this is your pattern, you don’t realize it.  Many people stay stuck with this type of love for much of their lives, never having a chance to experience the third type of love which is the most healthy and meaningful.

The third type of love that the lucky ones get to experience is the “right” kind 

The adult kind of love.  The kind of love that is just plain easy.  You don’t need to work to find it. You don’t need to be the sole person doing the work to maintain it.  This love comes into your life by surprise. You don’t find it on dating platforms, or by frequenting the singles bars.  It just appears, sometimes right after you’ve broken up with a number two type of love.

It comes in and takes your breath away in its ease, simplicity, and feeling of having found a safe place to set down your heart.  

This kind of love is not without problems, but because, you both function so smoothly as partners, you both work together to work out your conflicts.  And once that is done, your relationship is even stronger and deeper.  

This is a relationship you live outside the sphere of social media.  Because it is just so right, you have no need to broadcast the photos of your happiness.  You have no need to advertise that you are now in a relationship, nor share with your best friend every detail of every date.  

You don’t question why he said this or that, or ask your friends what they think he meant when he said….You have good communication with this type of love.  Living in love with the number three type is like driving without your brakes on…it’s smooth, easy and flowing.

Most people experience the number one type of love when they are young.  It is an important passage to move through when we are teenagers, as it teaches us what to look for when we are ready to engage in an adult relationship.  Unfortunately, many people remain in the number two type of love, with partners who aren’t good fits.

We want to make the number three type of love our end goal, however, so if you are stuck in number two, do what you need to do to extract yourself from this negative situation so you can open yourself up to letting in the third, most-satisfying type of love.

The post The Three Types of Love We Experience In Our Lifetime appeared first on Marriage.com Blog.

from Marriage.com Blog https://ift.tt/2odAry0