Love and Its Problems

What is love? There are various types of love. You can love a piece of music, a food, your pet dog, a favorite city, or working out in the gym. However the emotion of interpersonal love consists of an intense feeling of deep affection, intense liking, and strong preference for another person, accompanied by caring and commitment. It also involves enjoying being with the individual, concern for their well-being, and missing them when the two of you are apart.

Despite what many psychologists may tell you, when you feel emotionally disturbed within the context of a love relationship, it's not your childhood upbringing or relationship with your parents that determine your current emotional disturbance. These may be factors and influences, along with your life experiences and genetic predispositions, but rather it's your current disturbed thinking about these experiences that cause your love problems. Love itself is not the trouble. The difficulty begins when you escalate your love preferences into demands. Demands consist of absolutistic, rigid, universal, dogmatic, unconditional, necessities.

Some of the most common demands individuals are likely to harbor in a love relationship are:

• I absolutely must be loved by the person I love.
• I need my partner's approval otherwise this means I am an unlovable individual.
• Since no one loves me this proves I'm unlovable.
• I can't stand living without a love partner.
• It's awful, terrible, horrible, and the end of my world not to have love in my life.

Ironically, demanding to be loved tends to push people away and, consequently, frequently leads to less love. It may feel needy, suffocating, or desperate to a partner.

Suppose you were criticized by your partner and you're feeling hurt. The good news is that it's your belief about the criticism, not the criticism itself, that causes your hurt feelings. And you can change your thinking to get over your hurt feelings.

• A. Activating Event: I was rejected by the person I love.
• B. Irrational Belief: I absolutely need his or her approval.
• C. Undesirable Emotional Consequences: Hurt and depressed.
• D. Questioning or Debating the Irrational Belief: What is the evidence I absolutely need his or her approval?
• E. Effective New Thinking or the Answer to the Question: There is no evidence that supports my conviction that it's a dire necessity I have his or her approval. Although I strongly prefer the person I love, love me, I do not absolutely have to be loved by him or anyone else. Although I distinctly do not like it when he criticizes or disapproves of me, I definitely can rationally stand what I do not like. His rejection of my love is unfortunate but hardly the end of the world or the end of my life. I can unconditionally accept myself with his rejection as the imperfect fallible human I am.
• F. New Feeling Resulting From E: Great disappointment, intense regret, extreme dissatisfaction, strong frustration, rather than hurt and depression.

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