Romantic love is about enjoyment.

Specifically?

Enjoyment of sexual fulfillment and emotional connection.

That’s it.

Nothing else.

But as it goes out there in the big bad world of romantic relationships? Everybody has to complicate things and make it harder than it actually is.

How?

Lots of ways of course.

One of the biggest is the personal growth thing.

As the saying goes?

If you outgrow your partner?

You’ll feel frustrated and disconnected from them.

With the advent of the sexual revolution the self discovery movement started. Since then everybody thinks you need to be pushing for your full human potential all the time.

How does this impact your relationship?

Your partner should be growing all the time too.

If either of you stop growing?

Your relationship is stagnating.

After all, “If you’re not growing you’re dying” as the saying goes.

Hey! I’m a big personal growth guy myself. After all that’s how I overcame my porn addiction and I even wrote a book about it. It’s also how I overcame my fear of intimacy too.

So I’m not here to knock personal growth at all.

Just this assumption it should affect your love life.

Whether your partner is growing?

Reaching their potential?

That shouldn’t affect your love.

Romantic love is about valuing your partner it’s not about having expectations for them. You’re with them because you love them for who the ARE not for who they may someday become.

Romantic love is about taking in the moment.

It is about sharing yourselves with each other.

Not about sharing your potential.

Sharing the real you.

Experiencing your love in the here and NOW.

All you need to experience love right now is to value who your partner is today. What they will be tomorrow isn’t important.

“Oh,” you say.

“Sure that’s fine.

“But what if I grow and they stagnate?”

“Doesn’t that mean our love will stagnate too?”

“Won’t I cease to value them when that happens?”

Why should you?

If you enjoy a good steak or Caesar salad today is there any reason you should ever stop loving it? Sure you might come to love other things too but that doesn’t remove the value THESE things have.

If you enjoy who your partner is now?

You will always enjoy them for it.

If your partner is not growing the problem is YOU.

You’ve started to EXPECT them to.

You’ve made your partner’s personal growth a condition of your love. That’s not a uncommon problem with personal growth types.

But it’s YOUR problem not your partner’s.

You need to recognize how far you’ve fallen.

Start appreciating who your partner IS again.

Return to your first love!

What do you say? Have you gotten your focus off of your love and begun prioritizing personal growth above it and will you commit today to return to simply loving your partner for who they are not who you wish they’d be?