4 Truths About Love We Learn The Hard Way

The most profound lessons are often the ones that cut the deepest.

1. You first real love may not necessarily be your last love.

What do you remember of your first real love? For most of us, that memory will consist of extreme highs and extreme lows. The first time we love, we fall so deeply and intensely that our chest aches. We allow it to consume us. We would do anything, and be anything, purely for that person to love us back with the same conviction. But sadly, those all consuming feelings can lead us to accept totally unacceptable behaviour in the relationship, especially as we don’t have much frame of reference yet of what real love looks and feels like.

My first love lasted six years. Six years of my life spent in a toxic and emotionally abusive relationship. I was only 17 years old, so I had absolutely no idea how to enforce my boundaries — or what my boundaries even were for that matter. I held onto the relationship for so much longer than I should have, accepting anything and everything, purely because it was my first love and I was so deeply attached to the idea of being with that person for the rest of my life. I had created a whole future with him in my mind, not understanding for a long time that it was very far from the reality I was actually living.

The truth is, we should not hang onto a toxic or unhealthy relationship just because we think they could be ‘the one’.

2. Control, jealousy and possessiveness are not a sign of love, they are emotional abuse.

Now read that again.

It took me the longest time to truly comprehend this, because unfortunately, those behaviours can often be disguised as ‘caring’. I used to believe that my ex was deeply in love with me because he wanted me to spend all of my time with him. To know exactly what I was doing if we were not together, and call me multiple times to see if I was home yet. To ‘joke’ that he was jealous when I spoke with my male co-workers. To dissuade me from wearing certain outfits on nights out together just so other men would not look in my direction, because I was his. When I finally began to question his behaviour, he responded with: “it’s because I love you, if I didn’t love or care about you then I wouldn’t do it”.

The truth is, it is not a sign of love, it’s emotional abuse. And the longer we idealise or make excuses for that type of behaviour, the more toxic and detrimental it becomes — to our happiness, to our confidence, to our self-worth, and to our mental health.

3. Second chances can be dangerous territory.

As humans we are naturally flawed, we are continually learning and evolving, we are not perfect but we are not supposed to be. So of course, we often make mistakes. It’s a part of the human element. However, second chances are murky water, and there are many things to consider before we jump into giving the relationship another try. Has anything actually changed? Have they changed? Do they understand why they hurt you, and have they learned from it? Because quite often the answer is no — particularly when it comes to toxic behaviours.

The truth is, when someone shows you who they really are, it’s better to believe them the first time — not after the 5th, 10th or 20th chance.

4. You will not die from a broken heart.

Even if you have experienced heartbreak more than once, the pain can still be so profound that it completely turns your world upside down. Following the end of a long-term relationship in my early twenties, I was left feeling utterly devastated. Completely broken in every sense; heart, mind and soul. The pain cut so deeply that I even felt it throughout my body, my chest felt crushed as though my heart was physically breaking. The type of pain that someone could not possibly comprehend unless they have experienced it for themselves.

But, if I could go back now and tell my younger self one thing, it would be that “you will not die from a broken heart”. Is that direct? Yes. But is it the truth? Also yes. That message would have given me a great deal of comfort, because no matter how painful and consuming the heartbreak feels, you know you absolutely WILL survive it. You will come out of that dark tunnel… you just have to give it time. And with time, you will begin to understand why you had to go through that pain to evolve into the incredibly strong person you are today, and to make space in your life for what is truly meant for you.

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