When you are in the midst of healing from heartbreak, you can truly begin to see the true benefit of non-romantic relationships. With a renewed focus on deeply meeting yourself, your friendships, mentorships and family bonds can begin to mean even more than they once did. Love, of any kind, has beautiful and transformative power. When we are at our lowest, love is the redemptive power that gives us the strength to keep going. The love that pours in from the people who see and understand us the most is undefeated. We often see messaging aimed at encouraging us to to focus on nonromantic connections as much, if not more, than romantic ones. People even go as far as admonishing others to divest from romantic partnerships in both desire and action. And though there is merit in shifting focus, especially after experiencing pain in love, it is high time that we stop pretending that nonromantic love is a viable replacement for romantic love.
It is not.
And that’s ok.
Romantic love, for all of its potential disappointments and pain, has no equal. Friendship can be just as empowering and fill us up in ways that lift us out of dark times but just as it has its place in our lives; romantic love has its incomparable benefits as well. In fact, we are all created to experience and express love in intimate relationships like marriages and life partnerships just as much as we have been created to experience and express love to those with whom our bonds are solely platonic. No one type of love can be a replacement for another. They may, at times, be placeholders for one another, in times where one may be transitioning from relationships that no longer serve who we are becoming; however, they all have their own place in our lives. The lessons we learn about ourselves and others in romantic partnership can truly be life-altering. In fact, one can argue that it is when we are in these very vulnerable relationships, that we are faced with who we are on a level far deeper than that of family or friendship. Sharing our hearts, minds, bodies and soul with another person who is choosing to share themselves with you in the same fashion is an experience that everyone deserves to have. And what’s more is it’s an experience that it’s 100% ok to desire to have.
If you want to experience love in a romantic sense, you are human.
There is nothing wrong with you for desiring to feel love the way we all are wired to want it. There is also nothing wrong with deciding that those types of partnerships are not currently serving you and choosing to place your attention on strengthening other bonds. The truth of the matter is: all love is valid but it is not interchangeable. You can deepen your romantic partnership on a friendship level and even become familial with them by way of marriage or other commitment practices—but each of those dynamics require something different of us as people. When we pretend that any love is less important than another, we place boundaries on something that is boundless. We take away the power of love when we decide because of human frailty that one type of love, or the attention paid to it, is less enduring and deserving of our praise. Telling women to divest from romantic relationships in order to find a love that is more fulfilling either perpetuates the idea that intimate connections are not worth the risk or puts the complete onus of love onto ourselves. Self love is not the cure all we pretend it is. Though we all hope to be coming into relationships whole, the reality is that it is often in our romantic partnerships where we start to peel back the layers of disappointment, rejection, loss and abandonment in order to let another human being in. One who has the potential to hurt us but who we have decided to trust with our hearts anyway, can be the person who introduces us to a depth of emotion that a mother, trusted friend or even a child cannot match.
Why would anyone want to deprive themselves of an unmatched love in order to prove how little romantic partnerships matter?
Not viewing your worth through the presence or absence of romantic love is a great thing; however, pretending to not want it in order to protect yourself against the reality of how difficult it may be to find and sustain it, is fear at work. And fear and love cannot co-exist. In order for any of us to arrive at a place where love can truly take root, we first have to invite it in by being honest about desiring to live in its presence.
So, who do you love?