I never thought I’d write an article on love. It is a topic too vast, and in my opinion a realm where the learning never stops. Nobody can ever claim to completely understand or ‘master’ love, as I see it. So I always thought that writing on it would be a pompous, self-deluding exercise. But here I am anyway, in response to a distraught friend who asked me ‘What is Love?’ at the end of a relationship. It is a question I have asked myself too, so I don’t claim to know the answer. But a little clarity has been there, which is what I attempt to share here.

Emotional abuse is so normalized these days, that most abuse is misconstrued as love. What’s worse, when one tries to call it out, one is often accused of rejecting the other’s love. But the differences are stark and clear, if you’re trying to look for them. So this isn’t meant to be a guide on how to love – that takes years of self-work and healing – but a guide for those trying to figure out if a particular relationship is loving or abusive. Check by studying yourself, not the other person, because love is about giving more than receiving.

You Want to Surrender, Not Control

Control and manipulation are signs of the absence of love and heart energy in a relationship. It means that the person is coming from a space of fear and lack – and someone functioning from that space is not in a position to love.

In abuse, the other person is held responsible for one’s feelings. Osho said that when in love, during conflict the person thinks that there must be something wrong with them. The moment one thinks that there is something wrong with the other person, it is a sign that there is no love anymore. And this is my experience too. Love is acceptance of who you are, as you are, while at the same time calling out your delusions or mistakes – but it does not accuse you or put you down.

You Want to Give

In love, you give for no reason other than it makes you happy and the other isn’t expected to be grateful or to acknowledge how much you do. The statement “I did so much for you, and this is what I get in return” is a clear sign of a lack of love. That was business. There was an investment, and now you’re upset because you didn’t get appropriate returns on your investment. You could be in a relationship for years, and you’d never feel like the relationship was a dead investment – even if it ends badly – because you were never investing in the first place. When doing things for the other makes you happy, then there is no baggage attached to that giving.

What Can I Do for You?

It is always during a conflict of interest when the true colors of love come out. In a loving relationship you will find that both the people are trying to ask ‘what are you going through, and how can I make this right?’. In an abusive relationship, both are defending their positions and accusing the other of not doing enough. Or worse, telling the other person how they need to change.

You Seek a Win-Win

You know how all those stories circulate, about women listing out all the mistakes their husbands have made over the last decade, in every fight? Well that’s normalized abuse for you. It is a sign of an abusive relationship where one demands and the other eventually gives up on trying to comply, or keeps trying, failing, and feeling inadequate. Love seeks resolution so that there can be a win-win – where both partners can be comfortable with a solution. When it’s ‘my way or the highway’, take it for granted that that is not love being manifested there.

Another consequence of seeking a win-win is that it makes it easier to be more forgiving of the other’s mistakes, and also makes you kinder when you’re both hurting.

You Don’t Want to Hurt the Other

Anyone reading this statement is likely to go, ‘Oh I never want to hurt another person’ – and if you just thought that, you’re not only wrong, but you also need to work more deeply with your level of self-awareness. There is a tendency to want to hurt the other person when you don’t get what you want from them, and even more if they are hurting you. Sensitive people are usually more aware of this in others and can feel either deeply traumatized or infuriated when they sense this.

Observe yourself carefully. If you feel like hurting the other person when you feel wronged – either by saying something nasty or mean, or by doing something – even hurting yourself – to bring about pain and/ or guilt in the other, you are not only not coming from love but also being highly manipulative and abusive.

An Apology is Easy. And Meaningful

I think apologies need a separate article on their own, I’ve seen so many people completely screw this up. But you’ll find that when there is love, this comes naturally. When you realize that you’ve hurt the other person, you tend to automatically feel sorry to have put the other person through pain or distress, and you promise yourself that you won’t repeat it. And then you don’t.

“Sorry, but…. ” is not an apology. There may sometimes be an explanation to help the other understand why you acted a certain way and clear the ‘why did you do this to me?’ question in their minds. But there’s a big difference between an explanation and an excuse. An explanation says this is what happened, and I’m really sorry I acted this way and it caused you pain, and an excuse says I’m sorry, but this is why I acted this way, I couldn’t have helped but act like this (and often – if you had acted differently, my words/ actions would not have been hurtful).

There are no rules

We have a tendency to attach rules to love. If it’s true love, it’ll last forever, if it is true love, we’ll never fight, or we’ll never sleep without resolving a fight, true love means never giving up no matter how painful it gets, and so on and so forth. You know what, none of these are true. Nothing is. Love is not bound by a bunch of belief systems. If you’re trying to analyse whether someone else has experienced love, you’re wasting your time and need to find something better to do. If it is your own relationships you’re trying to assess by these standards, let go. Do the best you can, and leave the rest to God. The heart opens bit by bit when the time comes, and you will find yourself more loving as time passes, if you are sincerely working on yourself.

And lastly,

Here’s a video I fell in love with. Botton talks about how love is not ‘natural’ and needs to be learned and taught. Being in a relationship is about patiently teaching the other how to help you feel loved. And patiently and sincerely learning how to make the other feel loved. It is one of the most beautiful videos I’ve ever come across on relationships and I hope you enjoy it too.