3 Critical Love Lessons Most Women Learn Way Too Late

Listen up closely.

Any lesson in life is a present in disguise, but when we talk about “Love Lessons,” we indeed learn most of them way too late.

Yes, love lessons often hit us hard and sometimes, they need to hit us more than once for us women to really grasp the truth behind it!

But if I had to talk to my children and grandchildren about “love” and the lessons that this magnificent conception has taught me, here is what I would say.

  1. “I learned that you cannot make someone love you. All you can do is be someone who can be loved. All the rest is up to them. I learned that no matter how much I care, some people just don’t care back. And it’s not the end of the world.” — Roger Knapp

If I had known this earlier in my life, I would not have been sacrificing my authenticity for any recognition, appreciation, or love from boys or men. As a sensitive youngster, I took it very personally if people would not love me back. I always thought something was wrong with “me,” that for some reason, I was “not good enough.”

I felt the same with girlfriends, teachers, grandparents, you name it. I never understood why they did not like me or love me as much as I tried to love and please them.

Now I know that it is not up to us to make someone love us. But it is up to us to be the best version of ourselves so that people around us can see and feel who we are and decide if they want us to be a part of their life or not.

“Don’t be a woman that needs a man, be a woman a man needs.”

And don’t forget, we have exactly that same choice! We do not have to love anyone else because they love us. The choice is totally ours!

  1. “People have only their kind of love to give, not our kind.” — Mignon McLaughlin

This is a very important message to learn for every feminine youngster or adult that tries to change the way her boyfriend or partner expresses his love or behaves toward her. We all have our unique way of loving someone. That is part of the mystery of love. One cannot give what one does not have.

I used to try to make my partner love me the way I loved him and it does not work.

Stop trying to tell others how they must love you. Let them be their unique self because love is an expression of their own soul. Nobody can love like you do and you cannot love like they do.

Appreciation and gratitude for what IS might just save your loving relationship.

  1. “The ultimate lesson all of us have to learn is unconditional love, not only to others but to ourselves as well.” — Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

This is indeed, for me, the ultimate love lesson to learn, with which we all struggle because we are masters in conditional love, in judging and criticizing. If we could stop our judgments toward one another, we would definitely experience what true love is all about.

With that said, if we do not love ourselves unconditionally, we will not be able to love another the same way. Self-love is not a luxury but a necessity if you want to have loving, long lasting relationships with other people, certainly your partner.

So start loving yourself without any conditions and do the same with the love of your life.

Of course, there is so much more to say about love and its lessons, but if I had known these 3 things when I was younger, it would have saved me a lot of grief, hurt, and self-sacrifice.

Now that I know, it is easier to love and be loved and I enjoy love as it comes to me, without forcing anything. I am grateful for every loving relationship I experience… and I accept every relationship that does not work out. It is OK.

But most of all, I work every day on the most important loving relationship in my life and that is the one with myself! Because that is the source and necessary base of any other beautiful relationship I have with any other being on this planet!

Originally published on YourTango by Danielle Sax

Featured image via Matheus Bertelli on Pexels

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