“You too will find someone darling, don’t worry”

“No one can steal what’s meant for you”, “Love will find you eventually, even if it’s later for you than it is for other people and it will be love at first sight and you will just know”.

How tired I am of hearing all of this.

Because that is not true. True love doesn't find you, and those who are feeding hope to the hopeless are feeding them only lies.

I had my fair share of searching for love to last me a lifetime. I was always looking for the perfect love story even if I didn’t have a true example of what it should look like, so I kept searching in the dark.

Many of our parents and older relatives don’t even know what true love is. We see them live happily after 20, 30, 40 years of marriage, and we say to ourselves: “Wow! They lived together for so long, they must be so happy, what’s their secret? They are a great example to follow!”

Truth is, many of these marriages, at least where I live, held out so long because they didn’t know what else to do if they were unhappy. Women get abused on a daily basis, and that is just enough reason to leave, but they didn’t have where to go. The society and community will often teach them that the sacred marriage is not to be broken, God tied their destinies together and they had no choice but to keep pushing.

I’m ashamed, terrified and disgusted of what I hear every day in this 21st century, so modern and digitalized, with so much knowledge. Women that I know are still abused, physically and mentally. But they still stay. The kids are all grown up, but why go to all the trouble of separating anyways, they lived together for so long they don't know what else there is to life.

They did not live a love story, they got married because it seemed a good fit after only one date. They had babies, the woman had to raise them, the man had to provide for them. She lost herself in daily housework, caring for the children, washing, cleaning, cooking all day. And that’s how life went by. Years passed, they grew old, the children grew up, left the house, they remained old, and unhappy, but accustomed to the life they built.

But people from the outside see an old couple who lived together for 40 years, they had many children and were raised well, and they are still together. So they are given as an example for young people searching for love. “They found themselves even if they didn't search that much, they just waited for the right one, met, and married, so love will find you too, just wait.”

They only had a partnership, they signed an agreement to be partners and raise children. They were not in love, they loved each other in time, despite the unhappiness. But if you’re just looking for a business partner to get along, and live that life, go for it. But that is not true love, that is nothing more than a sad business agreement.

The feelings that you experience on your first few dates, the first kiss, when you first touch each other, those are hormones. You love it, it’s amazing, you think you found the one, he is funny, good looking, seems to be on his feet. He says he loves you, you love him too.

We, as women, already mentally built our life together for the next 10 years. We can see it all, all the stages, when he proposes, when we move in together, we get married, we have children. That’s what many of us women do, we are emotional creatures. That’s because we have that stupid biological clock telling us we have to have babies until a certain age, that is literally written in our DNA, plus what our parent tells us so often about marriage from a young age.

But the fact is, those love hormones pass after a while, you start to see he is just a human, he is not prince charming, he is not here to save you. He was also looking for love, but he was not sure either what it was supposed to look like.

So things get tough, you have your first fights, you don’t understand why, I though this was it, he was the one. What did I do wrong in this relationship, did I not choose him right?

That’s the moment people often leave, they think they didn't find the right person and they keep searching.

True love is build with communication, with patience, with sweet gestures, dates, even after a few years have passed. We shouldn't wait for someone to save us, we save each other, we help each other, we encourage each other.

Needless to say how important is to learn to love ourselves first. We can’t possibly think we can love deeply someone else if we haven't discovered yet how to love ourselves. But that is a story for another time.

You want to live a love story like you see in movies? Those movies and books are made to sell, I’m sorry to crush the fairytale. I’m not saying they are all the same, but what you don’t often see there, is the hard work the two put in the relationship. The moments they find each other doubting the love they have for one another. The moments they decide to reunite and keep building that love.

People don’t just find the perfect one and live happily ever after. They decide they want to stay and built something beautiful, not just let life pass by like so many of our parents or grandparents did.

Take a moment to think if your partner truly loves you, if you truly love him. Do you want to invest in this love? Then invest in it! Take the time to see what it is his love language, if he has more than one, and speak to him in a language he understands. And that goes both ways. That’s when the hard work comes.

It will not all be perfect, stop believing it will be. But if you take your time and put in the effort, it will be beautiful and it will be a true love story.

Tell me what you think about true love in the comments.