His Point of View

Today I heard a young lady (she is in the age range of 25-27) say that most women only want a man for his heart, and nothing more.  I could not allow her comment to go uncorrected.  It sounded to me as if she lived in a fairytale world, where there are princes, princesses, and knights in shining armor.  While the reality is that nothing is that simple, we all have motives and desires, and love is not all that most men or women want from their mate.  I responded by saying that although women say they only want love the majority of them want one or more things from a man including; financial security, physical safety, emotional safety, vacations, gifts, romance, or a host of other things.  Most(read, almost all) people regardless of gender want a lot more than just love from their mate.  If love were all that was required by women there would be no divorces due to financial hardship, working long hours, or leaving the toilet seat up.

When discussing what we want from a mate there are a few different types of people.  Some people admit that they are looking for a person to provide certain things, whether it be cooking, cleaning, sex, financial support, or whatever it is that makes one feel satisfied or safe.  Some people say that they just want to share true love and nothing more, but they still maintain a laundry list of requirements and they do not see the fact that they have a list of requirements as them wanting/requiring something more than just love.  And there are those few people who really are there for love, and they stick with their mate through thick and thin, richer or poorer, seeking nothing but giving their all to their mate.

We all want to be happy in the end.  The difference is that some people rely on others to provide some level of support in achieving happiness, while others work and sacrifice to obtain happiness for themselves.  A major problem in relationships today is that people expect their mate to make them happy, and to keep them happy all the time. When you can not support your own happiness you will be disappointed time and time again, because you are expecting other people to prioritize your happiness above things that they want or need to do to obtain their own happiness.  Sure, we do sacrifice to make our mates happy, if one person is sacrificing disproportionately more than the other then it likely that one person loves the other, while they are only loved for what they are doing for their mate.  Satisfaction is a feeling and some people achieve that feeling naturally, while others rely on their drug of choice to reach that feeling, in this case their drug happens to be another human, or the things that other human provides.  At any moment that that other person is not supplying the drug then there is no happiness and this person is unable or unwilling to find happiness on their own.

Making the statement that one can have a happy relationship if nothing more than true love exists between the two people is  great in concept, it sounds good, and it is the way that things should be.  Unfortunately that is not the reality of the world.  Relationships require a balance of so many conflicting components(career, finances,our past,family,pleasure,intimacy,trust,love,communication) that love sadly is just one ingredient in a very complex recipe.  And to make things worse it seems that someone tore out a couple of pages from the cookbook so no one knows how its really supposed to be made, some people just get lucky and end up with a dish that tastes great…too bad their recipe can’t be replicated by the masses.

On the other hand, some say that if two people share similar views on all those other ingredients(excluding love), then a long lasting love will form.  Maybe what we think is the main ingredient is really poisoning the pot.  Perhaps love is the dish we should be cooking up using all of those other  ingredients.