Thought for the Day: Somehow Monday slipped away from me. I was unable to get to the blog to post. Here is a Tip from my HealthTap postings which came to me after working with a couple over the last few weeks in marriage therapy. They have two very different views of love. He is a romantic and expects love to be "blissful." She believes that love is sticking with someone through thick and thin. In her mind there is no such thing as "blissful" love. When she talks about how hard love can be, he feels disappointed.
Part of helping them in therapy is the process of learning to find common ground so that they can understand each other's views.
Sustaining love is not easy. A loving marriage is not the same as passionate infatuation, which is the early phase of romance. Love takes time to develop and grow. Constant blissful love is a fairy tale, which can lead to disappointments in real life.
Yesterday, I got sucked into the ABC TV program, The Bachelorette. Although I think the concept is bizarre and unrealistic, when I happen to turn on the TV when it is on air, I find it fascinating. It is based on the fairy tale wish to meet Prince Charming. Yesterday, Andi, the current Bachelorette, had a group date in which she and six of the men competing for her love took a lie detector test. She was questioning the intentions of some of the men and decided to try to find out how honest they were. She discovered that 3 men were totally honest, two lied twice and one lied three times. In the end, the men looked at her results, but she tore up their's, saying she would wait to find out for herself in time.
If she is looking for a long term real relationship and has a matter of weeks in a TV season to choose one man from 25, perhaps it was foolish not to know who was truthful and who was not. On her test, she had lied and said that Italy was her favorite place in the world. She will not know if the men's lies were similar minor white lies or red flags. The most important element for a healthy, loving, lasting relationship is trust, not bliss. If her intuition made her question their honesty enough to even consider a lie detector test, she may be building her decisions on shaky ground. What do you think? Should she have looked at the men's results?
Although like happiness, there can and are blissful loving moments, it is not a constant in anyone's long term love life. If you are fortunate, there are enough blissful moments to balance the sweat and tears that life's challenges bring to a loving relationship. Do you and your partner have different views of the meaning of love? Has it led to any conflicts between you?
Here's how the tip appeared on my HealthTap feed. If you have not visited HealthTap, I highly recommend it. You can ask any and all your medical questions 24/7 and get answers from doctors from around the nation.
Dr. Barbara Lavi shared a tip:
Hello nice bloog
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