Is love enough?

In Vietnamese, the word for missing someone and remembering them is the same- nho. It makes total sense. How can you miss someone when they never actually left your head?

Love is a beautiful drug. When did we start using words like 'drug', 'toxic' with a word as divine and pure as the word 'love'? Love is supposed to be a shrine; it is supposed to feel like a shrine. When did it start feeling like a sin?

Well, like I always say, love has never been a scandal. It was the lovers.

Love always starts pretty. There is warmth, tenderness, respect and commitment. Sooner or later, some of us reach a state where love stays, but warmth, tenderness, respect and commitment doesn't. As a result, the bridge spanning between the present and the future becomes shaky. Love alone does not and cannot hold that bridge. It takes time to understand the level of emotional maturity and social compatibility we have.

We are so carried away by being in love that we tend to forget that simply being in love is never enough. There are so, so many couples who had to call off their relationship even after being irrevocably in love. You cannot blame anyone here. Yes, perhaps one of them hold the burden of this blame slightly more than the other one, but it will be wrong to push the blame in entirety to one side. Compatibility cannot be forced. Respect cannot be ordered. Family and society cannot be completely forgotten. When you start fighting more than you ever loved, when you start losing your sleep and peace over something which has no apparent solution, is it worth it?

You can live your entire life without the spark you initially had. It is called a 'spark' for a reason- it is doomed to be transient. But can you wake up your entire life only to mend the fight you have been having since the previous night? Or maybe the night even before?

We all live with an inherent fear inside us. We fear that we won't be loved or that we won't be able to love again. Perhaps we will. Perhaps we won't. Perhaps we will find someone with whom everything will be as easy as breathing. That is a discussion for some other day. But is it worth holding on to that splinter of love at the cost of our self-respect, emotional stability and mental peace? Can we do that each day for the rest of our lives?

Love is not and cannot be the be-all and end-all of all healthy relationships. We need more traits to lead a sustainable and peaceful life. If your grounds are shaky on these aspects, perhaps it's time to consider whether you really want to protect your love with every ounce of effort you have in you. You may end up losing yourself at the cost of saving your relationship.

1. We need to have mutual respect. Simply because he or she is your partner doesn't give them the right to violate your boundaries. We all are social animals but sometimes, we do need some space- some time alone and we expect to get what's essentially ours.

2. We need to be sure that we are listened to. Not every action demands an explanation. We need to be understood and we expect the person we love to trust us- to trust that if we are not in the mood of talking, no amount of blabbering will make us talk and that waiting for the appropriate time and situation to talk doesn't imply that we have fallen out of love. We need to have at least the bare minimum of problem-solving skills. One problem should not last for more than two days. There is no point quarrelling for days and night to get some moments of peace only to fight again the next day.

3. Honesty. Communication. Can we tell anything and everything to him/her and can we expect them to listen patiently to what we have to say? Or do we often hide things in fear of awakening an inappropriate response?

4. Abuse. The biggest red flag. They tend to coat that later with a layer of guilt; we coat that with a layer of self-blame. But this violates the biggest necessity- respect.

5. Do we find ourselves compromising way more than we have to? A little bit of compromise is required to make things work, but too much of anything, as they say, is dangerous. It will only make us frustrated and we will end up blaming them for taking too much and giving too little.

Nothing is ever easy. Love and relationship comes with its fair share of difficulties. We are expected to try, obviously. We have to keep trying to make it work; we need to make sure that we have done our best. But we also should know when to stop.

There are times, perhaps, when simply walking out will be the kindest deed you could have ever done for them and for you.