How accessible is your partner? Can you get his/her attention easily? Do you have dreams of being unable to get anyone to hear you? I once had a ten year old boy in counseling who drew a picture of himself in a house that was on fire. He was yelling for his mother. His picture of his mother showed her talking on the telephone. He told me, “She is always on the telephone and can’t hear me.”

To feel loved you need to know your partner is accessible. He/she will be there for you when you need him/her. You don’t feel lonely or shut out in the relationship. You can share your deepest feelings with your partner. You can disagree without risk of being shut out and your partner will be open to find a way to compromise or accept disagreement. Your partner does not walk away or pick up a newspaper when you talk about feelings. Connection is essential to love.

How about you? Do you make yourself accessible to your partner? Do you honor his/her preference for what time to talk? Do you listen carefully to what he/she has to say or are you thinking about what you want to say while he/she is talking? Listen to your partner the way you want your partner to listen to you. Listening skills make connection possible.

People base reality on their own thoughts and perceptions. We cannot change the world or another person. We can change how we see the world and another person. For love to grow, you must provide safety to the person you love.

Good self-talk can help you let go of judgment. Here are examples from my book, “Becoming Soul Mates–How to Create the Relationship You Always Dreamed Of”.

• People behave in ways that make sense to them.
• My partner and I are different–gender, personality, background, values, perceptions, fears, etc.
• We are together to learn from each other. What can I learn from this?
• I don’t have to be right to feel okay.
• I am free to decide to see my partner and what he/she does or says with love rather than fear.
• I am responsible for my own happiness.
• Many things are not wrong or right. They are just different. We can agree to disagree.
• I choose to move from reactive to healing dialogue.

Couples impact each other at a neuro-psychological level. They do an emotional dance with each other. I believe the underlying cause of disconnection comes from expectations that there has to be a right and wrong. If I am feeling unloved and unimportant to my mate, it must be his fault. Then I ask in an accusing tone, “Do you love me?”

When he feels blamed, he becomes defensive, “Of course, I do. What’s the matter with you?” It goes downhill from there. People don’t understand love, emotions, needs. They don’t understand how they trigger primal fear in each other. Everyone needs to examine themselves. How do you protect yourself in relationships? Do you withdraw, freeze up, avoid, building resentment? Do you pursue, yell, blame?

Be willing to tune in, open up, share fears and needs. Be aware of your own early experiences with attachments. Avoid blame and take responsibility for your part in this dance. Stay accessible. Forgive if necessary. Provide safety to each other. Touch. Comfort. Reassure. Be patient, kind, non-judgmental. This is the key to love and feeling loved.

Sometimes families come for counseling because children’s sibling rivalry has become a problem. One way I illustrate the nature of love is to darken the room and give each parent a lighted candle. Then from oldest to youngest each child is given a candle to light from the parents’ candles.
The lesson, of course, is that just as the light increases as more candles are lit, love increases as each child joins the family. Love grows. You cannot use it up. The more you love, the more love you have to give.

In my book, “How to Get Kids to Help at Home,” the last chapter is about teaching values. Here are a couple of paragraphs from that book:

One Sunday school teacher taught a lesson on forgiveness. “Forgiveness,” said one youngster, “is when you leave your dad’s saw out in the rain, and he says it was rusty anyway.” “Or,” said another, “when you spill a brand new carton of milk all over the kitchen floor, and your mom says accidents will happen.”

The New Testament describes love as “patient, kind, envies no one, is never boastful nor conceited, nor rude, never selfish, not quick to take offense. Love keeps no score of wrongs, does not gloat over others’ mistakes.” Children learn how to love from parents who love each other and then their family. Loving families bring their light to the world.

In last week’s post I quoted Aldous Huxley who said, “You learn to love by loving.” Today I want to expand on that. In his book, “The Little Prince” Antoine de Saint Exupery gives his readers a beautiful illustration of how love develops. The story is about a little prince who comes to the earth from another world and meets a fox in the desert. The point of the story is he couldn’t care about the fox until he tamed him and spent time with him. The fox’s secret was, “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly: what is essential is invisible to the eye.”

Perhaps soul mate relationships elude some couples because they pick partners with their eyes and not with their hearts. They may be unconsciously looking for sex partners so the looking never stops Some one else looks better the next month or year. They “fall in and out of love” regularly. I do not believe people actually “fall in and out of love”. People choose to love and they choose to no longer love. It is a matter of seeing with the heart, not with the eyes.

If couples marry only because of looks and sex, their relationship is always at risk. No wonder people in such relationships fear aging and can’t enjoy and grow through the best decades of their lives. There is no hope of becoming soul mates if the only connection is great sex.

Did people in ancient times have a word for love? Are we all looking for the same thing? When people say with authority, “There is no such thing as unconditional love”, is it because they have never experienced it? The New Testament portrays God as love and teaches that love is the greatest virtue in life. So what is love?

Aldous Huxley said, “You learn to love by loving.” “Love doesn’t make the world go ’round,” said Franklin P. Jones. “Love is what makes the ride worthwhile.” Kamila said, “Love is like an eternal flame, once it is lit, it will continue to burn for all time.” Benjamin Disraeli said, “We are all born for love. It is the principle of existence and its only end.” The title of an international best selling book by Gerald Jampolsky is, “Love is Letting Go of Fear”.

What do you think love is? Feel free to share by leaving comments. Maybe love is different for everyone. Those of you who are soul mates should have some interesting thoughts to share.

“One of the most important things we can do for the people we love,” writes Carolyn Hax in her newspaper column, “is love them as a package, conflicting opinions and all. That means trusting the relationship to be bigger than their dissent.”

When we can achieve this, we have gone a long way toward learning how to become soul mates. In my book, “Becoming Soul Mates” is this quote from Dinah Maria Mulock Craik (1826-1887).

“Oh, the comfort, the irrepressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are, chaff and grain together; certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then with the breath of kindness, blow the rest away.”

To manage yourself use your head. To relate to your lover use your heart. Lovers can slip into a pattern of blaming that becomes an invisible infection eating away the closeness, love, and intimacy. Always listen to your lover with your heart.

Nothing will cause distancing as quickly as feeling blamed whenever unpleasant things happen or mistakes are made. Listen to your mate without jumping into a defensive response. Reflect to him/her what you think they wanted you to hear. Be willing to say,”That hurt” when you feel harshness or blame.

When you open your hearts to each other focusing on what he/she does right, your love will grow. Your defensiveness will weaken and you will feel gratitude that your mistakes and weaknesses are minimized. Soul mates accept each other just the way you are. No changes required!

“A great marriage is not when the ‘perfect couple’ comes together. It is when an imperfect couple learns to enjoy their differences.” This quote comes from Dave Meurer in “Daze of Our Wives.”

In my book, “Becoming Soul Mates–How to Create the Lifelong Relationship You Always Dreamed Of” you will find a chapter on how to make differences work for you. A difference can lead to conflict, but it doesn’t trigger conflict. Your attitude and feelings about the difference triggers the conflict. When you stop defending and start thinking, you can ask yourself, “What is going on for me? What can I learn from this about myself and about the other person?”

People behave in ways that make sense to them. Why does it make sense to your lover to talk, believe, or behave in this way? Agree to disagree and stay in each other’s corner, not blaming, but accepting and working toward understanding.

  While in the Authors’ Booth at the State Fair, a visitor asked me, “What is the most important thing you have learned about making relationship work?” Tough question. I think my answer was, “Prioritize the relationship.”

The question lingered in my mind. Maybe the most important thing I continue to learn is when to keep my mouth shut. Some people would say, pick your battles, but I have found many battles can be avoided by keeping my mouth shut.

“You didn’t turn off the lights, air conditioner, water; close the door, drawer, curtain; why do you have to drip across the floor; slow down; you eat too fast; you spend too much money.” These are the kinds of things that waste your energy and irritate your mate. Give it up. If there is a serious problem, it won’t be resolved this way.

Your mate may not notice when you stop complaining. He or she will feel the difference but may not know why he or she is feeling warmer and closer to you.