There are many speculations and theories floating around society about what true love is. They say that true love happens at first sight, that it is something you feel, and that it is not a choice, it either happens or it doesn't happen. However, there are many myths about true love out there, which is why we see such a high divorce rate in our world: everyone is looking for true love and waiting for it to happen to them.
In reality, true love is much more challenging than that. It's real, and it's wonderful, but it may not look like what you think it does. Here are some quotes that teach about true love.
It's not perfect
Many people believe that your true love is the perfect person for you. This belief predisposes people to disappointment. True love will never be perfect because relationships are made up of imperfect people.
"The thing about love is that it gives us a front row seat to someone else's faults, so obviously you're going to spot some things that need to be mentioned. But often the romantic view is to say, 'If you loved me, you wouldn't criticize me'. In fact, true love is often about trying to teach someone how to be the best version of themselves.". – Alain de Botton
"I find that the best way to love someone is not to change them, but instead to help them reveal the best version of themselves". – Dr. Steve Maraboli
"There is hardly a more gracious gift we can offer someone than to accept them fully, to love them almost in spite of themselves.". – Elizabeth Gilbert
"True love is when you love someone for who they are, accepting them as they are.". – Anurag Prakash Ray
"You don't love someone because they're perfect, you love them despite the fact that they're not.". – Jodi Picoult
"I love you for many reasons and in spite of many others". – Richelle E. Goodrich
It is a choice
Many people mistakenly believe that love is a feeling. This means that when the feeling of love leaves them, or the relationship is no longer exciting, they move on to a new relationship. The truth is, love is a choice. It may start as a feeling, but true love grows when two people choose to love each other day in and day out, for better or worse.
Source : unsplash.com
Many relationships end because people think they've "fallen out of love" with each other. Love is not a feeling, it's a choice. At some point in any relationship there will come a time when you have to decide to make it work and continue to love the other person even when you don't feel like it for the moment. If you are searching for a feeling you will always be searching. "Look," we said to ourselves, "what it is that draws two people into closeness and love? Sure, there's the mystery of physical attraction, but beyond that are the things they share. We both love strawberries and ships and collies and poems and all beauty, and all these things bind us together. Those shares happened by accident; but what we need to do now is share everything. If one of us likes something, there must be something he likes – and the other must find it – every single thing that one of us likes. In this way we will create a thousand threads, large and small, that will unite us. Then we will be so close that it will be impossible – unthinkable – for either of us to assume that we can recreate such closeness with someone else. And our trust in each other will be based not only on love and loyalty, but on the fact of a thousand shares, a thousand threads woven into something unbreakable.". – Sheldon Vanauken
"True love is selfless. Is willing to sacrifice". – Sadhu Vaswani
"True love is choosing the many things a person has done right over the one thing they have done wrong. True love does not keep a record of wrongs.". – Unknown
"He loved her, of course, but better than that, he chose her, day by day. Choice: that was the point". – Sherman Alexie
"But love, I've come to realize, is more than three words mumbled before going to bed. Love is sustained by action, a pattern of devotion in the things we do every day for each other". – Nicholas Sparks
"True love is not just a euphoric and spontaneous feeling, it is a deliberate choice, a plan to love each other for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health". – Seth Adam Smith
It doesn't happen at first sight
Love is a deep emotion that develops over time. You can't love someone you don't know, and you don't really know someone the moment you see them for the first time. You can be attracted to them at first sight and want to get to know them better, but you can't truly love another at first sight.
"True love doesn't happen right away, it's an ever-growing process. It develops after going through many ups and downs, when you have suffered together, cried together, laughed together". -Ricardo Montalban
"It is difficult to know at what moment love begins; it is less difficult to know that it has begun". – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
"True love is not a strong, burning, impetuous passion. It is, on the contrary, a calm and deep element. Looks beyond mere externality and is attracted only by qualities. He is wise and discriminating, and his devotion is real and lasting". – Ellen White
Is willing to last through the hard times
Notice how in fairy tales the "happily ever after" doesn't come until after there has been a challenge or a struggle. True love is like this. You don't get the happily ever after without a few challenges along the way. If you're not willing to hang in there during the hard times, you'll never discover the deeper love that is yet to come.
"Don't look for perfection in your partner. Perfection is all about the ego. With soulmate love, you know that true love is what happens when disappointment comes – and you're willing to deal with those disappointments with maturity." – Karen Salmansohn
"True love endures all, endures all and triumphs!" – Dada Vaswani
"True love is not how you forgive but how you forget, not what you see but what you hear, not how you listen but how you understand, and not how you let go but how you hold on". – Dale Evans
"We can't just jump ship every time we encounter a storm in our marriage. True love is about weathering life's storms together.". – Seth Adam Smith
"Love is not perfect. It's not a fairy tale or storybook and it's not always easy. Love is overcoming obstacles, facing challenges, fighting to be together, holding on and never letting go. It's a short word, easy to spell, hard to define and impossible to live without. Love is work, but more than anything, love is realizing that every hour, every minute, every second was worth it because you did it together.". – Unknown
"Love until it hurts. True love is always painful and hurts: then it's real and pure". -Mother Teresa
"True love means loving kindness and compassion, the kind of love that has no conditions". – Nhat Hanh
"If he can't handle you at your worst, then he doesn't deserve you at your best. True love means seeing beyond words spoken out of pain, and seeing instead a person's soul.". – Shannon L. Alder
It makes you a better person
True love helps you become a better person because you love the other person so much you want to become better. You work to be less selfish and put the other person first. You find ways to make that person happy. You become more patient, communicate more clearly and focus on pleasing the other person.
"True love not only includes things that make you feel good, but also holds you to a standard of responsibility". – Monica Johnson
"I love my husband very much. I knew it was true love because I felt I could be myself around that person. Your true, authentic deeper self, the one you don't let anyone else see, if you can be that way with that person, I think that's true love". – Idina Menzel
"True love means staying true, even when you have all the opportunities in the world to hurt someone". – Michael Hayssus
"I finally understood what the true love. Love meant that you cared about another person's happiness more than your own, no matter how painful the choices you have to face may be." – Nicholas Sparks
"To love someone is to do more than you say you will to show your love. Love is understood more when words are replaced by actions". – Terry Mark
"True love doesn't try to acquire. It gives itself. Its very nature is one of surrender, service and generosity". – Catherine Ingram
"True love trusts, mature love understands and true love waits". – Analiza Garcia
True love is the best love
True love is the best love there is. It doesn't depend on how you look, what you do or how successful you are. Someone who truly loves you will love you despite all your imperfections, and you will do the same for them. There will be hard times, but the good times are so good that the hard times are worth living through…together. This is what true love looks like.