About Love

"Being understood is one of our deepest needs. We don't really need to know that we are "right," as much as we need to know that someone understands how we feel and what our "reality" is.

Love can only exist where there is freedom.

Our attempts to control what another person thinks, feels, wants, does, values, believes, etc. are destined to drive them away, and ultimately destroy love. Love only exists as we see another person in their own right as a separate individual, who as Jesus said is free to do what they want to with what is their own. (see Matt. 20:15) When someone says "no," we are to respect it. When they have choices and wishes that are different from ours, we are to respect them as well. Real love can only grow where someone's "real self" can be known and accepted by the other person. If there are demands for perfection and the "ideal person," then love is blocked. Adults who are in significant relationships are meant to be equals and share the reality of who they are in a spirit of mutuality.

Some people, however, want not to be equals, but one-up on the other person. They want to be in more of a parent-child type of connection where they are in charge. They have expectations for the other to be in subjection to them in some strange way, and are dominating in their style.

This type of "I know better" stance blocks love in a horrible way, as the person who is "under" feels belittled, controlled, dominated and disrespected. In the best scenario's, the so-called "benevolent dictator," the one on the bottom rung fails to grow up and develop into who they were meant to be.Typical of this type of stance are a lot of "you should's," that dominate the person's thinking, as they freely tell the other person how to think, live, be and what to do. The biggest problems to love in this type of connection come from the resentment in the one-down person, and their drive to become independent from the dominating one.

As Jesus said, we are to all be equals and put no one on a parental pedestal. (Matt. 23:8)

This was an excerpt from an article by Dr. Henry Cloud called "Blocks to Love"