Love Is The Answer = Myth, Peril and Prison
“All you need is love.”
“All you need is love.”
“Love means never having to say you’re sorry.”
“Good girls love bad boys.”
Combine these hackneyed platitudes with everyday women turned princess, the biggest party you’ll ever host, gowns with handmade lace trains and the social pressure to be coupled and you, too, will believe the hype. It’s almost impossible not to. But I’m here to tell you, stepping out in the peak of wedding season, that love is never The Answer.
The myth of love as the answer starts for many of us with fairy tales. A pretty damsel needs help. A willing, ripped guy shows up at the right moment and voila! She is saved, he scores a cutie and the day ends with Pachebel’s Canon in D Major. It’s a story we all know and that many hope for. Of course we do. We are suckers for a happy ending. We have a bias toward perfection. And when you add those two together, love becomes the answer. But this math cannot be counted on. Perfection and happy endings are only stories.
If you are someone in the early days with your boo, you may be tempted to scoff and click away. Wait. I get you. The sex is juicy and reality seems better than any dream. It’s well before dogs, children, lube and loss. It feels like there couldn’t be any other real reason for everything, except love. I remember that. I’ve been there too.
But things will get hard.
People change.
A former partner of mine did. We had been together five years when our home was destroyed in a fire. He suddenly started drinking in a way that I had never seen before. Bottles were hidden. Money became scarce. Normally reliable, he was often MIA…or hiding in a closet. In another world, it might have been funny if it wasn’t so scary.
Perhaps like me you were taught to dive in, help out and prioritize others. That there’s nothing you couldn’t do if you put your mind to it. In my late twenties, I had yet to encounter a personal challenge I couldn’t solve. How was his drinking any different? So I dove in. I researched the hell out of the problem, reading volumes about alcohol and alcoholics. I talked to alcoholics in recovery and attended Al-Anon. When none of that worked, I changed my behavior. I cut back on drinking. I became more affectionate. I took deep breathes and practiced patience. I stayed in, talked less, listened more.
No one ever told me that no amount of effort on my part can change someone else’s behavior. I didn’t understand that although while he might blame me that his drinking was never my fault. I didn’t know that a traumatic event in the present — like a house fire — could be a trigger for past trauma. I was taught to take the long view, that time heals all wounds, that everything will be fine in the end, it will all be worth the wait.
There was so much I did not know.
It’s at this point that you might begin to see what I have. You may be feeling resentment, fatigue, frustration or anger in your relationship. I was. And it was about that time that I began to ask myself some questions:
“Why doesn’t he ever______?”
“When will he stop thinking only of himself?”
“How can I leave?”
Questions that feel treasonous to consider, never mind to act on.
But these questions are the canary in the coal mine. They sing out from your gut.
Your gut knows things are not right even if your heart and head are still knee-deep in the myth. Love never changes anything. That’s why this myth is so dangerous: three little words don’t matter.
It doesn’t matter if your partner says that they love you…
If they control you with money, threats, intimidation, “the silent treatment” or isolation…Then their focus on using power to control you means your relationship is not a partnership.
If they do something when you’ve asked them not to or brush off your concerns…Then their inability to respect your boundary means you don’t (or no longer) share common values.
If they minimize situations, deny your feelings or manipulate you into doing what they want…Then they don’t respect you as a person, let alone a partner.
Another thing I never knew? It’s okay to give up. To stop fighting and walk away. That sometimes, for your own health and safety, you need to give up on someone. Even as I type this, it still feels wrong. And it’s been almost 15 years.
There is an equation where love is the answer. At a time when two people are together. But it’s not about perfection and happy endings. It’s about the pieces that aren’t seen in the trailer.
It is this:
willingness and action from both people make a relationship work and thrive.
This is the equation that might save you. When love is part of the recipe, not relied on as the main ingredient. This is a truth where love is the answer, the un-pretty moments of struggle, the scenes without re-touching. Because what else except love for our partner motivates us to work toward something better with them?
Just as important, however, is you. That you deserve respect, attention, honesty, kindness and commitment. Not just love. And that’s the real fact behind the myth, another essential piece of your education that was neglected. Love is never enough.
But you are.You are enough.
On your own.
With a partner.
With kids. Or pets.
Or without any of that.
You are enough.
Love can be a part of the formula. But love alone as the answer is a myth. Maybe this is a better love quote to live by:
“Respect is just the minimum,” — Lauryn Hill
Elizabeth M. Johnson MA is a writer and podcaster based in Durham, North Carolina. She writes about trauma, relationships and how we make decisions. Sign up for her Substack here or be social @EMJWriting.