Chapter 290 - Three Harsh Truths About Love[3]

2. Love does not solve your relationship problems. My first girlfriend and I were madly in love with each other. We also lived in different cities, had no money to see each other, had families who hated each other, and went through weekly bouts of meaningless drama and fighting.

And every time we fought, we'd come back to each other the next day and make up and remind each other how crazy we were about one another and that none of those little things matter because we're omg sooooooo in love and we'll find a way to work it out and everything will be great, just you wait and see. Our love made us feel like we were overcoming our issues, when on a practical level, absolutely nothing had changed.

As you can imagine, none of our problems got resolved. The fights repeated themselves. The arguments got worse. Our inability to ever see each other hung around our necks like an albatross. We were both self-absorbed to the point where we couldn't even communicate that effectively. Hours and hours talking on the phone with nothing actually said. Looking back, there was no hope that it was going to last. Yet we kept it up for three f.u.c.k.i.n.g years!

After all, love conquers all, right?

Unsurprisingly, that relationship burst into flames and crashed like the Hindenburg into an oil patch. The break up was ugly. And the big lesson I took away from it was this: while love may make you feel better about your relationship problems, it doesn't actually solve any of your relationship problems.

This is how a toxic relationship works. The roller coaster of emotions are intoxicating, each high feeling even more important and more valid than the one before, but unless there's a stable and practical foundation beneath your feet, that rising tide of emotion will eventually come and wash it all away.