The honeymoon stage can simultaneously be the most exhilarating and distorted part of a romantic relationship
You've just started seeing someone and you're convinced that you're madly in love with them. You finish each other's sentences, anticipate the next moment you can spend with them, and feel a sense of connection unlike anything else you've experienced in your life.
The relationship quickly develops to the point where you feel inseparable from one another. Your personal identity becomes deeply connected with your partner, to a point where it's difficult to envision your life without the other person.
Day-by-day, week-by-week, the feelings become stronger and more entrenched. You can't stop talking about how incredible you feel with everyone you know, to the point where you're spewing butterfly vomit in every conversation. This must be true love because it's absolute bliss!
And then, one day...the real relationship begins
Maybe it takes a few months of relentless fawning and lovefests before the initial buzz begins to wear off. Or perhaps it takes even longer, as sometimes the infatuation period can last for years before it starts to fade.
But inevitably, at some point, the real work of a relationship must begin. The days of viewing your partner as divine perfection will be over. The idea of viewing your relationship as an act of earthly transcendence in favor of ethereal bliss will cease.
And the reality, often harsh in nature, will set in: your lover is a flawed human, just like you. They'll annoy you with their idiosyncrasies. You'll irritate them with yours.
Something will set the other person off. Insults will slip out, followed by further irrational words that add uncomfortable fuel to the fire. The passion of devotion that defined your love up to that point quickly shifts into a rage unlike anything you've experienced. It turns out, your perfect vision of love has been flipped suddenly on its head faster than you thought imaginable.
Love is a process that requires facing your own shadow
The end of the honeymoon stage can often mean the end of the relationship, as many people simply don't want to do the heavy lifting that a real relationship requires. These people will often hop around from partner to partner, searching for their ideal mate without realizing such an idyllic soul doesn't actually exist.
They were tricked into believing that real love doesn't involve constant pain, arguments, and uncomfortable realizations about one's self. And instead of allowing themselves to work through the difficult parts of the relationship, they hurriedly jump ship, avoiding the actual work that makes a relationship succeed.
A honeymoon stage accompanies every romantic relationship. Some are more prolonged than others, in part because some couples are really good at avoiding the drop of the other proverbial relationship shoe. But at some point, you have to come to terms with the fact that the vast majority of your relationship will not be spent in the crooning, heart aflutter, sappy experience that marks the beginning of a relationship.
Instead, you'll have to work through endless amounts of differences and disagreements. If you want a relationship to last, you'll learn the art of compromise. You'll discover that your ego and pride are worth much less than your ability to admit your imperfections and say you're sorry. And if the other party isn't equally committed to acknowledging their own faults and being open to compromise, you may simply realize that the relationship isn't what you need.
Lasting relationships require the effort of both parties
I'm sure you've been around a one-sided relationship, where one person is committed to making things work while the other is simply coasting their way into an almost certain relationship death-spiral. Inevitably, one person begins to develop resentment towards the other party and unless something drastic changes, the relationship is doomed to fail or become a passionless corpse, a mere memory of its former self.
There isn't a clear-cut, straight-forward, easy to follow rule for making a relationship work. Like most things in life, a working relationship is dependent upon many variables independent to that particular situation. But in general, a healthy, strong, thriving relationship is built upon openness, honest communication, and a willingness to acknowledge our own flaws while also allowing the same from the other person.
The honeymoon stage is a beautiful, wonderful experience that should be cherished for all that it is. But it's a fraction of what makes up the totality of a relationship and the sooner we realize that love isn't an immaculate experience, the better we'll be prepared to actually make love work.
All uncredited pictures from pixabay.com or my personal account
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