There are some unwritten rules of love that are necessary to be obeyed by all who need genuine love. Love is the creator and sustainer of all lives. We all know that God is love. God is the creator, so we can safely say love is the creator of all. God, according to the Holy Bible, has Ten Commandments. Let us, for the sake of this column, call it rules. So, if God has rules, it goes without saying that love has rules.
Richard Templer in his book “The Rules of Love” listed 10 rules of love. Get it and you will enjoy it. You may not agree with some, but you can hardly fault the rules as listed. Let us examine some of the rules as stated by Richard Templer.
1. “Somewhere out there is someone who wants exactly the kind of person you are, complete with all the flaws and failings you come with,” says Richard Templer in the first rule, “Be yourself”. So he advised that you get it all out in the open, from the beginning. Not that you must be stagnant, unchanging or un-adaptive. You can change your behaviour for good, but not your basic personality. In other words, don’t be a fake. Imagine living 50 years or more of your life with someone, pretending. Get it all out from the beginning and if that’s not who they are looking for, someone else will.
2. “If your last relationship or two has left you a bit of emotional wreck, it’s better to repair the damage before you start looking for a new lover and partner. Otherwise you won’t be able to show them the real you, and you won’t be able to focus on them if you’re still preoccupied with yourself. What he is saying is that if you have been disappointed and you feel wretched and refuses to mend yourself, you may meet someone who is looking for a wretch to take care of. But as you think you have found a true love, you may be relieved, forget your nasty experience and come out of your wretchedness. This is good. So if you now change for the better, you may lose your lover because he was looking for a wretch to comfort. So change first by yourself before going in.
3. “Far too many people stay in unhappy relationships because they’re scared to be alone.” You will not be happy with a partner until you can be happy on your own. Your happiness should not depend on someone else. You should be happy, alone or attached. That way you’ll never stay in a bad situation for fear of being left alone,” says Richard Templer.
4. “When you find the person who really makes you laugh more than anyone else, marry them……… A sense of homour will last you long after everything else has gone.” What is one looking for, if not happiness? We all long for it. He who searches for true love, is searching for happiness. Even if they are not physically attractive, if they can make you laugh, it will last you long after everything has gone.
5. “Anyone worth having will love you for yourself.” You do not have to worry yourself trying to look what you are not. If you are not in a relationship now, don’t blame your looks. Whether you are overweight, going bald, getting bags under your eyes, too short, too tall or having nasty teeth, anyone worth having you will have you just as you are. Be confident because you will be attractive to anyone deep enough to care about the whole of you and not just what you look like on their arms. Beauty fades.
6. “Whatever you do, don’t embark on a relationship with someone thinking, I can’t cope with this bit of their personality, but that’s ok I’ll change it. Know that you cannot change any person from the beginning, don’t embark on that relationship.” If you know their nasty habits before getting into the relationship then you like them and should not complain. “Everyone can be irritating from time to time in a relationship (including you),” so you must tolerate or don’t go into it.
7. “Great sex is a wonderful thing. And if there isn’t any sexual attraction, even at the beginning, the relationship doesn’t stand much of a chance, but the best relationship will last a lifetime and your libido may not”. Don’t mistake lust for love. Relationships are not about sex alone, though it enlivens it. So many things crop up later in relationships, such as children and other worries that inhibit libido.
8. “A year is a perfectly reasonable length of time to ask someone to wait before deciding to live together, get married, have kids, and emigrate or to make any other big decisions. If your wonderful new partner is putting on the pressure after a few months, ust tell them that this is your rule: know someone through all the seasons before making any major decisions…if this is really the right person to be with, waiting 12 months will be worth it.” It is necessary to know someone through all seasons, observing the different moods of the person, before making any major decisions.
9. “If your partner does not care about you now, at the start of the relationship, thing will go downhill if you stay together. Don’t imagine that moving in together or getting married or whatever is going to make it all better because I can tell you now that it will make all worse. ….. You want a partner who makes you feel special because you are.” Don’t ever bother yourself if your partner does not care about your happiness or is self-centred. Get out of it if you are already into such relationship.
10. If you cannot trust them, you have not got a relationship. “However justified you were in the past, it isn’t fair to your new partner to make them pay for someone else’s mistakes. Deep down, I think you know whether it’s you or them that are causing your mistrust and you need to be honest with yourself about where the problem is coming from.” Trust is very essential in a relationship. It could be because you have been disappointed by someone or the lack of trust may even come within you. Mistrust always destroys relationships. ###
