How To Avoid Being Thrown Out

No one wants to be dumped, but we set up a system of Love and relationship that thrives on it. We approach Love like buying a t-shirt on vacation. We feed a cycle of hooking up and shedding hearts, but can you hear the song of the malcontents in the background? Many of the ‘dumped’ would have rather found the healthy kind of forever Love without getting their wounded heart handed to them on a reusable platter. I am not saying there are never good reasons for breaking up. There is a place for realizing it’s not a good match. But, what we see today is more about destruction than discovery. It’s time we evaluate our approach to Love. Maybe we need to ask, “Is Love Disposable?”

Truth time: Are we good with more than half of all marriages, crashing and burning? Let’s raise the bar a little more and admit, we’d like to see relationships have a better shot. Then, let’s raise it a little more and admit it’d be worth a little work to avoid the heartbreak of multiple failed relationships to find a heart worth connecting to. Maybe the answer begins with us resolving that Love isn’t disposable after all; no matter what modern culture might want us to believe!

Throw Away Love

In Modern Love, we make the argument you can’t know if it’s a good relationship until we have tried out a few wrong ones. Do you feel that way about your surgeon? How about your financial advisor? There is a reason we don’t use that thought process with our bodies or our money. We think they are too precious. It raises an eyebrow, doesn’t it?

We test-drive bodies and souls giving it about as much thought as picking out a pair of glasses. After all, you can get a new prescription in a year. We approach holding other hearts casually like they are made of rubber. We count on the bounce. In real life, hearts carry wounds that affect us down the road. I offer we should start treating people like they are more than toys that run out of amusement value.

Taste Testing Hearts

How are we treating Love like it’s disposable? By treating relationships like Forrest Gump sampling the chocolates. Take a bite, and spit it out. Ultimately, It’s unfit for anyone else at that point. Sadly, that is what we do with hearts today. In other words, we want the variety and the sweetness but give no thought as to what happens to the hearts we put back. Most hearts can heal, not all do, but should we support a system that requires healing to that degree?

We all know that dating evolved from a desire to choose who we will Love, and how we will Love them. But we have to ask, did anyone consider that a salad bar approach to Love may be more applicable to hate than Love? After all, do we want Love driven by appetite or wisdom? Take a look around, the fall out speaks for itself. Mental health stats don’t lie; but, what did we expect? The symptoms of a tough break up very closely resemble clinical depression as Verywell.com points out. ‘We grow up wanting the fairy tale, but no one talks about the back story, the carnage behind the scenes’. If sampling and tossing is our route to Love how is that different than declaring it disposable?

Real Love Doesn’t Spit You Out

If we agree Love deserves better than a toss and use mentality, what can we do about it? First, we stand up to modern culture and assert Love is not disposable. Secondly, we can get to know someone before we hand over our hearts. Maybe we are ignoring, for some, Love is a long term investment. We shouldn’t be afraid to admit if our heart’s desire is permanence when it comes to Love. We certainly shouldn’t have to go ‘all in’ for Love before we even know the character that lies within? If we took a little time and used a little wisdom, maybe we could avoid a brutal discard.

Ideally, we can consider Love as a protective entity. The definition of Love should make that clear. Is it Loving to leave someone worse off than when we found them? Love should at its core be protective. Is that the kind of Love we see today? Does it even care how you survive once tossed over for the new and shiny? If Love isn’t protective and leaves you whole..it was never Love to begin with. Love does, watch more than you listen.

Treating Love Like Trash

What are the things we do that set us up to be tossed out? Bolde.com offers some good areas to temper your approach to a growing relationship. Here are a few suggestions that may help you avoid dropping your defenses and finding yourself on the scrap heap.

1. Avoid Oversharing: Don’t share your heart before you know if they have a hole in theirs.
2. Don’t forget your boundaries to make something work. If you can’t respect yourself in the relationship it’s unlikely to last.
3. Don’t rush the timeline to be exclusive. If they can be lost along the way, you may want them to be lost!
4. Don’t crowd them out of space and time needed to think about where you are going.
5. Don’t start making plans too far out, it can feel clingy and be awkward later.

Love and Permanence

We start to see that Love can not be disposable because it’s not tossed out without consequence. But what can we do to keep from adding our selves to the list of causalities? How can we step up and declare, with our choices, that Love is not disposable? Here are some actionable ways we can treat Love like it has value:

1. Start with realistic ideas about Love: Let go of the dream that everything is made perfect when you fall in Love. Check out: Why Being Realistic About Love Means Never Settling
2. Don’t put your heart in anyone’s hands until you understand who they really are. Compare words and actions over time!
3. Don’t combine your life in ways you can’t get back without legal issues until enough time has passed to make it clear that it is a good idea.
4. Keep your emotional distance for a year or more. Hold back your heart intentionally. If they aren’t patient, that tells you more than you need to know about their character. Time reveals what emotions camouflage.

As we critically assess what Love is, and what we see being passed off as Love, we can start to see Love cannot be disposable; we can’t be tossed out without consequence. If it didn’t hurt or wound us we might be able to make that argument. Truth is it leaves scars and we don’t have to pretend it doesn’t. If we don’t stand up and ask if there is a better way to find and build Love, maybe no one will.

Join the Fight for Real Love

To find more ways you can protect your heart check out: Lies About Love and Relationship

Thanks for checking out WorththeWar. We are working on resources to help prepare and spare hearts! We’d Love to have you join us by subscribing below. You can find us on many social media outlets! Together we can do something beautiful!