One of the hardest things I had to learn about relationships was love is not enough. Like many other lessons this one seems painfully obvious once learned, but not at all otherwise. After all, “Love is all you need” sounds much more romantic. I still remember the way I struggled with “defining” love as a teenager and in my early 20s. At the height of each new relationship I was convinced that I had finally figured out what love really was, only to find myself back at square 1 when it ended. After a few rounds I finally gave up on the notion of “one true meaning of love” and settled for the belief that it will probably keep evolving as I kept learning. Underlying my search for the “true meaning of love”, I think, was this mistaken belief that true love meant forever, that love was both necessary and sufficient for a relationship to work out. It took more than a decade and a handful of break-ups for me to realize how misleading that belief was. Continue reading →