It should come as no surprise to me or anyone else that people have different ideas of what love is, how relationships should work. It’s all subjective – we color our ideas based on our individual perspectives. While I don’t mind sharing my perspective or experiences with others when appropriate, I am very clear in telling them that MY experience doesn’t have to be theirs. Having said that, I’ve been privy to a few conversations recently where this little tidbit of “advice” was given by women to other women. It really puzzles me and when I asked them to explain it, not one of them could.

“Always make sure he loves you more than you love him.”

Have you ever heard that? What does it mean? I’m serious. First of all, are you in a relationship or a competition? Secondly, who’s doing the measuring? Is there a special scale that you step on each morning before your shower to weigh yourself? If you find yourself over your previous “weight of love”, do you cut back? How? Is there a threshold for how much HE loves you? Or for how much YOU love him? If his love for you exceeds yours by more than 10%, do you then ramp your love up by 5% and stay there until he’s again at more than 10%?

Why can’t I just love him however much I love him? I’m quite handy with tools of measurements – be they kitchen utensils, rulers, yardsticks, or miscellaneous hardware. But in this area? I’m stumped. I asked the folks giving this advice some of the questions I listened above. They all stammered and stuttered and assured me that my “attitude” was exactly why I was still single. I laughed. Cause um…all of them are single, have always been single, and they are all older than me. What? I’m not trying to be flip. I just wanted to understand why they issue this caution to other women. Love is a risk. Hell, LIFE is a risk. Point blank. No matter who loves who more or if you love each other the same. It’s still a risk. No one is immune to being hurt.

If you’re in a relationship, are you constantly trying to measure who cares more? I’ve never done that consciously. I’ve been in relationships where I could tell that I felt more deeply than my mate but…did that cause me to ratchet back my level of emotions? No. I don’t think I cared any less for him although I did reevaluate the relationship to figure out if it was a matter of his “motives” not being pure, if he wasn’t ready to go to that level, if he wasn’t emotionally available, etc. Consequently, if you feel that you’re that much deeper into it, you probably need to examine your own motives for ‘purity’ too – is it really about HIM specifically or just the idea that there is a “him”. Are you settling? Feeling desperate? Out to prove a point? Those kinds of things make sense to me in terms of “weighing love”. This thing about him loving you more doesn’t.

I just think if you’re that busy weighing and measuring how much you love someone against how much they love you, you give up a lot of time and energy that could be used more wisely. I also asked the group if it ever occurred to them that, in giving their all to whatever level they felt love for that person, it would inspire their mate to go deeper?

Maybe it’s just me. Maybe I’m too optimistic. One of the ladies said to me that it was apparent to her that I’d either never really been in love or never had my heart broken. I laughed long and hard at the one. I left her with that thought, a complimentary copy of “Love’s Reparations”, and an IOU for a copy of collection #4 which is all about heartbreak/ache.

Bottom line, I just want to love him as much as I love him at any given point in the relationship, for as long as the relationship lasts. As long as what he’s feeling for me is real, it’s true, and he’s going as deep with it as he can honestly, who cares if my love weighs more than his? Besides, love – true, unconditional love – will never weigh you down. Lift you up? Yes. But be a burden? If that’s the case, somebody isn’t doing it right. Why construct false barriers? Especially when most of us bring enough “real” issues into the equation to begin with?

Letting go of the idea that your partner should love you more than you love him, along with other silly relationship advice is one way to shed some weight…and maybe, just maybe, it will cut down on your “wait” too. Think about it.