Today I ran across a quote by Anais Nin.. “Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don’t know how to replenish its source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of weariness, of weariness, withering, or tarnishing. Wow.. The quote was extremely powerful to me.

Are we obligated to stay with people just because they love us? If you are not in love with someone, yet they are in love with you.. Is it your duty to be with that person? On one hand, it is the safest relationship you could possibly be in. (especially according to my brother) you have such little invested and the person is lovingly devoted to you. Yet, are you doing yourself a disservice? Are you experiencing your full potential in the arena of love? Or is it selfish to move on?

I am convinced thousands of relationships have varying degrees of love. Some I am sure are equally balanced but many many many others are see sawed. One person at a particular time is more in love with the other, and then perhaps it switches. There are also relationships where one person is always in the up position of the see saw and the other person will remain in the down seat. That is just how it is.

I left someone who truly loved me. That came with some guilt.. Some feelings of selfishness. However, just because he loved me didn’t  mean I owed him anything. Number one, I didn’t love him. Secondly, we were not meant to be together, as the years progressed it became painfully clear. We should have never married. But I fell for the whole love package. If someone loves me, eventually I will learn to love him. Well. It didn’t happen. With that person it will never happen.   For a long time I felt obligated to stay because he loved me.  Once I gave it some realistic rational thought I realized, those are his feelings not mine. That revelation alone broke the chains of obligation I had felt for years. We are only responsible for our own personal feelings and it is selfish to use them to manipulate other people. There is no need to stay in a situation where love is one sided.  Live your life for yourself and not to please another person. It will only make you bitter in the end.

FIN