THE GOOD LIFE

MR. RIGHT OR MR. WRONG

by MEGS S. LUNN

Just very recently, I acquired a book: “Are You the One for Me?” by Barbara De Angelis. It is about knowing who is right and avoiding whose wrong in a relationship. 

Yes, it is about a personal relationship, a reference guide for looking for Mr. Right and to avoid falling with Mr. Wrong. Then I pondered, is there really a “Mr. Right?” 

Long time ago I also read a book about such thing as Mr. Right. The book confirmed everything that I wish for Mr. Right is actually coming to be right. That in a relationship both should make it right, then find each other to be RIGHT, which I believed is right. 

A healthy relationship is working it to be healthy, not just wishing – but ‘working it out.’ He/she should fall in love by loving someone who is enough for him/her as he/she is now.

Are you in love with someone because of her/his potentials? Are you rescuing him/her to change for the better? Or are you in love with him more than he loves you and vice versa? These are actually negative moves. This is the idea of the author Barbara de Angelis  to convey to her readers of her book. 

But, it is more funny to think after reading loads of books about relationship. I am elated to have experienced a successful relationship for 13 years. If he is still alive today, I am sure we are continuing the sharing of anything we have. 

By default, I can’t complain for the good life we had together that after many years with him, I lost him. I also shared heartaches when I tried to fall in love with a wrong person. But I am glad that I learned lessons from it. 

Moreover, I remember the book concerning the way to avoid a wrong person. Honestly, when I read and followed the book in to-to, I went crazy remembering the tips. When one is in a relationship, whether he/she may or may not go wrong, the feelings to be ‘in love’ and ‘to be loved’ are so good that a person forgets those tips. Any person can go with the flow of falling and being in love. 

There are ‘fatal flaws’ of one’s partner that he/she does not see at first because of the ‘tingles’ one feels when they are together. But he/she allows this to settle down and feels the real thing before each other’s future is ruined. When I fall on a wrong person, I realized he was beyond the ‘tingles’ and let it pass away for I was ‘miserably’ in love with him. 

“The Tingles” is amazingly wonderful, uplifting, emotionally high we get when we first entered into a mutual relationship often based on superficial feelings such as good looks, wittiness, fun to be with, great to talk to on many subjects, and whatever magnetism that make two people be initially drawn to one another.  ‘Miserably’ in love because I really loved him more and worked things out while he was not. 

How did I learn to let go? I watched for warning signs, like, why he can’t love me the way I want to be loved, protecting himself emotionally due to his failed relationship in the past, the age gap, the distance between us, and religion. Here, I actually used the book, “Are You the One For me?” It is a learning opportunity to take the quiz in one of the pages. It’s also fun to learn the result afterwards. 

I will share with you some from the book which are true why we make mistakes. These are the six biggest mistakes we make in the beginning of a relationship:

1. We don’t ask enough questions. To fall in love is romantic. Interviewing someone is not. We are too busy looking for reasons why we should love someone to take the time to look for reasons why we shouldn’t.

2. We ignore warning signs of potential problems. To avoid discussing his past, doesn’t talk about his family, still in frequent contact with one or more ex’s, use of alcohol and drugs, intense attitude, frequent flirting, credit problems are warning signs.

3. We make premature compromises. Prevent compromising your beliefs and values and risk tension between you and your lover. You lose your sense of self and create a false sense of harmony instead between you and your lover. Like, allowing yourself to be pressured into having sex before you are ready or feel it is appropriate or going off your diet and eating junk food you’d ordinarily avoid.

4. We give on to lust blindness. You are in love with the passion, not necessarily the person. 

5. We give in to material seduction. We become materially seduced by money, lifestyle, power, appearance, career and reputation.

6. We put commitment before compatibility. We become seriously involve in relationship before giving much thought to whether this person is really right for me? 

Having learned this warning signs, I also learned from a recollection that my 100 percent love is not the way his 100 percent love to me. We’re locked up on the thought that this is the way to love, and we didn’t intelligently see the reality what love really means to each of us. 

A specific example to manifest true love is the giving of flowers. But to him, inviting a girl to a romantic dinner is more than the flowers. Understanding how we show our love beyond the flowers sounds so simple to us. Who thinks that a flower offering is enough to show his love for me? Yet to the other person it is different, because he thinks, it is not enough. 

As I was once miserably in love, the feeling of “I can’t live without you” is baloney. It would be best to say, “I can’t live without your love.” Nobody is indispensable in this world, but everybody deserves to fall in love and to be loved. However, when it is not rightfully falling to each places, it means, one deserves better and more. 

The truth of the matter is, when you are in a relationship, there is no book that can teach you how to run your lovelife. When you are at it, just free yourself of those do’s and don’ts, because in the end, you still have to follow your instinct and what is in your heart. In short, enjoy the ‘loving feeling.’ 

It is so good to fall in love and though it is hard to fall out of love because you think he means the world to you, going back into the good years of your relationship, it is still a good feeling to be ‘in love.’ At the end of the day, it is only my opinion that “it is the loving that is a necessity.” /MP