contents
Love is a feeling that can be expressed in many ways.
Does the way you see your parents being affectionate with each other affect the way you love?
familial love personal relationships
what do you aspire to be for your partner? How have you and your partner matured individually and collectively?
influences & aspirations
what do you think about when you think about love?
Suvahny Reach
Love to me is being known. I want to be known by my family, friends, and partner. Yes, I also think it’s about having trust in another person and about the reciprocation of what you do for each other But to be known is where I feel like in all of my personal relationships, it lacks How can you love a person and not know anything about them? I don’t think it’s hard for me to love someone, I’ve always grown up to have love for other people Though, I wasn’t always taught that, I feel like I developed that on my own I know love is NOT easy, it can be hard at times, but I feel like you really do have to meet another person half way to make any sort of relationship work
I love love, I don’t think anyone is undeserving of it and no one should be deprived of it It is so gut wrenchingly painful and heartbreaking to experience a person who does not love you or tries to love you but not know how. What does it mean when someone doesn’t know how to love? I think I can almost feel when a person does not truly love me, it shows when you can tell that they know nothing genuine about you. I think as I get older my parents show less affection and do not explicitly say anything loving toward me which can be really disheartening, not hearing what you want to hear, and knowing that the older I get the less they know about my life. I love my parents and I do think that they showed me what love should and shouldn’t look like but is it possible to fall out of love with yours parents? I think it is; just like we grow out of our friendships and our romantic relationships, we fall out of love when we feel we have found what we are really looking for (for the time being) until we go through this cycle again.
I think everyone thinks that love is this easy thing like “I love you” and “I love you too” but its so much more complex than we really think because love is truly everywhere and in everything. It’s one of the things we can never escape in life. I went through life for a really long time thinking that I was unlovable but just because one person or a few people ruin your perception of love for a little bit does not mean that there isn’t love in anything else. I think we need to explore love within our personal interests to find what we are truly deserving of in the end.
I feel like I’m at the point of feeling truly content with the person I am and have become, because I’ve come a long way and seeing that personal growth makes me believe that love exists because I am full of it and when it comes to relationships, love will find you, timing and patience is key!
Love
Suchasimpleword,yetitholdsamultitudeofmeanings,emotions,andcomplexities When thinkingaboutloveintermsofrelationships,mytakeonloveisconflicted.GrowingupIdidn’thave parentsinlovewitheachother.Theirrelationshipturnedintooneofdependenceononeanother.Inever understoodwhatlovewas,andstilltothisdateIquestionthisnotionoflove.Thedictionarydefinitionof loveisthat“Loveisanintense,deepaffectionforanotherperson,”butwhatdoesthatmeanforan individual?Myparentswereneverreallyaffectionatewithoneanother ThemostIsawwasahugthat mysistersandIwouldforceoutofthemwhenitwastheiranniversaryorvalentine’sday.But,their relationshipwitheachothertaughtmetheimportanceofbeingindependentandhasledmevalue myself and my career over a prioritizing a relationship. Many individuals love the freedom and independencetheymayhaveintheirlivessohowcanthatchangetheiroutlookonlove?
Manyindividualscanprobablytalkaboutthe“love”theirparentsmayhavehadforoneanotheratsome point.Butmyparentshadanarrangedmarriage,whichhasaffectedmyunderstandingoflove.Along withthat,individualsmaybeinfluencedbythecouplestheygrowupwitharoundthem,butthiswasnot somethingIhadgrowingup.Mostofmyaunts,uncles,andcousinsthatweremarrieddidn’tmarryfor loveasbeinginarelationshipbeforemarriageisnotconsideredappropriate Growingupwithaheavy focusofgirlsbeingmarriedawayatyoungagesalsodeterredmefromseeingamarriageoflove.Inever reallyunderstoodwhatloveentailsinarelationship,butlovealsoexistsoutsideofarelationship. IfrequiredtodefinewhatlovemightmeantomeIwouldsaythatbeyondromanticrelationshipslove existsindifferentforms.Iwouldsaythatlovemeansunconditionalsupportandgesturesthatshowyou trulycareforapersonforwhotheyareItmeanshavingthepatiencetobethereforsomeoneintimesof happinessandtoughtimes.Loveshouldneverfeellikeaburdenorsomethingyouhavetoconstantly thinkabout,it’ssomethingthatshouldnaturallycometoyouaroundindividualsthatgenuinelycarefor you.Lovemeansthatyouarewillingtobevulnerable.Itmeansthatyouarewillingtoopenyourselfup toexpressyourself.Lovecanbescarybutwiththerightpeopleitbecomesasecondnature.So,loveto memeansalotofthings.Itisallowingyourselftoloveandbeloveddespitethegoodandthebad.It’s aboutbeingcommittedtooneanotherandreciprocatingthesameefforttheotherindividualinyourlife maybeputtingin
Harnoor Kaur
FAMILIAL LOVE
“He was never really there, emotionally for me. Other father, daughter relationships are super connected and they talk about emotions. They can go to their father for boy problems, all of that I had to deal with by myself.”
AMMY AMMY AMMY
“I had a different kind of relationship with her because I was kind of like the second mom. So she wasn’t really like my mom. I was my own mom.”
“I feel like when I was younger I had a great view of what a good love or relationship looked like but as I got older, it was just like more of a... ‘this is just the father of my kids love’ but I have also been really confused on what’s going on. So I feel like now that has just scared me a bit into what can happen in the future.”
“Will we get bored of each other?” I kind of normalized all the arguments they had growing up so at the end of it my brain was like “oh they will get back together eventually”, but now its more like “what if I do this wrong and he won’t want to be with me anymore” or “what if we fight too much”. It gives me this intense anxiety of “what’s going to happen next”? I just hope to have a happy ending.
My parents, growing up, their relationship has never been stable, it’s never been good for the kids. When I was younger, I feel like in my mind, I was like, “they’re my parent’s of course they love each other,” but I never really saw them together unless it was time to go to sleep. My dad gets home from work, they sleep together, and then everyone separates. Mom takes care of the kids, dad goes to work, dad comes back from work, and then they go to sleep. It was always just like this pattern. I always saw my parents as individuals, and that took a toll on me because, I don’t want to be individuals, I want to be one person. Isn’t that how its supposed to be?
I loved princesses like anything princesses, in my kid brain I was like, “oh they get together, the guy comes in and kisses a random girl sleeping and the fall in love”. I think, anyone can love anyone, and it’s so beautiful and I want that, I just want this happy ending. At this point I feel like I kind of desensitized myself in a way to see them like anymore as just my parents, not as partners. They’re just mom and dad. I don’t want that for me. So, I feel like my happy ending would just be my kids knowing that I love my significant other and that emotion goes back to them in the same way.
When I was younger I heard my mom say I love you a lot but that’s because she was around us all the time. But, I recently started hearing my dad say I love you around the time I left for college and I feel like the only reason why is because at that point he was feeling like a sort of disconnect. I never really expected that from my dad, because I just wanted to assume it all these years.
“I don’t really look up to him in the sense of a relationship because it feels like sometimes he can’t pull through and that bleeds into me. The more I try to fight it, the more I become like that and I hate it so I'm starting new and I'm becoming different.”
ANDRES ANDRES ANDRES
“My mom has shown me that commitment is tough... I think my moms the one who has been showing me everything really. The giving and gifting with beautiful personalities is all my mom. Forgiveness, I learned that from my mother. Strength, I learned that from my mom. Going out to pursue more–my mom. Only my mom.”
ANDRES
“Its very hard to understand at a young age what is really happening, because you just see 2 people that you think love each other are together or laughing, and it’s not until you experience it for yourself that you can really and truly claim to know what it is, even if what you have isn’t the same.”
My mom has shown me that commitment is tough and my dad has shown me... Well I don’t know what he’s shown me. I think my mom’s the one who has been showing me everything really, so that’s kind of hard, and a little disappointing at times. I don’t really look up to him in the sense of a relationship because it feels like sometimes he can’t pull through and that bleeds into me. The more I try to fight it, the more I become like that and I hate it so I’m starting new and I’m becoming different.
They joke here and there. They like to go out on walks and I'm pretty sure that they talk here and there but that's about it, you know, like it's just going out, but not to specific places. Just walks, when their schedules match up. Not always though, you know?
It's very hard to understand at a young age what is really happening, because you just see 2 people that you think love each other are together or laughing, and it's not until you experience it for yourself that you can really and truly claim to know what it is, even if, what you have isn’t the same.
Love is all different shapes and sizes.
ANDRES
Love is all different shapes and sizes. But as a kid, I mean I'm like, “oh my parents are happy you know, like they’re perfect”, whatever. Then I get into my relationship and I start to realize, “oh man, maybe I'm becoming more like my parents”. Where not everything is perfect. Sometimes it hurts, sometimes it doesn’t work. Sometimes you need to know when to let go. And sometimes you need to learn when to grow or change, especially because it's something simple.
So when I was little I’ve always thought love was as easy as, I guess, ‘game’. As I've grown older, I realize that it's not easy, nor is it a game. It's something you really have to work at and it won't always be perfect but just because it can't be doesn't mean you shouldn't try.
I
had to teach that to myself. They would not teach me that.
“My parents put a lot of pressure on me to marry someone with the same ethnic background... My father left my mother for a white woman.”
NEELA NEELA NEELA
“I think my parents having a love story and being affectionate was really influential to me when I was younger.”
“I think my parents having a love story and being affectionate was really influential to me when I was younger, but the way their marriage fell apart has been even more influential to me, and I hope I don’t repeat their mistakes.”
My parents were more affectionate than other Indian parents in our community. I remember when I was growing up, a lot of my friends thought that their parents never touched each other, but I felt like I saw my parents kiss and be affectionate often... or at least occasionally. But then after I graduated from college, my parents got divorced, and not one else in our community did, so it was confusing.
I feel like I had good affection with my parents, more with my father, but I remember hugging and kissing them both on the cheek, or feeling like it was a requirement to hug goodnight.
My parents worked a lot, but also prioritized us. My parents went out with us sometimes, but their entire social life revolved around us or community events where everyone came with their families, My parents did not ever do date night; but maybe if they did, they wouldn’t be divorced. But my kids also complain when we get a babysitter and go out without them, but we also really encourage each other to go out on our own and take time away from the family, which is really different from how I grew up and I hope my kids see that and can appreciate it, even though right now they don’t like it, since they are so young.
“My dad does a really good job at making you do hard work, and that’s not just me. They made everyone, all my siblings, do hard work. He also put in the value that not everything is going to be handed to you and working for something. This is something that I would do as a parent.”
ANON
ANON
ANON
“From my mother, it’s the caring portion My mom would be more of caring and taking care of me and making food.”
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“They had those flaws and I took note of that and that has helped me become the person I am today – took some of their bad traits and some of their good.”
My parents do have a really good relationship. But also like every other parents they have times where they clash and their relationship now its a lot of clashing and making up together.
They both knew things that made the other mad. Like if my dad did something wrong, he would know that my mom wouldn’t like it, but he still did it because he didn’t care. The same goes for my mom. They had those flaws, and I took note of that, and that has helped me become the person I am today, I took some of their bad traits and some of their good.
They did prioritize the family more than their relationship. When you have that many kids you’re not really thinking about going on dates, but you’re thinking about how to put food on the table. It was very work heavy, it was my dad going to work and my mom being a house mom, but in 2016 my mom had to jump in and work to afford to live, which allowed them to be closer but also led them to clash more.
Now, they go on dates and concerts, which I’m thankful for, like when I go home on the weekends I’m like “I’m gonna have some family time” but then my parents are like “We’re going to a dance club” and I'm like “what the fuck you’re leaving me just to go out”, but it’s good too because I didn’t really see them like this when I was young because my dad would get home, be tired, ago to sleep, and mom would be tired also.
Until recently, it’s been very family oriented, but now they’re in a better state because my sister and I are in college, and they have less kids to worry about and that has helped with their relationship and being able to go out more.
A good thing was ‘you always put your lady first’. This was imposed by my dad to take care of this person – the basic traditional relationship. But at the same time, this influenced my view on relationships in a way I didn’t expect. He would make these weird comments about how when he was a teen he would go out and meet girls, and he was questioning me why I don’t do this. He doesn’t understand that I’m content with this being my only relationship.
I also didn’t like the way my dad would verbally abuse my mother, which was hurtful. This helped me view how to go about my relationship right now and prevent that from happening to ensure that my partner feels secure.
My dad always had weird comments, like for some reason he thinks that because I have women friends that I’m attracted to them, or that I want to get with them. But I think he’s just not used to that. He thinks if you have female friends you want to be with them, but it’s not like that. But this influenced my views on relationships. Like my dad would tell me “how is your girlfriend not mad, why is she not questioning you”. But, you’re allowed to have friends of the opposite gender and I would tell him my girlfriend trusts me. This carries a lot of the trust I have on her and the trust she has on me. That’s never a weird thing and she won’t get mad if I tell her I’m out at 1:00 AM. She knows the type of person I am and as long as you have trust in your partner you don’t have to worry about that.
“Since my dad was with me more when I was younger, I was a daddy’s girl. My dad would do my hair and make me stuff and I think I got more affection from my dad.”
ANON 2 ANON 2 ANON 2
“My mom was more authoritative - parenting style- she showed love and discipline. That’s how I wanna be with my kid, but I wanna be like them in some ways but not like emotions. I can talk to my mom about my feelings, but my mom makes it hard because I feel her questioning my actions. But I want to create a safe space for my kids and have them talk about their feelings with me.”
ANON 2
“My parents gave me my opinion, lots of love, and good balance of it. In ways I do think they made me a very secure person, and when coming to relationships I see myself not necessarily seeking love from another person because I can rely on my parents and family for it.
Back then, we would do more stuff, they would take us to the pier and go to the beach. Now work gets in the way a little. They were more... together, back then, but now not as much. They had problems but they hid it well. I would question “why are they in the garage” or “why is dad gone”. We were pretty sheltered but now I’ve become the middle person they involve.
Seeing how my parents were, like my dad doing things randomly and buying my mom stuff. I wouldn’t want the same thing, but I wanted to be treated like a queen the way my dad treated my mom. But, my parents don’t communicate well and clash, and I didn’t want that for my relationship, but that did end up happening.
My dad is the more quiet one and my mom is more of the crazy one, so I’m more like my dad - quiet and trying not to fight back. So, I think my parents rubbed off on me, I wanted it different, but it ended that way. I always get compared to my dad, people say I’m just like him, in the sense of being quiet. The anger my mom has for my dad sometimes rubs off on me. Since my dad was with me more when I was younger, I was a daddy’s girl. My dad would do my hair and make me stuff and I think I got more affection from my dad. They show a little bit less affection now, but still a good amount, since we are older.
Looking at my parents and how they interact sometimes, I realize they don’t communicate their feeling very well and that’s something I feel transferred onto me and my past relationship. Overall they are a good role model and I do want to be with a partner for a long time after looking at my parents.
PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS
“What I seek a lot is someone who is just there; like if I want to go out and do something, you’re there with me.”
I feel like I just want someone that also wants to be involved, like just in general, just being there is so important. It’s such a fundamental thing. Also in the future, if I did have kids, I feel like it also affected me a lot too, because I get a little bit nervous about not being there. I feel like it did hurt me a lot that my father was basically never there and I wouldn’t want to be that parent where your child looks at you, and is like “ you were never there for me”. So, I feel like that also has made me a bit anxious just about always wanting to be involved and so I don’t do anything wrong to make them feel bad.
So we were in this new relationship. It’s like the honeymoon phase and it feels like... you just feel like a kid. It’s such a different feeling of like this bliss where it’s this period of nothing can go wrong like it feels so good. I feel like on the outside, since he was always with me, I wouldn’t really take care of myself in the way where, if I was by myself and I was walking somewhere, as a woman, I’d be like, “oh is anyone behind me? Where am I walking to? Am I by myself? Am I near any major stores?” But with him its like, oh he’s next to me so I can enjoy the little things in life, just taking everything in. Now, we live together so I feel like it’s matured a lot in that way when it goes from that switch to an elementary school relationship to an actual adult relationship. We used to go get food, get pizza, but now we’re going to the store and we’re buying groceries for where we live. It’s just like a mental switch that you’re never gonna notice until you start noticing those teeny, tiny things.
INDIVIDUAL & COLLECTIVE GROWTH
So, recently my partner and I have separated. But, it was through my mature decision that I could finally realize when it was time to let go. And so I did. And we talked about it, you know like, we grow, we mature. But you have to realize that you don’t grow for the other person, you have to grow for yourself. So now, thinking about all of it. I realize that I didn't grow. For myself, I didn't even grow at all. I don't know if I tried because I didn't know what I wanted. I felt very confused - you should always feel comfortable with your partner. My parents relationships, their relationships together, it never really showed me what that part looked like. So, it was really hard for me to kind of find that to give it to someone else, that trust with yourself fully. A lot of it has to do with childhood trauma and stuff that I just couldn't open up to or admit to, because that's hard, it's scary, and it's ugly. And sometimes, you don't want people to see you in that way and you never know who the right person is.
Sometimes when you move forward together, it doesn't mean continuing on that way. We pulled each other to go forward but at the end of the day I think we both knew we wanted to split. I knew a lot longer than she did that this is what I wanted. But it's so scary not knowing where you're gonna go.
Now I'm happy, now we're happy. At least I'm happy that I got it off my chest.
“ I think truly it's the worst thing to love someone so deeply but not be able to do it right. And so I will be building myself, just to do it right.”
Seeing my parents, they're struggling. There should never be a thing where it's like “it's too far in for you to go back now” cause I mean I'm pretty sure some time apart would do them some good. And I'm pretty sure they could fix it, like whatever they have, all the time. But mine is different, you know, like now my parents have their careers made up. There's always room for change and whatnot, but they've already set their foundation. They're building up from that. She and I. We had one. But I think it's time we find our own putting, on these foundations. It's easy to build each other up and tear each other down but it's really hard to apologize.
I feel like this for me. I can see them build each other up, but they do it alone, and it's much like when other people come to you for advice and they only tell you the bad bits or you know so you just feel like all you see is taking each other down and for me I only ever get to hear about the ‘who did what’. I get a lot of tearing down and I hardly get to see the building up. But when I do see it, it's nice. But I can tell by your guys' faces there is much more to be done but it never gets done. What I've learned is that's not something I want to be near. That is not something that I want for myself or for a partner. It's not a life I would want for anyone, it sucks. I think truly it's the worst thing to love someone so deeply but not be able to do it right. And so, I will be building myself, just to do it right. But not for them, for me.
You really have to know what you're about to share with someone. You have to understand yourself and what you're about to dive into with someone. You can't figure yourself out at the same time you're learning about someone else. It's too much, too complicated, and I don't think it'd be fair to the other person if at the same time they had to piece you together, too, and you don't. So I do feel it is important to really know yourself.
LONG DISTANCE
It's so easy to compare a long distance relationship to something you can see at face value with other people around you. You realize that it's going to be different and then the person that you're watching - they're two different people. They're not you and your partner.
So for me, watching other people happy together, it made me miss mine. Trust me, I missed mine. But it never made me hate her. I felt like there was a lot of trust that had to go into that and there was a lot of communication, definitely. Obviously, I think it would've been easier to not have done the long distance, but having to do it, I don't regret it. It's just, you know your one. When you know, you know. The thing isn't about how difficult it can be or how difficult we made it for each other. It was about encouraging and definitely using your words, because it's the only thing we had to move forward to build on what we had. I owe her a great debt of gratitude for how she told me to keep on going, and I did. So yeah, not hate each other, but learn that you have to try and push the other one cause the only motivation you have really, is being proud of the other person. Show them you're proud.
So I realized, that for me, my relationship was headed toward that direction and it's not necessarily that two people are bad for each other, it's just that they haven't fully grown yet. That, those people haven't really become themselves and the distance, mind you, it is far. It still just didn’t allow for us to find out what we're made of. And I realized in the last two weeks, while we were taking our break, that I am very self-sufficient. I mean, I knew that, but it was so much easier to rely on someone. I was alone for so long, but I never felt lonely.
I wanna be myself. I felt like I was trying too hard to be someone that I thought someone else could be proud of, instead of someone that I could be proud of. When you show up that way you're not really showing up at all, you're sending out this illusion of “bait them and trap them” and I feel like that's why I got stuck, for so long, doing the same thing. Feeling that same way is because I never really had the courage to be me because I thought it would have been too scary. So now, I have to learn how to accept myself for all the wrong that I've done, for all the bad things, and I have to learn how to move on from who it was that I was hiding from or that I was hiding away. Again, it should never be a thing where you are too in deep. I was too far in with everything that I disliked and I knew then that, that's not what I wanted, and when I got the apology and it felt world changing. I was so happy. That was my favorite thing of the relationship; finally getting closure for something that had eaten away from me for something that had changed me, for years, for something that shaped who I am now. It's hard for me to cry now because of that, but that apology just opened up a lot of myself, and at first I couldn't recognize it but then I saw it and I remembered, “this is what I had taken away from me”. I realized that I kept on hurting them, because I was still mad, everything that I did, subconsciously, I was aware of, at face value, I wasn't really trying but you know in the back of my mind I was so hell bent on revenge. I wanted revenge for years. But I also wanted her for more. And I finally had both but, you know what they say, “ you can't have your cake and eat it too” and I thought, “yeah I can '' . No, you can't. After you hurt someone so many times and you think to yourself that “this is the one”, you can't help but make a promise to yourself that if you can't really be true to them by being true to yourself, you have to be the one to leave.
Today was the happiest ending that I could have gotten. From all the things that we wanted to do, for all the things that I was ready to propose be done. When I finally chose myself tonight, it was a happy ending, because finally I showed up as an honest man, who is himself. I'm finally giving her someone whos ready to be himself, whos excited. I'm really excited actually. Tomorrow, I don't know what's gonna happen. Tonight I don't know what's gonna happen but all I know for sure is I'll be me and I'll be bound by nothing. I won't have any regrets or things lurking in the back of my head, or any conscience that's filled with these horrible, horrible thoughts.
“I ended up being the only one in my family with a heteronormative inter-ethnic marriage!”
I think I was indoctrinated into thinking that heteronormative relationship and marriage where the bedrock of being a successful person, and my parents put a lot of pressure on me to marry someone with the same ethnic background. This was difficult to me in my teens and early 20s, and I feel like I went through a lot to deal with this and had secret white boyfriends, and my parents and brother has a big falling out over him having a white girlfriend. I ended up getting into a relationship with an Indian American man, especially after my parents got divorced and my brother, too, married a white woman and got divorced; and my father left my mother for a white woman as well. I ended up being the only one in my family with a heteronormative, inter-ethnic marriage! But as a parent I want to be able to talk to my children about the reasons our married is not based on traditional gender roles and I also hope our children see that we are affectionate with each other.
“We went through different eras.”
“When you’re 14-15 you’re not really caring about this three month talking phase, you just jump into it.”
“If we had gotten together 1-2 years ago it would have been weird, because the way it happened wasn’t something we envisioned.”
“We had a lot of growing up in the early ages. We learned a lot about each other and a lot of character development went on.”
We talked about how important it was to let one another grow separately and not be so dependent, and that for me was super important. If you really want someone, it’s because of who they are, the friends they have, which allow their personalities to shine, and how they carry themselves. That’s without you in the picture. If you come into this relationship and make them dependent on yourself, you can’t change who they are. You can’t come into a relationship and be like “ you can’t hang out with your friends” then are they really the same person? because can they still shine their personality or do things they’re passionate about? So, that’s what was important. I wanted my partner to continue being who they were prior to me. I want you to have the friends you have and go to social events that you’re passionate about because that’s what makes you, you. Because how caring you are, how well put together you are, those things are separate besides of me, so that’s something I stressed, allowing that freedom for both of us.
“I want to see her grow. It’s an important phase. My dad told me the importance of using your youthful years. And I think that’s something I stressed to her, you’re in your youth go do what you want to do. You’re in your 20s, you’re not gonna get this again.”
a little distance can’t hurt distance has nothing to do with love
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A LONG TERMED RELATIONSHIP
My goal was to be with him forever, like I wanted to say that was my high school sweetheart and be married with kids. I learned that we enjoyed quality time together. Like even just calling and showing that I’m there for him or even treating him out. I also liked just being there and hearing him talk and sharing his problems. I wanted to be there for him as a best friend as well and I wanted this reciprocated back to me. I wanted to hear words of affirmation from him.
Words of affirmation, complimenting me, listening to me. I think for someone to be there for me. Loyalty, I don’t want them cheating on me. Funny. I want someone mature. Someone that’s secure within themselves, not clingy. I want someone that talks about their emotions and is emotionally available. Clean, good hygiene. Someone who is nice to everyone and has a nice personality. I want them to be nice to me, sweet to me.
My dad is a good, loving husband, he doesn’t disrespect my mom, he’s always there supporting her and has her back. They’re partners in crime and I want that also with my partner. I want my partner to be someone like my dad, the qualities that my dad has. The way my dad treated me, he saw me as his whole world. In my past relationship, I saw that it wasn’t right and what my ex called me was something my dad would never say to my mom. I would expect someone to treat me even better than my dad treats me.
“Love should be secure and not scary. It shouldn’t complicated”
I have seen a little bit of change. I have some experience from my past relationship and with my current relationship, I have set more personal boundaries. I learned the importance of alone time and quality time with my family.
This is my second time doing this, this is his first, I understand where he is coming from but I would want him to respect me and trust me when I tell him something. I want him to also respect my time because I have school and family commitments. I also need to set some boundaries so I can spend more time with my families. Just communicating our feelings more frequently.
From my past relationship, I would say, love was complicated, but it shouldn’t be. If you’re with someone you love, you shouldn’t have butterflies in your stomach from nervousness. If you love someone you shouldn’t be nervous with them. Love should be secure and not scary. It shouldn’t be complicated.
INFLUENCES & ASPIRATIONS
Everything I learned about love, I learned myself, which is a really hard thing to learn. My first actual relationship was my freshman year of high school.
My dad being the male figure in my life and never expressing any affection really took a toll on me because I was never one of those girls that wanted affection from men, but I wanted affection from my partner so bad. I was going along with that process of trying to figure out how to love someone else, even though I didn’t know how to. It felt so weird to be in a relationship and feel someone pulling away from you, even though you don’t want them to. I feel like it also helped a lot with the relationship I’m in now. It’s not a game of tug of war or it shouldn’t be. It’s supposed to be 50, 50. I don’t think it’s gonna be necessarily one hundred percent every single day and that was something I really struggled with at the beginning. Not all the time you feel one hundred percent. So I feel like you ’ re supposed to come together in a way to make that one hundred percent.
It’s important to learn how to be an individual without your partner but at the same time I feel like it was also very important for me to learn how to get to that one hundred percent together. I feel like that’s what I struggled with so much, on my end I was like, “oh I’m good, I’m at one hundred percent, why would I need to give any more?” And if the other one was struggling I didn’t know how to get them up there. So I was like, “ you deal with your own stuff”, but now its like, if he’s not feeling good for any reason, “I’ll give up some of my energy to give to you”. It also helped me grow a lot as a person on the inside. Now it’s not just me figuring out where I was while trying to figure out how to love someone else, even though I already knew how to love myself. But it’s trying to figure out how to love someone else at the same time that you’re loving yourself. It’s not hard to balance those two, sometimes they can bounce off of each other. I feel like I really took a deep dive into experiencing what love should and shouldn’t feel like so, I think that was also really important for me too.
Whatdoyouthink yourbiggest influencewaswhen itcomestoloveand affection?
EverythingIlearned aboutlove,Ilearned myself.
WHEN SHOULD I GET MARRIED?
i don’t think we want the same things in life.
i’m not ready. i’m sorry
I’ve been hearing a lot of people talk about how unsure they are, and then looking at my parents, I'm starting to realize that, yeah, it's a huge commitment. And I thought to myself, “oh you have to be a certain age”, there's dreams that you have that I feel some of them you can share and some of them you have to do alone, and it's better to do all the important ones that require you to be alone, first, to live up those dreams, to live out those dreams. And when you're ready, you bring someone in to live them out with you and for you to live out theirs. It's definitely a compromise. It's a really big deal. And I feel some people just don't understand what it is anymore. It's very superficial nowadays.
People wanna have been seen getting married because it means like they're super ready for commitment and that just invites more problems when you're not doing it for the other person and you're doing it for vanity like “oh yeah, I have a wedding ring now I'm gonna go out still, though”, you know, or like, “oh, I got hit on cause I'm married”. You should have the right mindset before you get married. I feel like when you get married, that should be the part where becoming one is done. And now you guys are together. And now you're thinking at the same wavelength. That doesn't mean that you're still not different people because people are going to be different, but you should at least know each other, to the extent that you know yourself.
THE HUMILITY OF PARENTING
The way I would treat my kids is the way that no one ever showed up for me when I was little, when I needed it. I don't know how to give the support that I need but I know where to start and I feel like that's very important. Reflecting upon your childhood, you should find everything that you loved and everything that you hated and encourage the part that you loved on to someone else but also look for a way to destroy the hate. Turn it into someone else’s good childhood, to bring yourself back into the world with different eyes, to do the best you can for this person, because if it is your child, it does share 50% of you. Whatever the other person went through, I feel like they should have that same duty of finding what worked and what didn’t before they decide, “I'm ready to inflict my own pain upon my child”. That's not fair. I'm not someone really big on family, just because I feel like they let me down, but if I had a kid I just know that there's nothing I wouldn't do, there's no place I wouldn't go.
My role models for parenting were a lot of my aunts and uncles, not my own. It’s always just made me upset seeing him (my father) and then have him cry to me and apologize for the way he raised me, yet to change nothing. You're too proud of a man, and I feel like a lot of parenting comes with humility, and I don't think he was ready to be a father. The giving and gifting with beautiful personalities is all my mom. Forgiveness, I learned that from my mother. Strength, I learned that from my mom. Going out to pursue more–my mom. Only my mom.
It just hurts when you know that you can love but you don't know how. So, I feel like I'm gonna learn a lot about that on this journey that I do alone.
i love being a parent
feed me
THE VALUE OF A GOOD PARTNER & PARENT
I think parenting takes so much work that sometimes, being a good partner gets neglected, especially when kids are young. I think parenting today takes a lot of energy, from school projects to activities, but I enjoy taking my kids to soccer and jujitsu, and I think I am the parent who loves to go on adventures like the LA County Fair or to find the latest Claw Machine Arcade, where my partner is more the one who is better at planning playdates and hanging with friends with kids.
I want my kids to see that love is about support and sharing responsibilities and also affection. I will definitely say that parenting is one of the hardest things I have ever done, and what my husband and I probably focus the most on in couples therapy. I think it is important to me for the kids to see that it is not a fairy tale and that good relationships take a lot of work, and especially for them to see how much their father shares in the emotional and homecare labor of the house. But I also hope they see that my partner and I love hanging out with each other and talking to each other and supporting each other’s creative practices as well.
I didn’t feel like I was able to talk to my parents, especially if I got in trouble, and I have really wanted to shift that so my children always feel like they could talk to me.
i’ll never stop loving you you’re my whole world
My biggest influence when it comes to love, I would say it’s between two people. My first girlfriend and my current girlfriend. The first person teaches you, I guess how you go about love and my current girlfriend helped express that more. I think after that, it made me understand how to carry myself and my flaws and what I should improve on, I think that helps to improve the relationship I’m in now.
If you have your first relationship, and it goes south, it went south for a reason. There’s some things that you pick up from that and are like “hmm that wasn’t something that I didn’t do as well” or “maybe I should have done this instead”. So I took those positives and the first person teaching me how to be loving and affectionate at the same time, to understand why that ended and where my flaws were.
So, definitely two people, the one who initiated and made me show it and made me find my flaws and the person I’m with now that allowed me to fix those flaws and showcase everything at a higher level.
“In some ways, the negative things in my parents influenced how I carry myself in relationships”
I see myself parenting in some ways similar to my parents and some ways obviously different”
As a parent, I would want to be there more. The reason my parents failed on that wasn’t particularly because they didn’t want to be there more, but because they had no choice to be there. They had to work.
I’m not a fan of emotional abuse. I’m not a fan of physical abuse. I’m not a fan of any abuse. I also remember that I talked back as a kid and that’s how they treated me and when I was younger I was like “shut up, you’re not supposed to hit me. Not supposed to do this to me” but when I’m older he asks me what would you do and I don’t know how to discipline a 14-15 year old telling me to “shut the fuck up”. You could be loving but that’s not gonna stop kids from messing up once or twice.
My dad, before freshman year, took away my phone. And I was like “ man why are you doing this” and my dad was like “ you need to go with me to work to help us” but after he told me that he didn’t bring me here because they needed me. He even told me rather I making them slower and was doing a shit job. But the importance of this job was that he didn’t want me to rot in bed and be on my phone because that was a waste. So, definitely this is a quality I would want to bring because I wouldn’t want my kid to rot in bed.
“Iwouldtakeamixofbothandhopetobe inbothways.Showthathardworkandbe passionate.Iwouldtakethegoodthings frommydadandgoodthingsfrommy mom,andhavethatbeoneperson.Not havemykidrelyonmebeingthehard workerandtheirmombeingthethe caregiver.Whycan’tIbeboth?”
INFLUENCE & ASPIRATION
My parents did influence my view on love, but I would say my older brother and his girlfriend did way more. I saw them and was like, “damn that’s high school love”. I saw how he spoiled her and spent a lot of time with her family. He put her first and I saw that while I growing up. Seeing him in love and the sweetness of his girlfriend with his family influenced me lot. I started understanding what love was and I would want it to look like, from their relationship.
I want to check all of their boxes. Being a good communicator is something that I’m working on. This is something I saw in my past relationship that I wasn’t good at and now it’s a little bit of an issue because I don’t like talking about my feelings. Being loyal, I want to be good, not perfect, but just want to be their person.
My mom would take what my dad said and twist it or egg him on. So, in my old relationship, I kept quiet and didn’t want to say too much because what if that makes them more mad or upset? or what if I add more fuel to the fire when I’m just trying to express myself? I think it stems from my childhood. My dad doesn’t really express his feelings, so I kind of learned that from my dad. If I tried to speak out, my mom would attack me also. Since my childhood, I was pretty quiet and kept my feelings quiet.
The way my parents were, my mom was the more authoritative parent, she showed love and discipline. That’s how I wanna be with my kid, I wanna be like them in some ways, but on a different emotional level. I can talk to my mom about my feelings, but she makes it hard because I feel her questioning my actions. I want to create a safe space for my kids and have them talk about their feelings with me. I want my partner to communicate well with the kids. I want a good dad for them and someone they can gush over.
i’ll love you forever i love you
LOVE IS EVERYWHERE
A FINAL MESSAGE FROM SUVAHNY:
After hearingthese stories, its not hardtosaythat everyone has their own interpretations of love; howtoexpress it, where theyget it from, andhowthey give it back. Is it anatural thing?Is it anurture thing?Alittle bit of both?Can anyone fall inlove withanyone?It’s suchacomplexthing. I don’t thinkanyone canever tell youthe true definitionof it because the wayyoudefine love is throughyour personal experiences.
For me, I grewupfeelingsounlovable fromareallyyoungage. Nowthat I’ma little older, I’ve maturedalot more, andI dostill feel unlovable at times, but I realizedthat it reallyhas nothingtodowithme. I’ve foundsomuchlove in friendships andfamilyandmyself. It’s the best feelingwhenI canfinallydowhat I love andexpress those things without havinganyone shut themdownor feeling like youhave tosuppress that side of youbecause youthink, “ohthis is probably weird, theywouldn’t like this side of me”. Noone shouldEVERhave togothrough that, andyoushouldnever change for anyone, not for afriend, not for family, not for apartner.
I wouldbe lyingif I saidthat I don’t want tobe lovedbyasignificant other right nowbecause whowouldn’t want that?But I dothinkit’s important tobe content withyourself first. However, that feelingof beinginlove withaperson, besides yourself, is afeelingthat noone else but youcanunderstandandit’s sospecial. In arelationship, I foundthat youhave tounderstandthat whatever youmight be goingthrough, youshouldn’t feel like you’re burdeningyour partner withthat. If theydomake youfeel like you’re aburdentothem, run! that personis not good for you! I thinkits sososoimportant tofindthat personwhoallows youtolove them, andloves youinthat same way. I’ve alsolearnedthat it’s okaytofall out of love withapersonbecause we all growandmature indifferent ways. Andthis goes for everysingle relationshipyoubuildwithanyone. It is goingtohurt andit probablywill make youfeel crazybut I canguarantee that youwill come back fromit andbecome anevenbetter personbecause it’s all apart of growingup. It’ll make yourealize all of these things about yourself that youlove anddidn’t know existedoutside of that relationship.
