Monday, May 08, 2006

First Love vs Last Love

With every relationship and heartbreak one goes through, there are certain attitudes and defense mechanisms we develop to protect us from the pain. These attitudes and shields are often expressed through the eyes of jaded cynicism, covered by layers of sarcastic comments or camouflaged as other issues and assigned other excuses.

For example, if you were cheated on in your last relationship, you might develop shields to protect you from another situation like that. You might tend not to give your trust easily or not at all, you are the first to suspect anything that is fishy and don't let your guard down. You might even stoop to snooping to confirm your decisions and expect your guy to constantly show you signs of his fidelity. You might think that every guy you date henceforth has the potential to eventually cheat on you and so you don't trust them at all.

The problem with developing these shields is that even though they are protecting you, they are still hindering you in your next relationship. You are carrying around the hurt and disappointment from relationship to relationship, adding on to the baggage that you already have. You might start creating hoop after hoop of tests and trials that your beloved has to ace before you give him even a modicum of respect. You start to see the world through jaded, cynical eyes and permanently ban your rose-tinted goggles. You automatically assume the worst of every man you meet and tend not to give anybody a chance to break your heart again.

Even if you meet a guy that manages to get through the first wall of defense, he still has to deal with the fact that you will make assumptions and jump into conclusions for every issue that you two encounter that minutely comes close to anything that happened in your past. You start seeing him in the light of Guilty until Proven Innocent instead of the other way around and he has to constantly establish and prove his love and fidelity to you. You are involuntarily substituting him as your scapegoat, taking your past heartbreak and issues on him and making him 'suffer' for your pain.

You might not even realize that you are doing this, however all these subconscious machinations will end up eroding your new relationship and you won't even know why.

Remember your first love? The one that was unsullied by cynicism of any kind? The one that was unfettered, unrestrained, uncontained and so giving? The love that was all consuming, all encompassing, the love that you totally let yourself go? Your first love is often remembered our deepest love ever because you haven't attained any of these shields/baggage yet.

So how do we get rid of the shields and let our next/last love be like our first love?
Posted by Vixen @ 2:51 PM :: 7 trainees letting it rip!

Talk to Me!

---------------oOo---------------