The kind of love we all want.

Real love.

You already know that you want to have a life filled with love — receiving it, giving it, feeling it, surrounded by it. But you also know that the “love” you’ve found so far isn’t quite as satisfying as you’d like.

It doesn’t fill you up.

It doesn’t make you whole or give you genuine and lasting happiness.

Maybe you’re confused about what real love looks like, but you want to find it, fill up with it, and give it to others.

Almost no one asks that question.

Instead, we usually ask, “what is love?”

And that’s a brain-fryer because the word “love” is an impossible mess. I mean, you can ask a hundred people for a definition of love and get just as many different answers. So it can be confusing and unclear.

When we ask, “what is real love?” — it simplifies the question to elicit a disentangled answer — Real love is unconditional love.

 That, my friend, is the kind of “love” we all want. 

There is little disappointment, impatience, irritation, or anger involved in real love — it isn’t temporary or conditional. With genuine love, people are not disappointed or angry when we make foolish mistakes. They don’t sigh and roll their eyes when we don’t do what they want or even when we inconvenience them.

Sound different?

Well, it is.

Most people have never truly felt and experienced the energy of real love.

I’m talking about the sentiment imprinted in your soul. The uniqueness of you — the real you connected to universal love, and the gift only you alone can bring to the world and those lives you touch along the way.

In other words, the sacred kind of love you know and feel deep inside that you yearn to share with another.

The idea of real love may sound something right out of a romantic movie, particularly if you have struggled to maintain a strong emotional connection in your relationships.

You might even wonder if it exists at all.

You might have concluded that that kind of love belongs in fictional worlds and heart-tugging flicks like The Notebook.

Sigh.

I think just about every woman who saw that movie would have chosen to be Allie for a day. The way Noah loved her was utterly breathtaking, soul-stirring, and as rare as a wild Tasmanian Tiger.

You know, extinct.

Real love is not easy to find. It isn’t always easy to hold onto, either.

That’s because real love is about soul love, and soul love is, well, real — like an intense experience that activates in the heart and soul to radiate through every cell in your body — and awakening of sorts.

We’re talking about real love.

Authentic love dances to a different beat than the ordinary.

Remember how Noah and Allie couldn’t forget their connection even after years of separation? How the flame still burned intensely in each of them despite that coming back together seemed impossible?

That’s real love.

We, too, can experience that kind of love in our lives, but we have to be open to it.
An article published by Cambridge Community said:

It can be challenging to pinpoint a solid definition of real love because each couple will not look the same. For instance, love existed in my first marriage. However, a part of me was aware that the love between us only scratched the surface of real love.

I knew there existed a deeper kind of love in my heart and that it eluded me within that relationship.

Intimacy expert Joanna Shakti gives a great explanation when she says: “It means that you embrace, express, and embody — all of who you are. It’s self-love at its finest.

It means that you are who you are — warts and all, perfections and imperfections, strengths and weaknesses, and you willingly let another see you in all of that.”

When my second husband arrived on the scene, I knew that I was ready to invite more profound love into my life — I needed more from a partner. I craved to be seen, accepted, and understood by a mate; I needed more profound love and connection — emotional closeness and a soul-deep bond.

This MBG Relationships article nails the feeling:

These qualities were lacking in my first marriage, but they are everything that I need to thrive with a life partner.

 Real love makes romance come alive. 

When you think about it, to know someone is in love with you is to know their soul. It is to know without a shadow of a doubt that they love you without always needing to hear the words “I love you.”

So, what is real love?

Here are a few fundamental qualities to look for:

You cannot fake real love because it demands high-level authenticity. Being emotionally intimate and honest with a partner means that you can talk to them about your innermost thoughts and trust them with your deepest secrets.

Emotional honesty in a connection is a feeling of alignment and intimacy between two people beyond surface-level conversations, physical attraction, or even intellectual similarities. Instead, it feels as if you’re connecting on a deeper soul level — and most importantly, you feel secure connecting that deeply.

 You cannot build healthy relationships on lies.  So, when you love someone deeply, you don’t want to break their trust.

Instead, you’ll want to treasure it.

In the initial “love bubble” stage, everything your partner says and does is perfect until we float back down to earth with the stark reminder of their humanity.

In other words — their flaws.

Real love will love them regardless, if not more, for their beautiful imperfections and, at times, annoying nuances.

For example, my husband sometimes compares me to who I was during our earlier years to the woman I am today. He is right that I have changed. I might even drive him a little nutty with my ways and our differing opinions, though he doesn’t love me any less for it. On the contrary, his love for me has deepened over time.

Because that’s a hallmark of real love, it matures and strengthens as we change and grow and will always love you just the way you are.

Charity, graciousness, and tenderness accompany the patterns of real love. When your beloved hurts, you hurt too. But, when their spirits soar, yours will take to the skies and follow suit. That is because real love is pure in its intention and fierce in its support.

It has no hidden agendas, self-interested or self-invested angles.

It is an easy flow of naturally wanting what is best for your mate. Their happiness is important to you. Even when it directly opposes your wants and desires.

Real love doesn’t cling, spy or distrust.

Example: From the very beginning, my husband always said that it would tear him apart if I ever chose to leave him, but that he would never stop me if that’s what I wanted to do.

Why?

Because he is aware enough to understand that love doesn’t mean ownership and that we have no right to control someone else’s life — married or not.

We all have our unique paths to follow, regardless of who we love or have loved. It’s a mindset that I have always admired about my husband.

Real love does not claim or dictate conditions. It just is.

The most magical part of a unique connection has to be in the ability to “just be” together. You don’t care what you’re doing with the other person just so long as you’re spending time with them.

On the flip side, you honor each other’s need for personal space and don’t feel threatened or jealous when the other person isn’t always within reach or available to catch an episode of Big Brother.

Truly loving someone isn’t about demanding all of their time.
It’s more about recognizing that it’s beneficial to give each other the time you both need to decompress and organize thoughts and feelings away from the world.

I crave my alone time.

Solitude plays a crucial part in my life. Without it, I’d lose my mind for sure. During my privacy time, I can process and sort through stuff like relationships, mounting obstacles or issues, the current world crisis, or unexpected interactions with others to gain peace of mind.

My extroverted partner respects that part of me and thankfully doesn’t feel the need to be in my pocket every other minute or keep an eagle eye on me and what I am doing at all times, as was the case with my first extremely possessive husband.