How to Protect Your Love From Being a Battlefield

Did you know that ‘Okay, Jaanu’ means ‘Okay, darling’? Jaanu is an Indian word used to mean darling. Throw in a little Indian accent while saying it and you’re bound to fall in love without farther ado. (Also, watching a cute Indian movie where the word was used by the two main characters must have inspired the butterflies in my belly but who’s watching?) Want to guess the movie? Or better yet, have you watched it?

Unlike popular belief that love should be pain and troubles for it to count as true love, my unpopular belief about love is, “love is not and should never be painful”. Love is not painful. Love is not war. Love is not chaos. Love is not a battlefield.

True love is what you exercise between husband and wife, sister and brother, friends and friends…true love is friendship at different levels. Dr. Myles Munroe categorised friendship in different levels such as acquaintances, colleagues…close friends and so on. I have siblings and it is commonly said that siblings fight a lot. I think that’s a choice you make.

My siblings and I count the number of fights we have in a year, and if we are talking serious fights…we have none, zero, nada. Squabbles? Yeah. “You switch off the light.” “No, you do it.” That kind of stuff and it’s usually done in a playful manner because nobody has time to fight over a light bulb. You want the light off, switch it off. Simple as that. It’s peaceful. We are friends. A friend of mine today, told me after seeing one of our family photos from a birthday lunch we had for my sister…she said, “you’re always smiling.” To which I answered, “we thank God.”

It’s true we are always smiling and laughing about something in our family. It’s amazing but not hard to achieve if you choose to. Don’t magnify small things by giving them significance over what matters most which is the love and friendship between y’all. Choose peace not violence and your love will be filled with smiles, love, joy and happiness majority of the time. Squabbles exist. Just don’t let them become 80% of your time with those you love. It’s not worth it.

So, the levels at which friendship is exercised can be different but the foundation is true love and the basics of any friendship. The levels differ so does what you do at each level. The foundation is true love and friendship. For instance, as an adult, you can’t kiss your mother on the lips or have sex with her. That’s abominable. That doesn’t mean you don’t love her. You love her, but the level of your friendship doesn’t exceed or get beyond the point of hugs and a peck on the cheek. She’s your mother not your wife or husband. Okay, Jaanu? Okay. Good.

Love doesn’t have to be turbulent and chaotic for it to be true. No matter what trauma has taught us, true love is not chaotic. True love is peaceful and calm. At times, if you are used to chaos, true love to you will seem like boredom. In other words, while at peace you will begin thinking that you’re bored.

Chaos doesn’t equate excitement or happiness. Excitement is not chaos. True love is predictable utmost and boring to most people. The majority of the world’s population has experienced some sort of traumatic love experience. This very majority hasn’t taken time to heal. You can imagine what that means for true love as a whole. It’s being approached from and with wounded mindsets.

If you purpose to heal, the healed version of you will know that true love is also an “unboring” (lol, ‘unboring’ is not a word) routine.

Predictability in itself can be beautiful and safe. An exciting blast every now and then is okay. Living an all-time high of too high-highs and deep low-lows however, is dangerous even to the most unstable human beings. It’s exhausting. It can kill you or take you to a point of no return.

True love is having a squabble with each other, not letting it sit for long and resolving it as soon as possible because it’s you two against the world not each other.

Each other’s company means more to you than petty distance created by a disagreement. That’s how true love stays un-chaotic. It’s how 80% of the moments in your relationships with your loved ones are filled with joy and the uncommon 20% is left for solving petty disagreements. Remember, it’s you and them against the world, not each other.

There ain’t a petty disagreement too big for true love. Okay Jaanu? Okay. Good.

Sefora Darling