Is Your Love Tank Running on Fumes?

Do you feel lonely? Do you feel like you’re missing out on life?

Did you settle down with someone for reasons other than your happiness?

Do you think that security, kids, or other things are more important than yourself?

Do you feel like there’s an expectation hanging over your head about what’s right and wrong forcing you to stay the path that you’re on because it’s the right thing?

If so, where does the expectation come from? Are you not in charge of your own life?

Oftentimes a relationship stalls out and people just kind of exist. That magical love and spark that was once there, that excitement, that breathe of fresh air, that essence of life that made your heart flutter, gave you goose bumps, or put butterflies in your stomach…just kind of fades away.

Sometimes it’s from a kid, sometimes it’s from monotony, or stress, or many other things that happen in life that force you to put your life partner on the back burner. This leads to neglecting their needs and eventually you take them for granted. You forget who they were and focus on other things. You tell yourself that this is how it’s supposed to be and try to convince yourself you’re happy.

Meanwhile, your love tank is slowly draining. It gets harder to rise each day and eventually you’ve become part of an emotional apocalypse and feel like a zombie.

At this point, people make a choice. They either fill their love tank back up or they die on the inside.

Unfortunately, but ironically fortunate, most people seek other people to fill their love tank up. This can lead to an affair, a divorce, a break-up, or some other “catastrophic” life event, but these are not problems they are solutions to a problem of not meeting the needs of your partner. Unfortunately, as common as these solutions are in today’s world, they still don’t gain much societal acceptance, even though they are absolutely necessary sometimes to lead a fulfilling life.

The most painful thing is often that the solutions sought out externally would have also remedied your relationship had they been done internally. For example, if you don’t get a babysitter so you can spend time with your significant other and then use your significant other to stay at home with the kids while you go out or in a divorce they take the kids half the time so you can go do the things you always wanted. Or all of a sudden you go get a new job, make a big move, go back to school, or any number of things — only after you split from your partner.

This will leave your partner looking around like “what the hell, if you had done those things while we we’re together we’d not have any problems.”

I don’t quite understand it but the idea of separating and involving yourself with someone else for some reason gives you the motivation to change your life and fill your love tank that just wouldn’t be possible or never happen with the same person who drained your love tank in the first place.

The worst thing is dying on the inside while alive.

If you cannot die right now without regrets, then you aren’t living your life to the fullest and need to make immediate changes.

When we are faced with our last moments in this world we never regret the things we did, we regret what we didn’t.

The ultimate test is to pretend that you’re in this position now and ask yourself if you have any regrets. If you do, it’s sincerely time to start doing something about it – with or without your “life” partner.

Are you happy?

I can tell you from experience that the “infatuation” or firey state of euphoria most people experience at the beginning of a relationship can go on indefinitely relatively easily. But more importantly, you need to understand that it can go on indefinitely and if you lose that spark with your “person” then their time may be up and it’s time to go reignite the flames of passion with a new person and a new energy. Some people get lucky and find someone to spend their lives with forever with that fire never going out.

The problem is that people think love and relationships are supposed to be a forever kind of thing. Not everyone is meant to have a forever kind of thing with one person, in fact, almost no one really is. But what you can do is keep a forever kind of fire alive by taking those with you as far as they can go.

Some people might only spend a short time with you, some might spend a long time with you. You may end up being with 1 person or you may end up being with 100 people at the end of your life, but the key is to keep that fire alive by all means necessary.

People come and go in life because they have a purpose. Everyone has a place they need to get to. People join your life only while it serves them and once that stops then your journey is done. It is not a problem, it is a solution – a naturally occurring fact of life.

Instead of feeling like a failure, thank that person for the experiences, the learning, the good times, and even the bad times. Your paths may cross again later, but everyone is on their own path and their own journey to fulfill their life’s calling.

To find two people who will travel the exact same path and serve the same calling would be a rarity.