Paul Mauchline

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Rising in mature love requires patience. You need to get to know your partner as well as you know yourself, which takes a great deal of time. The biggest complaint I hear is, "I do not have the time." Mature love requires time: it has to be a priority. Do not get me wrong: I am not saying that you need to spend every available minute of every day with your partner. It's not the quantity, but the quality of time spent, and the patience and discipline to do it daily. The only way that you are going to get to know your partner, inside out and backwards, is by communicating every day. There may be many days when you are stressed out from your job and preoccupied with other things that are happening, but you need to have the discipline to spend the time with your partner in meaningful conversation.

Every day in the workplace, you have conversations and communicate with others. In many cases, you are doing so to gather information to perform your work. Throughout the world each day, our entire population is gathering information. As we have seen the computer age explode around us, we can recognize the importance of information gathering. Your relationships are no different. Take the time to look at old photographs, movies, and videos of each other's lives. This is a wonderful opportunity to share experiences that each of you had growing up. Letting your partner in on your childhood experiences allows him or her to see the person that has developed into the adult that you are. It takes a lot of courage to open up and share who you really are; this is intimacy building at its very best. You are not only sharing your past with you are loved one; you are giving yourself an opportunity to go back and explore your memories and feelings.

Sharing time like this brings out our true emotions and selves. Revisiting old neighborhoods, schools, and favorite hangouts allows us to share ourselves with our partner. You have to expose yourself totally, with honesty and truth. That's what is going to create the foundation; that's what is going to make your seed grow. At the beginning of a relationship, this is easy, but as time goes on it requires more concentration and discipline to share yourselves with each other. I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to make time for one another. Regular date nights, evening or afternoon strolls, even grocery shopping together allows you intimate time with one another. This time together will allow you to share your thoughts and daily experiences.

Do not forget the little things. Remember all the things that you did for one another during the euphoric stage. The cards, the flowers, notes, love letters, gifts, and most importantly, the time that you freely gave. Just remember all the little things you used to do. This does not have to stop, and in fact, it should not stop. All those little things are the nutrients that are required to stimulate the growth of your love for each other. For your seed of love to grow and mature, you must practice the art of loving in your daily life.

No one has ever said that life is easy; as you and your partner grow together, you are going to experience turbulence. Everything is not going to be perfect all the time: life does have its ups and downs, and so, too, will your relationship. You need to have the patience to ride out the stormy weather... and faith that going through bad times together will strengthen your love. It is the experiencing of life-- both its good and bad parts-- that makes a love relationship rich and unique. You get out of your relationship what you put into it. So when life is difficult, it is an opportunity for you and your partner, together, to build and strengthen the mature love you have for one another. It is essential to view stressful life events as an "us-against-the-world" experience. It's such a shame that so many couples allow the difficulties of life to come between them, when these times provide such wonderful opportunities for them to unite.

It's all in your attitude and in the perspective you choose to have. Mature love comes from two people consciously growing together as one. It does not happen by accident. It takes both of you working together to realize mature love and the kind of relationship that you seek. Helen Reddy sang, "We are one. We are invincible." When togetherness is a given in your relationship, no problem is insurmountable. In order to achieve mature love together, you must be patient, have confidence and faith in your relationship, be disciplined enough to make time for one another, concentrate on the positives, and face the negatives as one. Practice all of this daily, practice the art of loving, and you both will experience the magic, the indescribable feelings, of mature love together.

Tags: Love, Attraction and Flirting, Love For Men, Love For Women

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The Art of Loving