1 – Who you marry will affect your life more than you can imagine.  Your life may be better for your choice, worse because of your choice or both at different times.

2 – Divorce hurts more than you can imagine.  If love is truly present it is a kind of death that takes forever.

3 – It really is not difficult to fall in love; it is difficult to stay in love.

4 – There is NO one “soul mate” for each of us in the world.  As a person evolves, grows and changes there are many possibilities over time.

5 – Being swept off your feet by another person is more about what you feel inside about yourself than what the other person feels about you.

6 – Intimacy takes a long time to grow and develop.  It can become very strong, yet it will always be very fragile.  What takes years to build can be destroyed in seconds or with a single choice.

7 – Forgiving is a choice and one you make just as much for yourself as the other person.  Often forgiving someone else is far easier than forgiving your self.

8 – Some of the greatest growth of our lives is in love relationships and a good deal of it comes from pain and heartache.

9 – Just because a good relationship does not last forever does not mean it did not work.  It just means it lasted for its time.

10 – Be sure to learn from a past bad relationship.  What you do not learn will be a lesson taught to you again.

11 – If someone is worth your love, then love them without reservation or restriction.  Give your complete heart.  Don’t hold back.  Give your all.  Giving only part of yourself will only get you a part of the other person.

12 – Every time you loved and were loved there is no mistake.  It was a gift no matter how things may have turned out.

13 – There are few ways in a loving relationship to hurt someone more than being unfaithful.  The wound may heal but there will ALWAYS be a scar.

14 – Don’t fall in love with who you think a person might be someday.  There is a good chance they never will be.  Only fall in love with who someone is now.

15 – No matter how much love is present, you will have bad times.  You will fight, you will disagree, and you will have problems.  It is the human condition.

16 – You can’t love someone you don’t like.

17 – Scars from past love only tell you where you have been.  Be careful judging a present relationship with them.

18 – No person can be everything to you, nor can you be everything to any one person.

19 – No one is perfect.  If you can’t see past some imperfection and bad habits you will be miserable in every relationship.

20 – Everyone wants to be loved, but some people do not know how to love you back.

21 – If you are not a good listener in a relationship, you won’t be heard when you speak.

22 – Secrets are poison and will damage a relationship at the very least and at the most, destroy it.

23 – Let unimportant things go.  Give in.  Forget about it.  If you don’t, you’ll end fighting much more than you should.

24 – Loving someone does not make them a better person.  It makes you a better person.

I am grateful to know these things now.  Lessons learned the hard way, are lessons learned best.  There is deep thankfulness for the ones who loved me who were my teachers.

There is no remedy for love
but to love more.
Henry David Thoreau