What is love?

My parents divorced when I was six, and all I remember of them being together was yelling and disappointment. My parents were not satisfied with their life choices or their relationships with others. My father left, and I focused on making my mother happy, no matter what. But it never worked. So I never saw what a happy relationship looked like close-up. Being a GenX who was largely raised by television, I got ideas of romance and family through sitcoms.

I was given Wayne Dyer’s book, Your Erroneous Zones, when I was 12 and started learning about other ways of being. That led to a lifetime of research, reading and trying to understand what makes a good relationship.

I had no problems getting into relationships from high school on, but didn’t know how to be in them. To not feel like I wasn’t enough, almost vibrating in my body with unhappiness. Deep into my second marriage, I found Rori Raye’s website, " Having the Love You Want and ate it up. Although I had read hundreds of books before and been to several counselors, her content was the first to make sense. To teach me how to be and what love really is. After learning from her and finding a new man, one who wants me to be happy, I found what romantic love really is.

Being with someone who loves you feels good; it doesn’t feel like work. It may take effort or personal growth, but not painful work. A healthy romantic relationship is one where each person wants the other to be happy and feel good every day. It is being in someone else's presence and being happy. To be seen and appreciated, even the parts we don’t like about ourselves. To be with someone who knows we are not perfect, and neither are they, and who wants to move through this life together, protecting one another.

Love is not trying to make another person do something or be something. Love is not adversarial. The relationships I have been in in my past have been, but that wasn’t true love. What is your partnership doing for you now? Do you feel good?