Expecting your soulmate to love you the way you expect them to love you will blind you in a way that you will miss to see all the love and affection that they are showering on you in their own way.
That’s a very insightful observation about relationships, particularly when the concept of a “soulmate” is involved. You’ve hit on a key point about expectations and how they can distort our perception of love.
Here’s an explanation of that idea:
The Trap of Preconceived Notions: When we hold rigid expectations about how a “soulmate” should behave or how love must be expressed (often based on romanticized ideals, media portrayals, or past experiences), we create a very specific mold. We look for certain words, gestures, frequency of contact, or ways of solving problems as the only valid indicators of love.
Your Partner’s Unique “Love Language”: However, individuals express love and affection in vastly different ways. These ways are shaped by their personality, upbringing, past relationships, and their own understanding of care. They might show love through acts of service, quality time, thoughtful gifts, physical touch, words of affirmation, or even subtle acts like remembering a small detail about you, giving you space when you need it, or quietly supporting your endeavors.
The Blinding Effect: Your fixed expectations act like blinders. Because you are so focused on finding the specific expressions of love that you anticipate, you become less receptive to, and might entirely miss, the authentic ways your partner is actually showing you care and affection. It’s like looking only for apples while standing in an orchard full of oranges, pears, and peaches – you miss the abundance because it doesn’t match the one thing you decided you were looking for.
The Consequence: Feeling Unloved Despite Being Loved: This blindness can lead to a painful paradox: you might feel unloved, unmet, or disappointed, not because your partner isn’t loving you, but because they aren’t loving you in the precise manner you expected. This can cause resentment in you and make your partner feel misunderstood, unappreciated, and hurt that their genuine efforts are not seen or valued.
The “Soulmate” Amplification: The “soulmate” idea, while beautiful, can sometimes exacerbate this problem. There’s a romantic notion that soulmates just know how to love each other perfectly and instinctively, without missteps or differing styles. This unrealistic ideal can make the discrepancy between your expected love language and their actual one feel like a fundamental flaw in the connection itself, rather than just a difference in expression to be understood and navigated.
Do read the Disclaimer