I don't believe that romantic love should conquer all. It's not an opinion that earns me many nodding heads, but there it is.
A few weeks ago, while visiting the Love Park in Lima, I started thinking about this again. Among all the couples clearly on dates, tourists, and gorgeous mosaic lay the famous lock rail on its side. So many locks had been placed on the rail, so many promises made that it was too heavy to stand, and finally fell over.
All that love just got too heavy to hold.
I've had three important romantic loves in my life. The first two ended not due to a lack of love or a terrible betrayal. They ended due to a lack of alignment about what was important in our lives. That misalignment being insurmountable in no way made the love less. Love can and does exist in places where it's not good for us.
I think this happens all too often in relationships. Love is supposed to conquer all, so we let it get heavier and heavier to carry as misalignments show up. This is one of those romantic myths that does a lot of practical harm.
Sometimes, loving someone is not enough.
There are practical things we need alignment on in life, like values, how we want to live, and alignment on child raising, perhaps. These are just a few examples of very important areas that, when misaligned, can cause a romance to be full of more heartbreak than happiness, no matter how much love is there.
