Love her when you hate her and she will love you more. Tell her when you hate her and she will retreat. Everyone wants to be the apple of someone’s eye; everyone wants to be loved even when they are not loveable. In fact, this is how a lot of women measure the worth of a man, especially women who like to run away. Women test their men, often times not even consciously, by being mean and showing their worst sides to see if their guy will stick around when worst comes to worse.

When a girl who finds it hard to settle down finally finds someone who sticks around during her worst moods and who puts up with her shit, she feels like the luckiest girl on earth. She sees something in him and can finally envision herself settling down. When she does settle down, her wish is that he will always put up with her shit because most of the time she’s putting up with his, as well.

Relationships are always give and take. No one should ever take advantage of the other and no one should ever make their partner feel like less of a person. Why is it that relationships always start with both parties on their best behavior but a couple of years down the line, the walls fall down and partners become comfortable. They start treating each other like siblings rather than lovers. Ew, gross, right? No way would you ever stay with someone who treats you like a sibling!

But it happens. You get into a comfortable groove with this person you love and you no longer feel the need to impress each other. You pick on each other, you point out each other’s flaws, you tell each other when the other is being annoying. You love each other one minute and hate each other the next. You can’t stand them some days but would still protect them if anyone ever put them down. It’s okay for you to criticize them but you would stand up to anyone who ever said a bad word about them. Is it creepy that we start treating our true love as if they are our sibling?

Of course it’s creepy when you think of it that way, but it’s really not that weird. This is the person you are spending most of your time with; a person in your age group who you turn to when times get tough. This is your best friend who will be there for you during thick and thin who will love you no matter what. Yup, pretty similar to what a sibling is right? Puke.

So, how do you differentiate your relationship from sibling similarity? You treat it differently and you remember that, though you may be best friends, you still need to respect each other. You still need to love each other the same way you did when it all first began. You need to remember what it was like to be on your best behavior at family gatherings. No evil glares, no nit-picking, no getting pissed when one of you screws up at a board game. The things that used to endear you STILL need to endear you. Sure, you’re in your comfort zone, you’ve been there for a while now, but that’s no reason to belittle one another, even if you are doing it out of love.

Love her the same way you did in the beginning, even when she makes you mad. Love her when she gains a bit of weight and still tell her she is beautiful when she’s in sweats and a t-shirt. Love her when you hate her because you are not her brother, you are her mate. You are there to lift her up and not to pull her down (even when you don’t do it purposely) and you need to be conscious of when you are hurting her feelings.

Love her when she pisses you off most and she will love you until the end of time because she will know you are worth it. She will know you are not her sibling, but her partner. She will know that you are the family she has chosen and who you want to spend the rest of your life with. Love her more when you hate her most and she will give you her life.

Love always,
The Love Hawk