Love Comes in 3’s

Do you believe in love? If yes, keep reading.

Do you believe you can fall in love with multiple people in a lifetime? If so, you found the right story.

Over the last year, I have learned there will be three kinds of people that enter your life romantically.

1. Someone who teaches you what it is like to love and be loved.
2. Someone who shows you what it means to love differently.
3. Someone who is a combination of the best parts of 1 and 2.

I have always believed that it is not possible to love multiple people the same way, but I have also believed that someone chooses to fall out of love—it doesn’t just happen. Disagree with me, if you may, but I would still continue reading this; it may answer some serious questions some day.

Let’s backtrack a few years... My freshman year of college, I met what I thought was my forever Prince Charming. In the eyes of our peers, we were the perfect couple and I would still agree to this day that we were. We were very happy, even in midst of the downfalls. Despite it all, he was my everything. For the first time, I fell in love with someone. Someone loved me for who I truly was and taught me who I was really meant to be in life. Yes, we had some ups and downs but despite it all, we always worked it out. He taught me what it was like to love, be loved, and what I want in a future husband. He was slow to anger, quick to forgive, selfless, kindhearted, ambitious, and loved me unconditionally without any judgement. Over time, our lives started going different directions. I blamed the universe. I made myself believe it was mutual, but as I look back on it, I realize how hurtful my decision of choosing to not be in love with him anymore really was. I thought I was doing what was best for him, but in reality I was being selfish. Fear could have easily been the cause, but at the end of the day, it happened and happened for a reason.

Following college, I met a man and we instantly it it off. He was charming, smart, successful, and kind. I got swept off my feet entirely way too fast and though my subconscious told me it was a bad idea, I followed my heart and fell for him. We had a great relationship, but I thought that I could change him. Not change who he was but his mindset about women. I wanted to be the girl that proved we weren’t all bad. I wanted to show him what it was like to feel loved unconditionally. However, I started believing, I cared for him much more than he cared for me. Although this may not be the case, this relationship taught me that understanding the way you want to be loved is important to understand. I personally want to be shown love through words of affirmation. Not to say actions don’t mean a lot to me, because they do, but my love language is affirmation. His was affection. I am not a super affectionate person and talking affirmation wasn’t his forte, so our different needs ended up causing a lot of issues. I constantly felt unworthy and he felt unappreciated. I took me a long time to accept this, but as I prayed about it, something changed in me. I let the burden drop from my shoulders and ended things. My heart hurt and although I knew I broke his heart, I also still believed one day he will realize it was not only for my best interest but our best interest.

From that point on, I was determined to live an anti-guy life for a while. I wanted to focus on myself for once and live my life for me. I didn’t want to have to please anyone, make anyone happy or check in with anyone. I wanted to fall in love with myself again. I had lost sight of who I was and who I wanted to be. The last 2 years I had gone through anxiety attacks, stress, negativity, depression... I needed to run my life around. To my surprise, there was another plan in store for me.

I’m sure you already guessed it, but a little while after guy number 2 and I broke up, number 3 entered my life. This has been the most unexpected, blessing thus far in my 23 years. I fell for him a lot faster than I ever expected, which was totally scary but incredibly worth it. It didn’t take me long to realize that he seems to be everything I want in a man and more. The funny thing is, if I hadn’t met #1 and #2, I wouldn’t appreciate this man as much as I do today. He is slow to anger, quick to forgive, kindhearted, selfless, ambitious, hard-working, smart, charismatic, hospitable, judgement free and my biggest cheerleader in life. The way he makes me feel is an emotion I can’t even explain. He picked me up out of my darkest moment without even realizing it. He has reminded me that I can do anything I put my mind to, as well as, that the people who are most important love me for me. He holds the best parts of two people who romantically impacted my life the most. He is the man my heart has longed to love, for a long time and I would have never known that, without my past relationships. For that, I will always be thankful for #1 and #2 along with the lessons they taught me, because it’s through those experiences that I learned how to walk the path I am on now.

The moral of the story is that you will love many people in life. Some would say you only love three kinds of people in midsts of finding your soul mate. I can’t say that is true yet, but hopefully one day I’ll be able to say, “We are proof, Love Comes in Threes.” Everything happens for a reason. People come and go. Relationships start and end in their due time. You have to trust the process because when when #3 enters your life, it will truly be worth it. I promise.