Finding Second Love A Lesson on Hope
The first time you experience heartbreak may make you feel hopeless about finding it again. Your second love, however, teaches you to have hope. By Danielle Anne Suleik
The average person falls in love four times in their lifetime. Many will attest that the most important instances are the first and last. What people fail to realize is that the second time is just as important, because this is when the pain and loss you felt the first time starts to make sense.
Your first love
Learning is an important part of growth, especially when it comes to relationships. Your first love is your first lesson. This is when you start to realize what it takes to be in complete harmony with another person. It can also be the time when you start to learn how to love someone other than yourself.
At a certain age, we start to develop relationships with people who aren't our family. We start to make friendships even at a young age. When we get older, we meet someone who makes us see the world through a different perspective. You wake up one day and start to think about that person and ask, “What are they doing now? I should go check and see.”
Your first love is the person that introduces you to the concept of caring for someone in a romantic way. That feeling is something that you can't define yet. But the good thing about falling in love for the first time is that no matter how indescribable it is, it makes you happy.
Sometimes, a person can succeed in their first foray into romance, but often times most people experience a few setbacks. You can end up losing your first love, but it's not as bad as it seems. Losing someone makes you vulnerable, but it also makes you stronger. When that happens, you make way for a new love to come your way.
Your second love
Your second love completes the lessons you may have learned from your first experience in love. This person is the next step in your journey for love. At this point, you have to make two choices. Are you going to make the same mistakes or are you going to correct said mistakes?
It's easy to assume that you can handle a new relationship perfectly, because you learned a lot from the last. That's not exactly true. The best you can do in a new relationship is to use what you learned from the last, to refrain from getting the same results.
You can tell yourself that you won't make the same mistakes, but it's not a sure thing. This is especially true when you haven't inspected yourself and your past experience. Did you really learn from the first heartbreak? Or are you just hoping that dating a different person won't produce the same situation as last time?
This is what makes experiencing love the second time around so important. Whether you succeed or not, this is when you start to apply the lessons you learned from your first relationship. If you get hurt again, it won't be as painful as it was last time. If the same thing happened, you won't be so devastated that you'll regret starting up the process again the future.
This is because you have been desensitized to the reality of relationships. You know how it goes. You know how it ends. Most importantly, you finally know that there is always a possibility that it can begin again.
What's so great about your second love?
You can't honestly call a person the second love of your life if you don't love them more than your first. The beauty of finding love again is that it is infinitely better than the last. The feeling is amplified, because you know that no one else can elicit that same feelings in you. Whatever love you feel for someone new is the greatest you'll ever feel for anyone at that moment.
If it turns out that you don't love them as much as you hoped, it simply means that you need time to start to feel that way. When it happens, you will see the difference mostly because it's not exactly like the first time you fell in love. So what exactly are the benefits of falling in love the second time around?
#1 Experiencing something new. It's possible that you might go through the same dating rituals that you experienced with your first love, but it becomes a different adventure after. You're with a different person with different life experiences and a different personality. Life suddenly becomes more interesting because you have no idea what's in store for you. That's what you get with your second love… and your third, and your fourth, and even with your last. Every day is a new adventure when you're in love.
#2 Not making the exact same mistakes. Although some people tend to do the same things over and over again with their relationships, you now have the foresight to not let that happen. If it ever does happen - i.e. your partner cheated or you don't communicate very well - you now know how to handle it. You could even be intuitive enough to find someone new who won't make the exact same mistakes that your last partner did.
#3 Pain suddenly becomes easier to bear. All relationships go through trying times. This is what makes couples stronger. It can be something small or it can be something significant. Either way, your reaction to painful experiences becomes less devastating, because you learned how to handle your emotions better. Loss is something that is never easy to bear, but getting over it will be so much easier because you've already done it before.
#4 You appreciate happy memories more. When you were with your first love, everything seemed like the best thing in the world, because it was new to you. The beauty of experiencing this with your new or second love is that you have a greater appreciation for the happy moments you share. Once you've experienced losing a person who made you feel ecstatic about life, you start to crave that feeling. When it finally arrives again, you know that experiences like this should be cherished.
#5 You realize that something better always comes along. Getting your heart broken the first time may seem like the worst thing that could happen to you at that point. When you find someone new to love again, you start to see that nothing is ever as bleak as it seems. You discover proof that finding happiness with another person isn't something that happens just once in your life. It happens over and over, until you find the person that can make you happy for the rest of your life.
For all you first time lovers and for all the people who have had their hearts broken for the first time, it's not the end of your love lives. It is simply the beginning of a new chapter with a new character that can show you more appreciation, more affection and more love than the first.
