Let’s go back to the three types of love relationships. Looking at the second type, you go deeper and you build a relationship like love or marriage; not on the basis of material things but on the basis of the overall personality of the other person.
It means you want to marry a woman; primarily not for her physical beauty but for her overall personality though the interaction may start from physical attraction. Hence the equation may be initiated by physics but chemistry may take over soon. This is a common type of relationship where two people are interested in each other’s personality, much more than their physical beauty. In fact, majority of love relationships in this day and age fall in this category.
The people who love someone on this level can tell you a number of reasons why they love their lovers, and most of these reasons may be much deeper than skin. For instance, you may tell that your wife is a kind person, she takes good care of you, she’s educated, she has good manners, she supports you a lot in each and everything; she respects your family members and a number of other such things. You may or may not mention that these things make you love her more with each passing day; but this is how it is.
This is the type of love where you interact with a person at the level of her personality, instead of interacting with her at the level of her physical body. Hence you treat this person as a person, and not as a thing since understanding someone’s personality means understanding that she’s a person. Therefore, she may do a lot for you and you may also do the same for her. If we look at a perfect relationship of this type; which means both husband and wife have personalities which complement each other; this is what is called a perfect couple and this is how deep it can go in this day and age; in most cases.
In fact; some people may not even know if there’s a type better than this. It means if your wife takes very good care of you, you take very good care of her, and you two have only a few things going wrong between you at times whereas the number of right things is big or even huge; what else can you expect from a relationship like this? No matter how good this relationship may be; it is still trade and it is not love. It may hurt but this is how it is; and let’s try to understand why.
Just like her physical body doesn’t mean her true self; her personality also doesn’t mean her true self though it certainly goes deeper than skin. Just like her physical body may change with time; her personality may also change with time. Accordingly, you’re in love with something that is changing and not with something that is permanent. As a rule, when you’re in love with something that is changing; this love is also changing and it can’t be permanent. This change may happen due to a number of variables, and let’s look at some important variables of this type.
You love your wife as she takes good care of you but it can change; you love her as she’s well behaved but it can change; you love her because she respects your parents but it can also change; you love her because she’s kind but it can also change; you love her because she keeps herself fit but it can also change; and you love her because she is a cheerful person but it too can change. It may take long time plus some specific types of circumstances for some of these changes or all of these changes to happen; but it is still possible.
A question that you have to ask yourself is that what if she develops a personality which is far different from or even the opposite of the one you like. Will you still be able to love her in the same way? Though you can fool yourself; you know the answer is no. If she starts arguing with you on daily basis, if she starts drinking a lot, if she stops paying attention to whether you’ve eaten or not, if she turns into an unkind person or she develops a number of other such habits which you don’t like and in fact, you hate them; your love will disappear and it’ll be replaced by dislike first and then hate later on; though it may take due time for these changes to happen.
So what is it that you’re in love with; your wife or her personality which is the sum total of her habits and preferences at any point in time? You know the answer which is that you’re in love with her personality. Since her personality can change with time; so can your love for her, and hence it is not the deepest type of love though it certainly is deeper than the first type. In fact, there is no love in the first type and you just consider the other person as an object. However in this case, you do consider the other person as a person; you respect her and you do a number of good things for her, just as she does a number of good things for you.
However, even this type of love is trade though it is a trade mixed with feelings of love. It is like you develop personal relationship with the second milk seller who’s at 500 meters from your house and you start going to his shop for milk; primarily because of this relationship and for nothing else. Hence you now have a better reason to go to him as you two may interact with each other, apart from engaging in trade of milk in exchange for money. Therefore, this trade may become a refined type of trade as it has feelings of love or care mixed in it; but it still is a trade.
Kindly note that your need for milk is still primary and the need to purchase milk from his shop is secondary. Let’s introduce some variables to this equation and see what happens. Suppose the seller closer to your house starts offering 10% or even 20% discount on milk whereas the seller you have a relationship with keeps charging the maximum retail price. Will you keep purchasing milk from your friend at about 10 to 20% higher price or will you start purchasing milk from the shop closer to your house?
You may wait for a few days at the most and then you may get restless. You may even start telling your friend that the other seller has started offering discount and you may even advise him that he should also start doing the same. You may say all this like it’s not about the milk you purchase from him and it is about other people who may stop buying milk from him. However in reality; it is your subconscious way of telling him that if he doesn’t start offering discounts soon; you may also stop buying milk from his shop.
It should be noted that milk or its price in this example only deals with some qualities of yours, and not with their quantities. It means if you need one packet of milk daily, it is not expensive and the discounts offered by the other seller don’t matter much to you. Hence you may still keep purchasing it from your friend’s shop. If you think that by doing so; you really care for your friend and not for the price of milk; wait till you read the next lines.
Suppose a packet of milk costs Rs. 50 and the discount offered is Rs. 5 or 10. At this time; you’re earning Rs. 100,000 or more per month and hence Rs. 5 or 10 may not matter to you at all. Accordingly; you may not care about this discount and you may keep purchasing milk from your friend. This is because Rs. 5 or 10 are not enough when it comes to create significant negativity within you. Hence nothing much may happen.
Let’s now introduce a new variable; let’s change this equation and let’s see what may happen then. Suppose both these sellers offer grocery and household items also; you purchase these items from your friend’s shop and the average expenditure is Rs. 20,000 per month. Suppose the other seller offers 10% or 20% discount on all items whereas your friend doesn’t offer this discount. What will you do now? It means if you keep purchasing from your friend; you may spend an extra amount of Rs. 1000 or 2000 per month; for the exact same items.
You see, though the fact that your friend doesn’t offer discount when someone else does; remains the same in case of a packet of milk and in case of your monthly shopping for grocery and household items; its impact on you has changed depending on the quantum of loss you may suffer. When it comes to Rs. 5 or 10; you may not bother much as it is no big deal for you, given your financial status. However, as soon as this amount jumps to Rs. 1000 or Rs. 2000 per month; money may suddenly seem more important than friendship.
As a result, you may tell your friend that the other seller is offering discounts and he should also do the same. Though you may give him this advice as you really care for his business; all you really care for is the money you can save. Suppose he doesn’t listen to your advice and he tells you that he’s not going to offer any discounts for some reason of his own. This may change everything and sooner than you know; you may start purchasing grocery from the other shop.
Since your friend may also notice that you’ve started purchasing grocery from somewhere else; this relationship is bound to suffer and you know this fact before he comes to know. It means deep down; you know that if you stop purchasing grocery from your friend’s shop; he may not like it and your friendship may suffer. However, you still decide to purchase grocery from the other shop as money is certainly more important for you than friendship.
It should be noted that some people may engage in this practice for Rs. 10, some others may engage in it for Rs. 1000 and yet some others may engage in it for Rs. 10,000 or even more. However, this is only a quantitative change and not a qualitative change, which means whether you stop going to your friend for Rs. 10 or you stop going to your friend for Rs. 10,000; money is still more important for you than your friend; and only the commercial value assigned by you to your friend changes.
In the first case; you value your friendship less than Rs. 10 since you stop going to your friend in order to save Rs. 10, which means Rs. 10 are more important than your friend. In the second case, you value your friendship less than Rs. 1000 and more than Rs. 10 whereas in the third case, this value lies between Rs. 1000 and 10,000. However in all these cases; one thing is common and that is the fact that money is more important than friendship; and only the financial value attached to the friendship changes in different cases.
Kindly understand that the 10% or 20% extra amount spent by you if you purchase grocery from your friend’s shop is going to be his profit, and hence he’s the one who’s going to benefit. This is because the seller who’s offering discount is compromising his profit whereas your friend doesn’t want to do so. Hence if you pay an extra amount of Rs. 1000 to your friend per month; this amount is going to be his profit and nothing else. It means though you may lose this amount; your friend may gain the same amount and he may benefit.