Special love, that which we consider romantic, is not authentic love. The reason is that if we take on another in a romantic partnership, we can easily do so under the guise that they will "complete us." They will "make us whole." We need them to behave in such a way as to "prove" their love to us. We are "special" to one another.

That is a good description of conditional love. If our partner "fails" in meeting our expectations or demands, we end the relationship or exchange it for another. But the other will fail as well if we ourselves fail to understand that no one is in this world to complete you. It is you who is complete and in that completion join another to agree to life together, "warts and all." We understand that in our humanness, we are each imperfect, even as in our authenticness as a spiritual being, we are each perfect.

Sound like a contradiction? It is living as an authentic human, loving authentically, with unconditional acceptance of what is. Authentic love is true love and it does not fail. This is the only way a relationship can withstand the test of time.