Vixen Manual - Karrine Steffans [63]
As I enter my thirties, I realize that I’m still learning a lot about love and its true definition, purposes, and effects. After living most of my life not knowing love, I am more sensitive to and aware of it than most. I appreciate the feeling of loving and being loved by my mate, my family, my friends, and myself. What I have learned is that in life, there is nothing more important than this. Love is everything because it is in everything.
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Recap
Love is an emotion that’s often involuntary, independent of choice and practical decision making.
Love is a knowing, something so big, so irresistible, so all-consuming, you can’t fight against it.
Even when your man has failed you, your feelings remain fixed, not despite his faults, but because of them.
You can never run dry of this emotion as long as you are willing to share it.
Appreciate each experience.
Sex is nothing without love.
You’re the most important love you will ever know.
You will get only what you believe you deserve.
Love is everything because it is in everything.
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Chapter Twenty-five
Trust
The surest, most effective way to begin any relationship is to lay a solid foundation of trust. However, trust can be a tricky word, as many people have differing definitions. For some, the meaning is ironclad and literal. You believe your man will never lie or cheat on you, and if he does, all trust—and the relationship—is forfeited. That sounds great in theory, but it’s about as pie-in-the-sky as it gets.
We must be fair about trust and what exactly the word encompasses. Every human being is fallible, subject to the weaknesses of time, moment, and space. Whether we fall prey to those weaknesses are testaments to how strong we are as individuals. The objective in a committed relationship is for you and your man to stand strong against weaknesses, even in the face of great temptation. Lying, however, is another issue. Every day most of us tell what we believe is a small, insignificant untruth, even to those we love wholeheartedly, in an effort to save face, encourage others, buy time, and so on. How often have we asked our mate, “How do I look?” in the hopes that he’ll tell us we’re the most desirable creature that ever walked the earth? Your man knows you need that affirmation, so even if you’re in the most jacked up of outfits and your hair isn’t exactly flattering, he might just tell you a little white untruth to keep the peace and make you feel good about yourself, because he knows you worked extra hard to look good for him.
There. Your man just lied to you. Does that mean he’s not trustworthy? Is he a dog? Is it time to let this dishonest jerk go?
Of course not! It means he loves you and wants to make you feel loved. Most people lie without the intent of causing harm. Now, your girlfriend might have told you, “Take that mess off, you look awful,” but your man knows his words have the potential to wound you more deeply, so he treads carefully. We all tread carefully in love. We do so because we care. That doesn’t mean you don’t want your man to tell you the truth when you do, indeed, looked jacked up. It means you want him to do so with care. Just know that care might involve a little lying on his part. And yours.
I mean, come on, ladies. We’ve all told the occasional little white untruth in bed to make our man feel like more of a sexual warrior than he actually is. We do this because we want him to feel good about himself and us. We do it with the hope that he will actually become that sexual warrior, if given enough encouragement. After all, “as a man thinketh, so he is.”
Trust goes