This is a rather long story from Don Miguel Ruiz’s The Mastery of Love, but if you read it to the end, you will understand the most important thing there is to know about love. It corresponds entirely with my personal and professional experience and is also in harmony with all the other writings I have read so far about love and about what prevents us from being happy in our relationships.
In this story, the “lesson” comes at the very end, when Don Miguel asks the question: “Who was wrong?”
Don Miguel Ruiz:
I want to tell you a very old story about a man who did not believe in love. He was an ordinary man like you and me, but what made him special was his way of thinking. He believed that love did not exist. Of course, he had a great deal of experience in searching for love, and he had observed the people around him. He had spent much of his life looking for love, only to discover that it did not exist.
Wherever he went, this man was used to telling people that love was nothing more than an invention of poets, an invention of religions in order to manipulate the weak human mind, to control people, to make them believe. He said that love was not real, and that this was why there was no one who could find love, even when they were looking for it.
This man was highly intelligent and very convincing. He had read many books, had graduated from the best universities, and had become a respected scholar. He could stand in any public place, in front of any audience, and his logic was very solid. He said that love was just like a drug. It could lift you very high, but it also created a strong need. You could become strongly addicted to love—but what happens if you do not get your daily dose of love? Just like with drugs, you need your daily dose.
He liked to say that most love relationships were like the relationship between a drug addict and a drug dealer. The one who needs more is like the addict, and the one who needs less is like the dealer. The one who needs less controls the relationship. You can see this driving force very clearly, because usually in every relationship one loves more and the other loves less and takes advantage of the one who gives their heart. You can see the way they manipulate each other, their actions and reactions, and you will find that they are exactly like the dealer and the addict.
The addict—the one who needs more—lives in constant fear that they might not receive the next dose of love or the drug. The addict says: ‘What will I do if she leaves me?’ This fear provokes a strong sense of possession: ‘This is mine!’ The addict becomes jealous and demanding because of the fear of not receiving the next dose. The dealer can control and manipulate the one who needs the drug by giving bigger doses, smaller doses, or by not giving any dose at all. The one who needs more completely surrenders and will do everything possible in order not to be abandoned.
The man kept explaining to everyone why he believed that love did not exist. ‘What people call love is nothing more than fear-based relationships founded on control. Where is the respect? Where is the love they claim to have? There is no love. When newlyweds present themselves before God, before their families and friends, they make many promises to each other—to live together forever, to love and honor each other, and they promise and promise. The funny thing is that they truly believe in these promises. But after the marriage, one week later, one month later, a few months later—you can see that none of these promises are kept.
What you see is a war for control—to determine who will manipulate whom. Who will be the dealer and who will be the addict. You will see that a few months later the respect they swore they would have for each other has disappeared. You can see the resentment, the emotional poison, how they hurt each other. Little by little the resentment grows, and they do not understand when love ended. They stay together because they are afraid to be alone; they are afraid of other people’s opinions and accusations. They are also afraid of their own accusations and opinions. But where is love?’
This man claimed that he had seen many old couples who had lived together for thirty, forty, fifty years and were proud that they had lived together for so long. But when they spoke about their relationship, they said: ‘We preserved the marriage.’ This means that one surrendered to the other. At some point she surrendered and decided to endure the suffering. The one with the stronger will and the lesser need won the war—but where is that flame called love? They treat each other as possessions: ‘He is mine. She is mine.’
The man went on speaking about all the reasons why he believed that love did not exist and told others: ‘I have already been through this. I will never again allow anyone to manipulate my mind and control my life in the name of love.’ His arguments were quite logical, and he convinced many people with his words. Love does not exist.
Then one day the man was walking in a park, and there on a bench sat a beautiful woman who was crying. When he saw her crying, curiosity stirred in him. He sat next to her and asked if he could help her. He asked her why she was crying. You can imagine his surprise when he learned that she was crying because love did not exist. He said: ‘This is astonishing—a woman who believes that love does not exist!’ Of course, he wanted to know more about her.
‘Why do you say that love does not exist?’ he asked.
‘Well, it is a long story,’ she replied. ‘I married when I was very young, with all my love, with all my illusions, full of hope that I would share my life with this man. We swore loyalty, respect, and honor to each other and created a family. But soon everything changed. I was the devoted wife who took care of the children and the home. My husband continued to develop his career. His success and image outside the home were more important to him than the family. He lost his respect for me and I lost my respect for him. We hurt each other, and at some point I discovered that neither he loved me nor I loved him. But the children needed a father, and that was my excuse to stay with him and support him. Now the children have grown up and left us. I have no more excuses to stay with him. There is no respect, no kindness. I know that even if I find someone else, it will be the same, because love does not exist. There is no point in looking for something that does not exist. That is why I am crying.’
Understanding her very well, he embraced her and said: ‘You are right, love does not exist. We look for love, we open our hearts and become vulnerable, only to discover selfishness. This hurts us, even if we do not expect to be hurt. No matter how many relationships we have had, the same thing always happens. So why look for love?’
They were so alike that they became best friends. It was a wonderful relationship. They respected each other and did not reproach each other. With every step they took together, they were happy. There was no envy or jealousy, no control, no possession. The relationship continued to grow. They loved being together because they had so much fun. When they were not together, they missed each other.
One day the man was out of town when a strange idea came to him. He thought: ‘Hmm, maybe what I feel for her is love. But it is so different from what I have felt before. It is not what the poets say, it is not what religion says, because I am not responsible for her. I do not want anything from her. I do not need her to take care of me. I do not need to blame her for my difficulties or dump my dramas on her. We feel best when we are together; we have fun. I respect the way she thinks and feels. She does not disturb me; she does not bother me at all. I do not feel jealous when she is with other people. I do not feel envy toward her success. Maybe love exists, but it is not what people think it is.’
He could hardly wait to return home and talk to her, to tell her about his strange idea. As soon as he began to speak, she said: ‘I know exactly what you are talking about. I have had the same feeling for a long time, but I did not want to share it with you because I knew that you did not believe in love. Maybe love exists, but it is not what we think.’ They decided to become lovers and live together, and what was astonishing was that things did not change. They still respected and supported each other, and love grew more and more. Even the simplest things made their hearts sing with love, because they were so happy.
The man’s heart was so full of love that one night a great miracle happened. He was looking at the stars and discovered the most beautiful one, and his love was so great that the star began to fall from the sky and soon fell into his hands. Then a second miracle happened and his soul merged with the star. He was extremely happy and could hardly wait to go to the woman and place the star in her hands to prove his love. After he placed the star in her hands, for a moment she felt doubt. The love was overwhelming, but at that moment the star fell from her hands and broke into millions of tiny pieces.
Now there is an old man who travels the world, swearing that love does not exist. There is also a beautiful old woman who sits at home, waiting for the man and shedding tears for the paradise that she once held in her hands but, for one moment of doubt, let slip away. This is the story of the man who did not believe in love.
Who was wrong? Do you want to guess what was wrong? The mistake was on the man’s side, because he thought he could give the woman his happiness. The star was his happiness, and his mistake was that he placed his happiness in her hands. Happiness never comes from outside. He was happy because of the love flowing from him; she was happy because of the love flowing from her. But the moment he made her responsible for his happiness, she broke the star, because she could not be responsible for his happiness.
No matter how much the woman loved him, she could never have made him happy, because she would never understand what he held in his consciousness. She would never understand what his expectations were, because she did not know his dreams. If you take your happiness and place it in someone else’s hands, sooner or later they will break it. If you leave your happiness in the hands of another, they can always take it away. Therefore, your happiness can come only from within, as a result of love, and you are responsible for your own happiness. We can never transfer to another the responsibility for our own happiness; and yet when we go to church, the first thing we do is exchange rings. We place our star in the hands of the other, expecting that they will make us happy and that we will make them happy. No matter how much you love someone, you will never be what the other expects of you.
This is the mistake that most of us make from the very beginning. We base our happiness on the other, and things do not work that way. We make all these promises that we cannot keep, and we fail in advance.”**
From the book by Don Miguel Ruiz, The Mastery of Love:
Since this is quite a long answer from the “Lessons of Love,” let the comment at least be short. If right now you feel that the world has fallen apart into countless little stars, but none of them is yours—look up at the sky again. And begin the story from the beginning—this time remembering the lesson at the end.
And so, once upon a time, there was a man and a woman…
Note: The quoted passages are translated from Bulgarian.
