The love we learned: is it the love we want to live?

We learned to love long before we fell in love

When we think about our relationships, we tend to focus on the person in front of us: what they do, what they say or how they make us feel. But we rarely stop to look at something essential: where are we coming from when we love?

The way we relate to others does not begin on the day we fall in love. Long before then, we have already been forming ideas about love, trust, affection and what we need to feel loved.

We learn by watching those around us. We see how our parents or carers speak to each other, how they resolve their differences, how they show affection and what happens when someone gets angry, cries or needs attention.

We also learn from our own experiences: whether we feel listened to, whether we find comfort when we are afraid, whether we can express how we feel or whether, on the contrary, we learn to keep quiet so as not to be a nuisance.

As children, we do not have the tools to understand everything that is happening. We simply try to adapt, find our place and feel that we belong. In the process, we may begin to form ideas about love that, years later, we still take for granted.

The small ideas that stay with us

Perhaps we learned that we had to behave well to receive affection. Or that it was better not to show anger to avoid conflict. Maybe we saw that loving someone meant making sacrifices, that other people’s needs always came first, or that problems were solved by staying silent.

These messages were not always explicit. Sometimes they came through looks, absences, everyday gestures or emotions that were never put into words.

Every story is different. Some people grew up feeling safe and supported; others missed certain kinds of attention, understanding or closeness. Even in families where there was love, some needs may have gone unmet.

As children, we do not usually think that adults have their own limitations, worries or wounds. We try to make sense of what we experience using the tools we have.

That is how we may come to believe that we have to try very hard to be loved, that asking for help is a nuisance, that showing vulnerability is dangerous or that, to keep a relationship, we have to keep adapting.

These are not universal truths. They are possible lessons that can, without our realising it, become the usual way we interpret and experience our relationships.

What if we are still repeating what we learned long ago?

As adults, these ideas can show up in seemingly small situations.

Perhaps you find it hard to say no because you feel you will disappoint someone. Maybe you need constant signs of affection to feel secure. You might avoid talking about what hurts until you cannot hold it in any longer, or care so much for others that you end up neglecting yourself.

The opposite can happen too: you might find it hard to trust, ask for support or let someone truly get close to you.

This does not mean that everything that happens in our romantic relationships has its roots in childhood. Our personality, later experiences and present circumstances also play a part. But looking at our past can help us understand why certain situations affect us so deeply and why some responses keep recurring, even when we no longer want to react that way.

Sometimes we are not responding only to what is happening today. We are also responding to what we have learned to expect from love.

Recognising this does not mean our emotions are wrong, or that we should excuse anything that hurts us. It means we can start to distinguish between what we need, what we fear and what is really happening in our relationship.

Understanding is not about finding someone to blame

Looking back at our childhood should not become a judgement of our parents or of ourselves.

Those who raised us also had their own histories. They learned to love in a particular way and, with the resources and limitations they had, passed on some of what they knew. This can help us understand many things, though it does not erase the impact certain experiences may have had on us.

Understanding our past does not mean excusing everything. It means looking at our behaviour not as a flaw, but asking what purpose it has served, what it was trying to protect and whether it still helps us.

Perhaps the need to please others once helped us feel accepted. Perhaps keeping quiet helped us avoid conflict at another point in our lives. But what once helped us adapt can, over time, become a barrier to building freer, more authentic relationships.

What we have learned may explain part of the way we love, but it does not have to decide how we continue to love.

You do not have to keep loving the way you learned to

Awareness begins when we stop assuming that our way of loving is the only one possible.

We can learn to set boundaries without stopping loving. To express our needs without feeling ashamed. To listen without interpreting every difference as rejection. To care for others without abandoning ourselves.

This is not about changing who we are to become perfect people. It is about getting to know ourselves better, recognising our patterns and discovering new ways of relating to others.

Perhaps change does not begin when we find someone who loves us differently, but when we start to understand what we have learned to accept, what we truly need and what we are willing to build from now on.

Your challenge for the week

Find a quiet moment and ask yourself:

How was love expressed in my family? What did I learn about conflict, affection and emotions? What did I need as a child that I found hard to ask for? What behaviours do I repeat in my relationships today, even though they sometimes hurt me? What would I like to learn now about loving and letting myself be loved?

You do not need to find all the answers at once. It is enough to observe yourself honestly, without judging yourself or looking for someone to blame.

Because understanding yourself does not mean getting stuck in the past. It means using what you discover to live more freely in the present.

We do not choose all the experiences that taught us how to love, but we can choose which ones we want to keep repeating.

DESAFÍ-ARTE: the art of understanding yourself, questioning what you have learned and discovering new ways to relate to yourself, others and life.