Rose Colored Glasses

Whenever I can give my friends advice on their relationship problems, I find myself using something along the lines of:

“Accept things for how they are not how you want them to be”

It’s a good piece of advice and has enormous truth behind it. Yet when I look at my own life, I realize it is advice I need to be taking in myself.

Blinded by light

It is easier to see the red flags and toxic behavior from an outsider’s point of view. However, when you are in it yourself, you see the relationship through ‘rose-colored glasses.’ This phrase is commonly associated with love because it is a state of beautiful oblivion. Your perspective becomes tinted with a gaze of compassion and understanding, which increases your tolerance for their faults and flaws.

While you may not be entirely oblivious to the issues going on – love truly blinds you to the severity of them. Such obstructive points of view lead to blind optimism in the reality of the relationship. You endlessly justify the mistreatment with irrational excuses that go against your boundaries and self-worth. In your mind, it is easier to hold onto the hope that this time they really will change. Rather than letting go and seeing the relationship for how it really is.

Until suddenly, you become lost in a repetitive cycle fueled by pure delusion and toxicity.

Must be love on the brain

When it gets to that point, you are no longer just clinging to the hope that they will change. You are clinging to a romanticized version of them created in your head. This falsified image we have of them is not an accurate portrayal of who they really are. It is rather a fantasy of who you want them to be.

It is a compilation of all the good qualities and memories you have with them that made you fall in love in the first place. You become dependent on the validation, security, and happiness that the relationship provided. Consequently, when those things begin to run dry, there is a sense of desperation to get that back. You have already invested so much into this person and developed an emotional dependency on them to the point where you will take them back regardless.

Like a drug, we will do absolutely anything to chase that high again. Even if it means having to give up our pride and self-worth in the process.

Every rose has its thorn

However, seeing someone through rose-colored glasses can be a beautiful experience. As it opens up the virtue of loving someone selflessly and unconditionally. Yet, it can also leave us with scars when it is unrequited. As we can get so lost in the charm and thrill of it all that we forget every rose has its thorn.

Sometimes, the people we love and hold onto the most are the ones who cause the greatest amount of pain.

But, we will never realize the extent of the situation until we decide to untangle ourselves from it. Which brings me back to my first point.

It is easier to recognize the red flags and toxicity of a relationship when viewing it from an outsider’s perspective. However, to do this, you must become an outsider yourself. You must make the choice to remove the glasses that have made you a prisoner to blinded love. Doing this might take months, maybe even years, and as much as people will try to steer you away, no one can force you to see things you’re not ready to accept yourself.

While seeing the relationship for what it really is will expose you to the painful reality that’s been avoided, acceptance and truth will ultimately be the only things to set you free. Through time you will realize that true love does not need to disguise itself in blissful oblivion for us to believe it’s real. Instead, the beauty in it will be derived from how real it is to see their true colors. Raw and vulnerable without having to alter your point of view to appreciate them.

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