The 6 Signs Of A Mature Love

In our world where love is portrayed as a fairy-tale in Hollywood movies, or commercialized in the form of red roses and boxes of chocolate every Valentine’s Day, a lot of people have created an idea of romantic love around one or more of the following messages:

1. Happily ever after

2. If it is meant to be it will be

3. Love never fails

4. Love never dies

5. You are my everything

6. You complete me

Mature love is different from the above ideas of love, usually experienced during our younger age, based on enmeshment or codependency, or fantasies.

So what is mature love?
Mature love is when we embrace our partner’s perfections and imperfections, we don’t try to change them or fix them, we love and accept them as they are.


These are 6 signs of mature love:

1. Triggers

When we bring down our guard and allow ourselves to be more vulnerable we also expose the more tender parts of ourselves to our partner and we are more vulnerable to getting triggered; feeling triggered is normal, it is part of our human condition.

In mature love, we will hurt each other, we will speak up if our partner doesn’t notice, and together repair the hurt. We learn about our partner’s wounds and triggers, hopefully we will be more careful next time, and move on until the next triggers occurs.

2. Differentiation

Differentiation is the ability to maintain one’s thoughts, feelings, wishes, and desires in the presence of a partner.
Differentiation requires the risk of being open to growth and being honest not only with your partner but also with yourself.

The opposite of differentiation is fusion or enmeshment where there are no boundaries delimiting where two people start and/or end.

3. Interdependence

Interdependence means you depend on each other for safety, survival, and protection. You trust each other and feel safe and secure. Healthy relationships are a two-person system and not individual.

Interdependence is the balance between co-dependency and independence. Co-dependency is one direction when you bend yourself backward to do all kinds of things to hold onto the relationship and get nothing for it.

4. Conflict

Conflict is inevitable and it is part of being in a relationship with another human being. If we stand up for ourselves and advocate for what we want or need, arguments with our partners will arise.

I don’t believe when people say “we never fight”, that to me is a sign that one person, or both, in the relationship is afraid to speak up and shove things under the rug. This will ultimately will cause resentments to build up creating more and more disconnection.

5. Connection/Separation

Intimacy means connection and separation. A sign of mature love is when you can take space apart and find your way back into connection.

6. Privacy

Mature love is based on trust. Mature partners understand each other’s needs for some degree of privacy, and everyone has differing privacy needs.

One member of the relationship may have less of a need for privacy, whereas the other may need more space and time alone.

Part of transparency in mature love is being honest about your privacy needs, and having an effective conversation about respecting boundaries and what level of privacy is expected from each other.

Invasion of privacy in relationships can be harmful, but when both partners respect the other’s need for privacy it can lead to a greater degree of intimacy as both partners will feel safe and respected..



Photo by Izumi LaCorte on Unsplash