Our culture strongly inclines us to the view that genuine love must involve complete acceptance of another person – in their good and especially in their somewhat bad science.

我們文化常常告訴我們，如果真正愛上一個人，我們一定會接受他／她的全部人格，包括他／她的優(yōu)點，尤其還包括他／她的缺點。

In moments of fury with our partners, we may be tempted to dismiss their complaints against us with the cry – “Just love me as I am”.

我們有時會對自己的伴侶勃然大怒，不愿接受他們向我們提出的抱怨，反而沖對方大聲叫嚷，“愛我本來的樣子不就很好嘛！”

But in truth, none of us should want to remain exactly as we are in love, and therefore, none of us should too strongly want another person to love as supposed to tolerate or simply forgive what is warped within us.

事實上，戀愛中的我們沒有誰想一成不變，因此也沒有誰應該強烈要求另一方容忍或者哪怕只是原諒我們內心的扭曲。

Genuine love might be defined as gently and kindly helping someone to become the best version of themselves, not accepting themselves precisely as they are.

真正的愛情可能有不一樣的定義，它就是以溫和體貼的方式幫助自己的愛人成為最好的自己，而不是一味接受他們現(xiàn)在的狀態(tài)。

It isn’t a betrayal of love for someone to try to help us to evolve, to teach us, to become better people. In fact, it may be the highest proof of genuine commitment.

事實上，幫助我們的伴侶改變自己，或告誡他們，使他們變得更優(yōu)秀，這些都不是對愛的背叛，反而可能代表了最真摯的承諾。

Unfortunately, under the sway of a romantic ideology that makes us suspicious of emotional education, most of us end up being terrible teachers and, equally, terrible students in relationships.

不幸地是，受浪漫的愛情觀影響，我們總是質疑情感的教育。最后，我們大部分人都會淪為愛情關系中最糟糕的老師，同樣也可能會成為最糟糕的學生。

We don’t accept the legitimacy, let alone the nobility of others’ desire to teach us and we can’t acknowledge areas where we might need to be taught.

我們無法接受他人渴望教導我們的心意，不會認為它具有正當性，更不會覺得它有多么崇高。

We rebel against the very structure of a lover’s education that would enable criticism to be molded into sensible sounding lessons and to be heard as caring attempts to rejig the more troublesome aspects of our personalities.

我們反叛來自自己的愛人的教育。這種教育讓使批評變成一種很有說服力的經驗教訓，聽上去只是一種關愛的舉動，目的就是重新打磨讓我們性格中今人討厭的部分。

Our stance is deeply understandable. To the mother, everything about her tiny infant is delightful, they wouldn’t change even the smallest thing.

我們的立場是可以理解的。對于一個母親來說，有關她孩兒的一切都是令人滿意的，她們往往不想孩子改變什么。Their baby is perfect just as it is. Our idea of love has taken this kind of attitude very much to heart.

孩子本來的樣子就很完美了。我們對愛的理解就表現(xiàn)為這種心態(tài)，并且已經根深蒂固。It’s what we grow up thinking that love is supposed to be like.The suggestion that another person could want us to change, grow, or improve is taken as an insult to love.

于是，我們長大后，也認為愛就應該如此。如果有人建議我們改變，成長或提升自我，我們便覺得它是對愛的侮辱。

The problem is – the mother never in fact loved us just as we were, she hoped we would keep growing up.

真正的情況是，母親們不愛原初的我們，她也希望我們可以一點點成長起來。

And the need to keep growing up is still there. Our bodies may be fully formed, but our psyches always have some growing up still to do.

我們仍有繼續(xù)成長的需要。盡管我們的身體已經發(fā)育完全，但是我們的心理永遠處于不成熟狀態(tài)。

We should never hold it against our lovers if they don’t love us just as we are. They’re doing something far more generous, wanting us to be a little better.

即使我們的戀人并不愛我們現(xiàn)在的自己，我們也無需認為它是一種愛的背叛。他們無非就是更加寬宏大度，想讓我們變得更好而已。