While Kylie Jenner said that 2016 was the year of "like, realizing stuff," I believe she was mistaken. The year of 2018 has certainly been the year of realizing stuff. From realizing Riverdale plot lines can get a whole lot cheesier, Glee actors can be Emmy Award winners, and no one will ever look as good as Harry Styles does in Gucci, there has been a lot of realizing. Besides all of these really important realizations, there have also been plenty of revelations when it comes to love. I spoke with several women, who revealed their biggest love lessons learned this year. From realizing they should hold their friends in the same regard as romantic love, to finding a relationship just after embracing single life, to owning who you are and changing for nobody — these women have seen a lot this year.
Most importantly, they were able to recognize specific things that happened in their love lives, pinpoint them, and grow. That takes self-awareness, emotional maturity, and strength, and these women should be applauded. Now, they pass on their love lessons and all of their wisdom to all of us. Read on to see what these women learned.
Kylie, 29, realized she wanted to really care for her friendships this year.
"The Carrie Bradshaw quote about your best friends being your soulmates is so played out, but that's because it's true," Kylie, 29, tells Elite Daily. "No matter what's going on in your romantic life, the people who love you (and have loved you for years) exactly the way you are are going to be the biggest, greatest, most important loves of your life, and I think the biggest lesson I learned in 2018 was to nurture that. Maybe it's not 'sexy,' to talk about fostering that love between friends, but it's wholly fulfilling."
She learned for her, it's better to be single than to settle in a relationship.
"Your feelings are valid and should never be made to be the opposite by someone else just because they do not agree or cannot seem to comprehend them," Dominique, 20, tells Elite Daily. "Your heart will try to mess with your head but you should never let it. Listen to your intuition and watch out for those red flags — they are real and always correct."
Hannah, 25, used to be sad about being single, but then learned to embrace her relationship status. She lived the single life flirting it up for two weeks, and then found her boyfriend who she has been with for almost one year.
"I had this epiphany that I should really embrace being single, because who knew how long it would last? What if I fell in love tomorrow and was never single again?" Hannah tells Elite Daily. "When I met my boyfriend soon after that, I felt confident in my decision to say yes to a relationship with him. I knew I was choosing a relationship because I truly wanted to be with him, not just because I was sick of being single."
Sheri, 28, has discovered she's no longer afraid of being heartbroken after finding the "love of [her] life."
“He is as seamless in my life as breathing or waking up each day," Sheri tells Elite Daily. "I didn’t know I needed many of the ways he cares for me until he did and former pieces that didn’t seem to fit, suddenly do. I feel so lucky to have found someone so perfect for me."
Sarah, 21, learned that she needs to stay true to herself, no matter what relationship she enters.
"Part of being in love is not changing who you are for the other person," Sarah tells Elite Daily. "That in order to have a good relationship, you need to remain true to who you are."
She says that for her she has learned to set boundaries and knows what she wants in a relationship going into it.
"It’s okay if it takes a lot of missteps and tries to understand what you want and what you can offer, but once you know those things you’ll be able to pick partners who are genuinely great fits for whatever kind of relationship you want," Esther, 35, tells Elite Daily. "It's taken a lot of painful trial-and-error over the years to come to that truth and to know myself well enough to be able to offer that kind of clarity to anyone else."
Learn from these women from their own love lives, and hopefully, you can apply the wisdom to your own as well.
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