I have no idea what love is. What most people think love is doesn’t feel like love to me. It seems more like need, want, desire. It is familiarity, provides companionship, an escape from being alone. It brings security, but is that love? I've had a lot of experience discovering what I thought was love was actually something else. Never mind the neuro-chemical reaction to ensure survival of our species through procreation, which is easy to fall into. I can't help feeling it. It is why I think I am in love only to later discover I am not. I'm sure I feel it and then know I don't. But it doesn’t take long for lives to become intertwined; it's easier to stay together than it is to end. Endings seem hard and lonely, whereas continuing is at least familiar, even if it isn't happy, maybe even miserable. If I'm honest, I know my feelings are no longer there, but I hide it. Love then becomes gratification, pleasure, the need to raise children. I don't think that is love. I think that is an idea of love. Not long after I get together, I start expecting something, often insisting and sometimes imposing. I start controlling little things, then a bit of interfering, as if I want her to be like me. I've spent my life dealing with myself, and yet somehow expect my partner to understand and know me well, and then I get affected when she doesn't. I want something that is missing, believing she will fill the gap, and she doesn't, she can't, in fact in many ways she interferes with me, because while I want her to be happy. Want her to feel good. Want things for her that make it nice, that please her, hopefully change her, certainly support her, in doing so I give up some of who I am. Not all at once, but slowly, day by day, compromising here, making allowances there, accepting things that I may not agree with or want, and that changes me, until I don't know who I am, until I don't know anymore, and then I take it out on her, because deep down I blame her, even if I don't know I do. Eventually what was once felt as love becomes dislike, despise, and eventually we split, hopefully not acrimoniously, but that's not always the case. Sometimes I have my eye on somebody else by then. Maybe I'm already involved emotionally. It feels special and exciting. I feel different and it reminds me of how it used to be and I long to feel that way again, and round I go again, hopefully not getting hurt this time, but I get hurt a lot. This is not love. I wish I knew. I wish I could tell you what it is. I’ve had moments when I seem to know more about it. I think it has something to do with not expecting, not wanting, not being dependent on. But what does that really mean in practice? I was once sure it was the desire for sex that interfered with it, at least for me. I brought a child into the world in what was a very conscious act, with real intention, not making it about me or my partner, but ‘calling’ her at the moment of conception, believing that was the right way to do it. It worked. She came. The relationship failed. It could just be me. It could’ve just been us. Relationships fail all the time. But I know some do last. Do those people just accept what they have as good enough? I once had a relationship where we lived in one single room, and with a jealous Pit bull too. Circumstances, financial stability, family support, do make a difference. Having someone to talk to; it all helps. I tend to keep things going longer than I should though. I just keep trying. I don't want to admit I failed again. Have to live somewhere else, try to find what I thought I had already. I've stopped doing this now, for the most part, because I understand where it leads. I would enjoy the company of women, but there is always the possibility of something happening, so if I am to at least love myself, loving myself means being alone. Being real but not wanting anything more. No agenda, no intentions, no desire, no putting out vibes or signals, no flirting or saying suggestive things, not wanting what I don't have just because I haven't had it for a while, and thinking that perhaps maybe this time it will work. One definition of insanity is, doing things the same way and expecting a different result. I don't know how to do it differently. I keep expecting a different result. I think some people are good, kind and loving individuals, and it seems like they have the key to it. But sometimes even those people struggle with their relationships. For some reason they attract or are attracted to people that don't work for them. I think it's rare to find people who live together longer than they've been apart. Who understand how to be with each other. I bet there's something about those relationship that I’ll never really understand because I can't see them in the way they truly are in order to get the “ahh!” moment. I can only know what I observe, and I can only understand what I observe from the experiences I have. So perhaps love must remain a mystery for me. Perhaps it can never be what I imagine it to be because there are so many lessons I have yet to learn. That the struggles and difficulties that challenge, hurt and cause pain, will cause me to grow. Or maybe I just haven't met the right one yet. Maybe.
Love is simple. Love, like happiness, is not something that is sought out, it is something that is cultivated. Love and happiness have become vague ideas in this culture and people search for love and happiness as if they were commodities. You can love yourself, you can love another person, love a pet, love a feeling, love a material object such as a car or a house or a boat. In taking care of these things, in tending to them, what then develops as the byproduct is love. In the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make--ergo you must create it yourself, build it, grow it, and then once nurtured like a orchard you can harvest its fruit (the millennial generation, most younger people, don't seem to understand this very well. From my limited survey, this modern group of people seem to believe love and happiness is an entitlement. This is a recipe for lifelong unhappiness). Relationships and their complications have nothing to do with love. Hollywood movies, romantic songs, visual art, paintings--images of people swept away in a fit of passion and ecstasy, this is not a depiction of love. Rather, these are depictions of feelings. But love is not a simple feeling (although certainly one can feel loved or love). It is Freud you are paraphrasing when you write, insanity is, doing things the same way and expecting a different result. But, if you read anything about Freud's life, he struggled and struggled. He grew up with a depressed mom. He couldn't make ends meet in Viennese society. He was not received well in the medical community. Part of his problem was being Jewish in a society that was antisemitic, eventually leading to his forced exodus to America, a place he hated. Freud was shrewd about pushing his theories of psychoanalysis into the mainstream. He failed and failed repeatedly until he succeeded convincing the medical community that his theories had merit. Freud repeatedly failed, he did the same things the same way and expected a different result until he achieved. Because he found success, we call it persistence instead of insanity. If you continue to try to cultivate love and happiness in you life you will have love and happiness. Relationships can be destructive, challenging heartbreaking, leaving you depressed, anxious, hopeless. You can have love in a relationship just as easily as you can have hate or indifference. Relationships that involve two people where there is a constant negotiation of needs, as I said above, has nothing to do with love. You can love someone, you can hate them too, and whichever way it is in the moment, you may or may not succeed in a relationship with them. If you don't cultivate love and happiness in your life the result is likely depression. Similar to how someone who is out of shape loses their ability to perform simple physical acts like climbing a flight of stairs without becoming out of breath, depression becomes a cycle and prevents a person from being in shape to cultivate love, which then of course leads to more depression.
^ well said. Yes. I can see why this would be true. Having the opportunity to cultivate happiness can depend a lot on the circumstances, and not doing so for the same reasons probably still results in depression, even though it is not being withheld intentionally. Cultivating love is hard, because to do things with that intention often has it being seen as having an agenda and wanting something from it. I would say I'm acting unconditionally, when perhaps on some deeper level I know that doing so will result in something I want. There is certainly a deficit of love for me, partly self imposed, mostly circumstance. The cycle of depression well established by now, verging on being normal. More effort is required to shift out of it, and yet, in many ways, it is ok if things remain as they are. It is not easy to let go of what might be gained from loving, even though receiving the benefit of being loved feels nice, but the price for taking the journey is that it is not something one can jump in and out of. The decision to move in that direction results in a journey that reveals itself as life being repeated, but now takes a long time to work its way back to where it sort of was. Sure, no experience is ever truly wasted, but I've found myself going down certain tributaries that result in coming back to the main river but having taken a lot of time to do so, having realised I did not need to.
When should one decide that the continuing cultivation is not resulting in love? By definition, cultivation takes time. It’s not a quick process. Skills need to be acquired and practised. But at what point does it become obvious that no matter how much cultivation takes place it isn’t working? That it’s time to give up even though much time has been invested? Sometimes the urge to jump ship can be strong, but if one is willing to put the time in to cultivate, how much sign that it’s not working should there be before accepting that there is no more point in continuing? I have always got this wrong. I have always held on resisted the urge to leave then found myself somehow unable to. Like I’m caught inside a loop where I have to continue no matter what until either it simply falls apart or she ends it. Hard as it is, it’s somehow better if she ends it then I do. That even though I know this is what needs to happen, in ending it, I rule out the possibility of succeeding if only I had stayed the course. Somehow staying seems to indicate love more than quitting. I’m not sure this is true.
You're overthinking it. Cultivating love is a choice. Staying in a relationship is a choice. They are two separate things. I say if it is hard but brings you joy, continue on. If every day is a struggle, fuck it, quit.
If you love someone you'll willingly give up your life to protect them. If they love you they'll give up their life for yours. When both of you are willing to give up your lives for the other it's what we all think of when we think of being in love but in reality it's rare that both people in the relationship feel that way, maybe one or both are mistaking need, want, and desire for love. If you're looking for the exciting next love while you're still with the old one you know it was never love and you probably don't know what love is. IMO of course
I may fathom all mysteries, know all things, have all faith - enough to move mountains, but if I lack love, I am nothing. I may give away everything that I own, I may even hand over my body to be burned, but if I lack love, I gain nothing. Love Love is patient and kind not jealous or insecure not boastful not proud not rude or selfish not easily angered it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not gloat over other people's wrong doing, but takes its delight in the truth. Love always bears up always trusts always hopes always endures Love never ends Love is something you do - not something you feel. Feelings come and go with mood changes. Love never ends. Feelings result from love and can perpetually motivate. But the "feeling" is not what love is. You will never have love while you're chasing a feeling. Love is a conscious commitment. Love gives itself, demanding nothing in return. Imagine a relationship with 2 people committing themselves to each other 100% demanding nothing from each other in return. Your life is the most precious thing you have. Love will lay it down for another's benefit.
Laying down one’s life for another sounds very idealistic. How many are ever called to test that idea in normal life? It's just not realistic. Romantic love is not straightforward, but love itself is. To perform an act of loving kindness without requiring anything in return, to do something that just benefits another without needing something from it. I know that kind of love. It is the intimate sexual side of love that causes me issues. Much of that stems back to events that took place in my childhood. Intimacy is often the thing that keeps relationships together. It is also the thing that can tear them apart. I often feel love for more than one person. I think most can. But I never get involved with more than one person intimately, which is the line I do not cross. To be honest, I actually don’t need much in the way of intimacy, and get by without it just fine. In fact, I have this feeling to go beyond it. This idea of companionship, friendship, having far more meaning to me, but that isn’t easy to find, and have it stay when intimacy is not forming part of it. I suspect this idea is not unlike those religious people who accept celibacy in order to do their thing. While we know this idea can lead to corruption, the idea is about loving without sexual desire interfering, leading to something that is supposedly purer. I like this, but have no desire to become part of some religion. And it’s not just about finding someone willing to forgo this, when without intimacy there is usually nothing to bind us. Especially males, who it seems get quite attached after planting our seed in an act of making love. It’s funny. I’ve never wanted casual sex. For me sex and relationship go together. And yet once in a committed relationship. Once sex happens in a regular and monogamous way, the desire to experience it fades tremendously, to the point where it starts to seem as if something is wrong. I love, I just don’t feel the need to express it that way anymore. I want something else. I once thought I’d found my soul mate. A woman so right I actually felt blessed. We had a child together, and for a moment, it felt like we should continue on as parents without being sexual again. That the act of spiritual sexual union made doing so both unnecessary and somehow lessened the result. High ideals indeed. Had I been able to perhaps things would have been different. I couldn't. I doubt many have done something like that. Once our daughter was old enough, living her own life, my partner ended things and changed her life, causing me to change mine. I don’t seem to want the ‘normal’ kind of couple life. After experiencing several relationships after this, I've come to the conclusion that the sexual side of things is not for me. I think I know why now.
Love is just a word but we always get bogged down by semantics. No matter what people say or even believe relationships exist because of reciprocity. People maintain relationships with other people because they derive some benefit from the relationship. We term relationships where one party derives benefit but the other doesn’t “toxic” and abusive. It really is that simple. Either you are better off with somebody or you are better off without them. We confuse the issue at hand when we pretend that “love” supersedes this basic requirement for a relationship to work and be healthy.
Happens often. Military and first responders immediately come to mind. But people put themselves in harms way for the benefit of others. It happens. I would take a bullet for my wife or any one of my kids. But that's me and I understand your perspective may differ. Great! Either way is misplaced. English uses the word love to describe an array of meanings, usually defined by how it's used in a sentence. That can lead to misuse and misinterpretation. Many other languages have words that are more specific. Agape, Philia, Eros, Storge, etc.... that have specific meanings beyond the English generic "love". I suspect you are aware of this. I just felt moved to establish a statement. The "crux". This "feeling" you have to go beyond it demonstrates you have not arrived at it in the first place. I know that sounds rather guru-ish, but look at this: Agape is the highest form of love there is. There is nothing "beyond" agape. You may be looking past the prize. Here, you are confusing unconditional loving relationship with sexual gratification. Apples to oranges. It will definitely interfere if not kept in it's proper place. Celibacy is unnatural, and I truly don't believe I could keep to it under my own horsepower. Intimacy leads to sex, not the other way around. Intimacy is enhanced through the gift of sex. Aside from the obvious purpose of reproduction, sex is a bonding between a man and woman within the institution of marriage. They are made for each other. Although equal importance, they both possess attributes the other lacks. "For this reason the man shall leave his mother and father, cleave to his wife and the two will become one flesh." In a spiritual sense, when you have sex with someone, you are having sex with every person that person has ever had sex with in the past. If you commit adultery, you are bringing that harlot into your marriage bed. STD's support this. The forfeited trust, leading up to damaged relations and eventual divorce supports this. The offspring grow to have reservations about giving themselves to relationships, and lacking tools. Fire can be very useful, but it can also destroy everything in it's path. Water can sustain life, but it can also destroy everything in it's path. A time, a place, and a way to go about everything. You mention you've concluded the sexual side of things is not for you. Could be you're just getting long enough in the whiskers that your hormones are buzzing in a different direction these days. ?? I know I don't have near the problems I had when I was 19 years old. You also mentioned in a paragraph that you know what it is to give expecting nothing in return. Yet the rest is describing your expectations to find reward. I'm not suggesting you're anymore of a wicked person than I am, but self centeredness and pride can be as subtle as a mouse. And the best of us all are guilty on a daily basis. You don't have to agree with any of my belief. I hope your journey finds you the satisfaction you desire. Be well. I'm out.
Yes indeed. That may have something to do with it. It was far less complicated back in the day when the urge was strong and the experience was wanted no matter what. I think I just want an easy life now. Actually, I hadn't come across the word 'Agape' before, but I think that's what I'm getting at. As much as I love being around women, talking about emotion in a way women seem to do effortlessly, I actually prefer hanging out with a bloke who can do the same. For me they are far rarer. I appreciate your take on it.
Me neither, but I've had a long time to get used to it and not really care. The only people in my life I "love" are my immediate family and even then I'm guilty of only wanting them around out of necessity at times.
Esseff, Your post "I have no idea what love is" is so honest and descriptive. I think we all can relate to what you are saying at some point in our lives. I've always been fascinated by the idea of love and have spent a good deal of time trying to understand love - what it is (emotion? behavior? feeling?) and how to have more of it in my life. I do know one thing about love: it feels really good, and if it doesn't, its not love. But that doesn't mean our relationship with someone we "love" always feels good. Relationships are complicated and difficult. Here is a link to an article I wrote on my blog "GrowYourLove". I promise its not spam. If you get a chance to read it, let me know what you think. Grow Your Love
Perhaps the whole love thing is an inside job. That it doesn't have that much to do with who I am with than who (me) I am bringing to the relationship. I know we've heard it an annoying number of times in life, but my quest has really led me to the idea that "love myself" is the way to love. It's true that if I dislike or hate myself that I won't be all that effective at relationships. Here is something that I learned that has made a huge difference in my relationships. This is not so much about love as it is about relationships. Try this with anyone important to you that you would like to improve your relationship with (this works great with your kids). Warning, it takes time and a lot of practice, but it works: -When you think about that person, think ONLY of things you appreciate about that person. Stop looking at, acknowledging, talking about, or even thinking about the things that totally annoy you about that person. This is not denial, its a choice to see the good in another human. We ALL have undesirable traits, behaviors, habits etc. And we all hope we can be forgiven for them. This takes a lot of practice, so be patient. -Its important to actually FEEL that appreciation, not just think it or pretend it. Most people know when you're faking. -Go into each interaction without trying, or even wanting, to change anything about them - accept them EXACTLY as they are. Focus only on the traits (behaviors, habits) that you like or appreciate about that person. This takes a ton of practice, but it gets better and is totally worth the payoff. This isn't the same as "settling". If you are with someone you want a relationship with, then its worth it. If the person is not right for you, you can end the relationship. But be careful, because EVERYONE who you have a relationship will be imperfect. -Practice this when you are with the person, and when you are not - if the relationship is important to you, its worth it!