Belives of Love
 

Over the last year I have been questioning my believe in true love, and the idea of marring for romantic love.

I used to believe heavily in it but I'm starting to wonder more and more.

Is marring for love a good idea?

Is is possible to just spend enough time with someone and learn to love them?

And with a 51% divorce rate does it really matter anyway?


BTW I'm not anywhere near getting married. I'm a betta all alone ina goldfish bowl.

Keryx and I have been married for 8 years, we never fight. We are in love as any one can be. When we met I wasn't even looking for a girl friend just some one to go to dinner with, 10 days later we are married and living together. We have been through hell and back, homelessness broke and jobless with no prospects. But with the help of friends we have thrived. We pay back by helping others in need.

true love does not exist.

rethink.

True love does exist, but is not necessary for a happy/successful marriage.
Similarly, a marriage based on true love can come apart at the seams.

Genetics, parental history and similarity of standards & expectations are the greatest predictors for connubial longevity. As well as living in a blue state.

More stats.

Love is all there is

Love exists. I don't know about "true" love, though. A really good book on this is "Keeping the Love You Find: A Guide for Singles" by Harville Hendrix.

In the book Hendrix postulates that we pick romantic partners because they present us with the same situations that our care-givers did when we were children. So a woman who had a father who was always gone on business will be strongly attracted to emotionally unavailable men. A man whose mother was an alcoholic will be attracted to women with addiction problems. We try to resolve our childhood issues through our adult choices of romantic partners. The more dysfunctional our childhoods, the more dysfunctional our adult choses will be. We do not consciously do this, but we do it all the same.

When I look back on the men I have fallen the most heavily for this rings true for me. My father was an alcoholic, and he was often away from home due to his career in the military. As an adult I fell madly in love with men who had serious emotional problems that ensured they were unable to maintain a marriage or love relationship for the long term.

The one exception to this was the man I stayed married to for 20 years. I did not feel that mad, head-over heels love for him. Instead, I picked him consciously because I was so battered emotionally by the bad boys I had been involved with before. He was a stable, good man. I eventually divorced him in favor of another "bad boy."

I would just as soon not fall in love again because I always fall for an impossible man. If I ever do form another partnership, it will be on the basis of friendship and respect. Some other woman can have the Hell's Angel who makes her heart go pitty pat.

The difference between true love and herpes is that herpes is forever.

I just :love: that romantic side of you SN!

I worry about T-kaze sometimes.

Marrying for just romantic love would be a mistake. The Triangular Theory of Love gets at the balance you need to survive as a couple. Some healthy combination of intimacy, passion, and commitment. It doesn't feel the same way all the time, you need to be out in the flow living it.

When your time comes, you'll know the answer, T. Until then, don't fret, enjoy what scraps of love and companionship come your way, and enjoy your time as a singleton. When you are ready to become part of a pair, you'll know, and whether that time is brought about by true love or compatabilty and a need for companionship is something you don't need to fret about until you get there. I think most mistakes in marriage are made by people marrying before they're ready, whether through peer pressure or desire to procreate or some other reason.

For some people that moment never comes, they are never ready. Such is life. Those who accept that and embrace it are generally happier than those who feel an obligation to get married/can't resist the temptation to try it and so make a poor choice. Like sneaking a peek at the last page of the whodunnit.

Let me sleep on it...

Love and compatibility are two different things. The best relationships have both.

Do ya love me? Will you love me forever? Do ya need me? Will you ever leave me will ya make me so happy for the rest of my life...

Sage advice already in this thread. I only have lyrics to add. :)

Speaking for myself, if I'd married any of the blokes I thought I was 'truly in love with' I'd have been divorced about 10 times by now. I know I love my husband, and I knew after our first date we'd be together for the long haul, but there was no crazy mad 'in love' silliness involved ever. We just loved each other from the start and I think we always will.

That is a nice post, Ali. I too have been around that block. Crazy mad in love is nice...what is nicer is contentment and feeling safe with the other person. Love is a conscious decision, a choice, a "for the long haul" will this person be what I need? Crazy love only lasts so long, is this long-lasting?

I was talking to married friends last night, and I mentioned "oh, we've all only been married once." They corrected me: she had been married 6 times and he had been married 3 times.

I forgot that. That's crazy talk! I can't imagine being married again, but if I ever am, it will be a better decision for ME than the one I made lo those many years ago. Not that I would change any of it. The love I felt is still there, in the form of friendship, which is what we were both good at with each other anyway. Still, it took me a long time to get involved again, with all the shields and walls one might expect.
The wait was worth it.

That's nice to hear, S.

Hahahahaa...some of us women reach a stage where the manipulative bad boy is a complete bore (we're on to you), as is the namby-pamby ass kisser guy (quit crying, I'm just going to the store, been doing it my whole life, I'll be fine). Just be REAL. That is all.

I'm still looking for a little of both without either to the extreme though...

I was in love and I believed at the time that we were going to be together forever.

But as life does things did not go as I foresaw. Everything fell apart I did all that I could do everything that could be asked and more, however, my best just wasn't good enough.

I guess somethings can not be fixed.

Adrift as sea on a starless night no lighthouse for me; I need to learn truly how to live and to always be able to count myself.
One day I will find land and make a home till then I shall live on stenght and faith alone, fighting each day.

I can't listen to that song. It makes me weepy. :o

I do love Joni's work that song is true beauty.

It sums up my life right now