Question about love...

[grotto]

Love isn’t about sacrificing yourself for another, it’s about sacrificing your own illusions about happiness and the other person to see what is real. Love is not infatuation, lust or possession. Love between two people is a process that continually morphs and grows, it can’t be contained or controlled.

Love is not an obligation nor is it something that is owed you. Love takes work and most of the work is on the personal level, not on the others or for the good of the relationship. If you are seeking to gain without giving, when you expect, demand or feel like you deserve, you lose.

[BienvenuJDC]

Love isn’t about sacrificing yourself for another, it’s about sacrificing your own illusions about happiness and the other person to see what is real. Love is not infatuation, lust or possession. Love between two people is a process that continually morphs and grows, it can’t be contained or controlled.

Love is not an obligation nor is it something that is owed you. Love takes work and most of the work is on the personal level, not on the others or for the good of the relationship. If you are seeking to gain without giving, when you expect, demand or feel like you deserve, you lose.

I think that I agree with you...but I must ponder your words to understand them more deeply...

[Niamh]

Love isn’t about sacrificing yourself for another, it’s about sacrificing your own illusions about happiness and the other person to see what is real. Love is not infatuation, lust or possession. Love between two people is a process that continually morphs and grows, it can’t be contained or controlled.

Love is not an obligation nor is it something that is owed you. Love takes work and most of the work is on the personal level, not on the others or for the good of the relationship. If you are seeking to gain without giving, when you expect, demand or feel like you deserve, you lose.

well said.

[NikolaiI]

right so, i've been thinking about this. I've had a couple of discussions about it in the last 24 hours, and this is what i want to know...
How do we know that what we are feeling really is love, and what is this feeling?

The feeling is happiness, or bliss. The only way to know if it is true is to give it time, all of your attention, and meditate. Only by giving it time and your attention can you ever learn about it - in other words, about yourself and the person you love.

I wrote more but I'll just leave the post at this.

Love is higher than words and mental understanding. We aren't simply mind, though. This is the most essential flaw anyone has ever made and it is made so widely these days... Love is higher than mind, but it is real.

Not to take this in a wrong direction really.. but I have to say that what we feed our hearts, mind, soul, etc., this has an effect on us. We are more than the senses. We are more than the mind. So why do we spend so much time on those? We will never be satisfied by trying to satisfy our senses, or even the mind. There is still a heart within us, still a soul, which is only satisfied by peace, knowledge, and love. Love is rare, and it is difficult; it is rare also because people do not spend enough time and effort trying to perfect themselves; what I mean is, not enough effort trying to find who they really are.

[librarius_qui]

right so, i've been thinking about this. I've had a couple of discussions about it in the last 24 hours, and this is what i want to know...
How do we know that what we are feeling really is love, and what is this feeling?
And as my friend said, " If love is blind, then how does it find you?"

And if you truely do love someone, then what is it that makes us realise?

Maybe love is blind, but I am not.
Even if I could not see, I would still not be blind.
Because love is about choosing.

Problem is, once you chose, there's no way you can get rid of it easily. (With me, at least.) I'm in great trouble because I decided to give love to a girl, and now, no matter she despises me, I cannot simply throw her away. I have to wait, until someone else comes to fulfill the emptiness she leaves in me (by choice of hers).

Love is choice: you don't realize it. You choose it. You trust it. Or not. It isn't coincidence. It's gravitational. Everything works out, in the very beginning, and, after it, everything goes wrong, for quite a while.

Love is born, and it dies. I never had the chance of seeing love to last long, in my life, so, what do I have to say? But I'm saying what I believe and have seen.

My parents are married for 33 years, by now.
There's love in this.

I have a friend who's just .. er got together with his girl.
There's love in there.

It's visible.
It's visibly (in both mentioned cases) a matter of choice (from both sides).
(choice of keeping ahead together; choice of beginning a mutual life together.)

----

And, of course, there are other kinds of love. Not only love between man and girl. But, well, I .. felt/trusted your question to be like this kind of love I spoke about.


lq~

[Mrs. Dalloway]

mmm that's definitely a complicated question. It may sound romantic but I think you know it's love when you don't give importance to his/her shortcomings. Or only when you enjoy the simplest things with him/her.

[The Comedian]

May I quote?

Love is "like a red, red rose that's newly spring in June"

and

"Love hurts"

and

"how do I love thee? Let me count the ways"

and

"love scars"

Love is a lot of different things. And, to tell you the truth, I don't know what love is. But I do know that it is, that it is something. . .something good. And, I'm sure that people know it when they feel it. It's like delivering a baby, hooking a fish on a surface lure, or tasting a good sip of wine. You know it upon the instant, there is no doubt. But where the child turns out good, whether you get the fish in the boat, or whether last sip of wine will taste as good as the first, no one knows.

I bet that if you think you're feeling love, Nimah, then you are feeling love.

Good Hunting!

[librarius_qui]

it has to do with the first 2.40 minutes of this link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_jCH...8E608&index=22

it makes a man stop, think, and go back ...~

(wow .. perhaps I should go back.
blast!: SHE doesn't love *me* )

[Chava]

Niamh, your original question was about 'knowing'. I think this is very different for all of us, and I think we will know differently for the different people we love. Many people I have thought myself in love with, I was really only fascinated by them. Attracted to their intelligence, their creativeness, their free natures. When I grow to love someone, I want to not only see their world, I want them to see mine.
I think that love is about being able to understand someone else. Which is why these infatuations of fascination never seem to last. Sooner or later, people will always be people, and they start to seem ordinary. Maybe after one great evening together, maybe after a week, or for some years. Maybe you will know when you don't mind the mundane and the ordinary, as you can see their extraordinary nature shine through the dishwashing, the clohes drying, and the crazy work schedule.
When we fall in love initially, we let down our barriers, and let people into our lives, absorbing their characters, and indulging in their beautiful natures. And as the everyday starts to reestablish itselves, it is love that allows us to leave space for someone. And it is love that keeps us coming back even as our everyday barriers are buildt. I don't think most people ever allow themselves to get past the reestablishing of personal barriers. I also believe it is important to have tried different loves, to have fallen madly, to have fallen reluctantly, to have fallen painfully, so that we can recognise within ourselves, when we are falling for the right ones.

[billl]

wow, chava. great take on warm, personal, human love.

[Niamh]

i'm just curious as to what everyone thinks love is and whats makes them believe it. never said anything about me! its my nosey nature! And i just wanted us all to have a discussion on a topic that becomes a part of each of our lives at some point...

Niamh, your original question was about 'knowing'. I think this is very different for all of us, and I think we will know differently for the different people we love. Many people I have thought myself in love with, I was really only fascinated by them. Attracted to their intelligence, their creativeness, their free natures. When I grow to love someone, I want to not only see their world, I want them to see mine.
I think that love is about being able to understand someone else. Which is why these infatuations of fascination never seem to last. Sooner or later, people will always be people, and they start to seem ordinary. Maybe after one great evening together, maybe after a week, or for some years. Maybe you will know when you don't mind the mundane and the ordinary, as you can see their extraordinary nature shine through the dishwashing, the clohes drying, and the crazy work schedule.
When we fall in love initially, we let down our barriers, and let people into our lives, absorbing their characters, and indulging in their beautiful natures. And as the everyday starts to reestablish itselves, it is love that allows us to leave space for someone. And it is love that keeps us coming back even as our everyday barriers are buildt. I don't think most people ever allow themselves to get past the reestablishing of personal barriers. I also believe it is important to have tried different loves, to have fallen madly, to have fallen reluctantly, to have fallen painfully, so that we can recognise within ourselves, when we are falling for the right ones.

this is exactly what i wanted to know... that personal feeling about love.
That was great Chava. I actually agree with the whole infatuation thing!

[PoeticPassions]

very nice response, Chava. I agree.

[Jozanny]

I wrote a post about getting real about love as a social construct, but my connection was acting up because of my anti-virus software, and I could not rewrite it when things returned to normal, so, until the next time my cynicism flares--

[laidbackperson]

Many years ago I read about a famous lady’s take on this subject on a newspaper. She has undergone numerous affairs in her life and at a mellow age was commenting something like that it can happen but is a very rare thing. I mentally recorded that it can exist.

Second instance I recollect of a married actor divorcing and marrying a younger girl. And a decade later, leaving this second girl also for another girl. He was commenting something like this after divorcing the second girl- ‘Though we are separating, we can not say that the feelings that we had for each-other earlier were not true.’
I think, at that time, if he had to risk his life for her, he could have actually gone ahead and done so.

I remembered another colleague’s take on this topic: Whether you love in life or don’t love, it is not of paramount importance for it is not a permanent feeling. But the feeling that you have when you are in love, is something very pure.

Another instance, is of a Reader’s Digest true story of a young boy and girl of 16 something age in love with each-other getting separated due to parents pressure, loosing all contact with each-other for many years and then again running into each-other by fluke (divine intervention, seems more appropriate) chance when they got in their 60s or 70s. Both had remained unmarried in their lives as they could not find a better person than their first love in their lives. Of course, they happily married and I presume lived happily ever after for whatever time was left to them.

Then I recall a sentence of Sidney Sheldon novel, when a heroine who loved one man fall in loves with another man and commented something akin: Oh, the difference between loving a person and being in love with a person.

In Jane Eyre, plain Jane has fallen head over heels in love with Rochester and is initially jealous of beautiful lady Ingram as Rochester showed interest in the beautiful maiden. But when she studies the character of lady lngram, she finds that she is not a good person, not fit for Rochester and Rochester too don’t take her that seriously, her jealousy completely diminishes.
Similarly, Rochester once feels jealous when he becomes aware that her own mistress has a different lover. But the moment he sees him (an inadequate person he already knew) his jealousy as well as charm for her mistresses disappears.
Later blind and handicapped Rochester again feels jealous of Jane, when he learns that she has been in contact with a handsome, able bodied man, but as he truly loved her, he tells her to leave him and go to this man.

So when you fall for a person, it is a connection between souls and not the physical beauty. At that time you become more beautiful than Angelina Jollie or handsomer than Brad Pitt.

My own point is like this: In true love there is an intense yearning for your lover and at the same time there is a full selflessness towards her or him. You may feel jealous, you may feel hurt but for you, the happiness of your lover is more important than your own happiness and you will go all the way for your lover even if it means letting go your lover to another person (his/her lover).

Where is true love, when a married person falls for another married person, or a married person fall for unmarried person and vice versa. I don’t know. But I think that if we show restraint and dignity and quiet, and don’t go physical, then God will not give us negative marks. After all it is through God’s grace alone such feelings can sprout in somebody’s heart.

Another important factor is time. Time changeth everything.

With times our priority changes, you have your new interests, you may have health problems or get financially tight or have job insecurities or children become more important than your own lives. You may start worry more about these than your lover now. With time, whether you love has found fulfillment or has remained unfulfilled, whether you could marry your lover or not, the romantic feelings subsides greatly. Pheromones effect seems after all real. Chava’s post number 24 on this thread tells of the real life and problems nicely.

After many years of married life, you may care for your spouse’s interest more than your own interests but at the same time if you are still as much in love as you were earlier, then, I think you are already in heaven in earth, something of true love..

But by God, I have yet to come across such a couple. I sometimes think God you are slightly selfish here.

There are other forms of love and I have covered only love between man and woman.

All said and done, I think you have not lived if you have not loved.

But don’t take me seriously in this serious discussion.

For another thing I also keep saying is that you have not really lived, if you had not owned a dog in your life.

[Jozanny]

For another thing I also keep saying is that you have not really lived, if you had not owned a dog in your life.

Dogs are too overweening in their affections; overjoyed to see you and jump on you, always smiling or drooling. Now a cat, a cat understands the dignity of having their own space, but when mom is making a ham sandwich, they like nothing better than to sit on mom's lap and say I love you, at least for a chance to get a swipe at the ham.

I have always had more authentic relationships with cats than with men. It is true my disability put me at long odds for success in this arena, but I now suspect, as I close in on fifty, that I never learned from my mother how to be patient, and not develop contempt for both the person and the sex. In my thirties I had three affairs, and the housewive-writers who I interacted with in my writing groups were appalled. I am not, not even today.

There is something exciting and even slightly dangerous about the forbidden liason. In the end though, I was tired of the role, and discovered married men use mistresses as a form of therapy, a kind of grievance against the wife. The mistress is supposed to understand and soothe those poor wounded egos.

I nearly married a disabled cop, but I couldn't do it in the end because I in fact did not fall in love with him. Our engagement was the worst lie I ever foisted on myself.

This is why I do not believe in love as an abstract entity. Sure, there are *good* marriages, but what enables two people to stay together has more to do with learning how to negotiate a relationship.

I doubt I will ever get *involved* again, but it is, oddly, okay, and the cats are fine with that.