Defining Love

[midwestyankee]

I loved my husband (now ex) enough to let him go when it became clear that our goals in life were completely incompatible. Took primary custody of our two small children and all the responsibilities that entailed. I think that was a sacrifice for love and even though he threw the gift away I still think it was the right move. Of course now I'd look through those rose coloured glasses we wear during the beginning blush of love and make sure out goals were compatible.

Sacrifice? Absolutely.

And courage, too, I might add.

 

[Shoshisexy]

Sacrifice

Hmmm...some of you may believe this, some of you may not. Feel free to do either.

I am an Empath. As such, when I truly love someone, I can feel what they feel. Someone I love was kidnapped and brutally raped for two days. She and I were talking last night when she got locked into a loop of reliving it...She was given a valium by our bf, but she was still in the loop. I felt and even experienced in some ways what she went through in flashes of images of both the incident in question and her past.

I took some of her pain into myself. I could not hold very much, but I did take some of it. That is a sacrifice I gladly make to keep her sane and well. She is dealing with most of this on her own...but I am there as much as I can be.

Sacrifice is as nothing when it is done in and with love.



Shoshana

 

[midwestyankee]

Re: Sacrifice

Hmmm...some of you may believe this, some of you may not. Feel free to do either.

I am an Empath. As such, when I truly love someone, I can feel what they feel. Someone I love was kidnapped and brutally raped for two days. She and I were talking last night when she got locked into a loop of reliving it...She was given a valium by our bf, but she was still in the loop. I felt and even experienced in some ways what she went through in flashes of images of both the incident in question and her past.

I took some of her pain into myself. I could not hold very much, but I did take some of it. That is a sacrifice I gladly make to keep her sane and well. She is dealing with most of this on her own...but I am there as much as I can be.

Sacrifice is as nothing when it is done in and with love.



Shoshana

Not only do you have a gift for empathy, but you have one for courageous telling as well.

 

[DreamOfSun]

This is a great thread! I have enjoyed reading every point of view expressed here.

I think love is based on many things, especially trust and honesty. My question is this:

Is it possible to find real love for someone once they have betrayed you?

 

[midwestyankee]

This is a great thread! I have enjoyed reading every point of view expressed here.

I think love is based on many things, especially trust and honesty. My question is this:

Is it possible to find real love for someone once they have betrayed you?

Thanks for stopping by and especially for reading the entire thread. We have been blessed by many various and provocative viewpoints.

Your question is a powerful one. Rebuilding trust is a very difficult task indeed. Others may have more experience to relate than I have, but I can say this: since much of love relies on honesty (as you said), when a beloved breaks our trust we have a mighty challenge on our hands to accept their word from that point on.

 

[midwestyankee]

This is a great thread! I have enjoyed reading every point of view expressed here.

I think love is based on many things, especially trust and honesty. My question is this:

Is it possible to find real love for someone once they have betrayed you?

Dream, I just read some of your poems posted on Lit. I rather liked "The Process of Love" and think that many who have posted here would enjoy it and find it evocative of their own experiences.

 

[DreamOfSun]

Thank you for the compliment.

 

[Bent]

Originally posted by DreamOfSun
Is it possible to find real love for someone once they have betrayed you?

Of course it is. Love is a work in progress...the good and the bad...sometimes it can become really bad, such as betrayal, but love transcends all things, even stupid mistakes.

 

[midwestyankee]

Of course it is. Love is a work in progress...the good and the bad...sometimes it can become really bad, such as betrayal, but love transcends all things, even stupid mistakes.

I like this phrase, "love is a work in progress."

It makes a lot of sense to me. Every day brings different challenges to our love, or at least new variations on old challenges.

A sense of betrayal is almost entirely of our own and not our beloved's making, even though it may have been prompted by something our beloved did. And because we own that sense of betrayal, it is our duty to repair it. Now, we may feel that the beloved should make amends for the betraying behavior, but that is only a part of the repair process. The rest of it is up to us.

So yes, betrayal can be overcome, but it is a joint process and depends far more on the partner who feels betrayed than most of us would like to admit.

 

[midwestyankee]

Here is a request for the next few people who drop by here:

True or False: Absence makes the heart grow fonder.

What do you think? What has been your experience with long absences from a beloved?

 

[Sweet_emOcean]

Here is a request for the next few people who drop by here:

True or False: Absence makes the heart grow fonder.

What do you think? What has been your experience with long absences from a beloved?

I believe it does. I've taken several vacations without my husband and I truly do appreciate him more when I get home. I would recommend it to every married couple. Taking a break whether long or short keeps a marriage healthy.

 

[jazey_43]

none

Love

it's a complex emotion.....and one I THOUGHT I understood.

Now after 2 years, I have realized, I don't have a handle on it at all.

And I thought that at this stage of my life, I'd never have to worry about a broken heart...and all the pain associated with it.

i do agree tho, that there is a major difference between Love...and falling IN love. Goes to show ya...that even at 44 years of age, I still have ALOT to learn.

 

[midwestyankee]

Re: none

Love

it's a complex emotion.....and one I THOUGHT I understood.

Now after 2 years, I have realized, I don't have a handle on it at all.

And I thought that at this stage of my life, I'd never have to worry about a broken heart...and all the pain associated with it.

i do agree tho, that there is a major difference between Love...and falling IN love. Goes to show ya...that even at 44 years of age, I still have ALOT to learn.

Jazey, I think we all have a lot to learn - and should - for our whole lives.

I think about some older people I know (and some not so old) who have stopped learning about love, life, and themselves, and I know they have sadly reduced their lives.

 

[TantaLiza]

I liked that comment.... "love is a work in progress"... you just have to make sure both partners feel the power to progress. One must question the motives of the betrayer as to whether this is in the best interest of both parties. Many things can make one want to try, i.e. children, marriage, etc..... I'm not tryin to put a damper on it, just make sure to look things over deeply, so to speak....all need to benefit from a continuing relationship!

As for the heart growing fonder... definitely yes! IF the love is true... if not, then it wasn't meant to be in the first place!!

{{{{{{{{{{Dreamy}}}}}}}}}}

{{{{{{{{{{Shoshana}}}}}}}}}}

 

[jazey_43]

I liked that comment.... "love is a work in progress"... you just have to make sure both partners feel the power to progress. One must question the motives of the betrayer as to whether this is in the best interest of both parties. Many things can make one want to try, i.e. children, marriage, etc..... I'm not tryin to put a damper on it, just make sure to look things over deeply, so to speak....all need to benefit from a continuing relationship!

As for the heart growing fonder... definitely yes! IF the love is true... if not, then it wasn't meant to be in the first place!!

{{{{{{{{{{Dreamy}}}}}}}}}}

{{{{{{{{{{Shoshana}}}}}}}}}}

Wise words...from a wise woman!!

You are sooo right Liza!!

 

[TantaLiza]

Wise words...from a wise woman!!

You are sooo right Liza!!

Thanks, Jazey!! I learn by example... thru watchin others and seein what happened. I don't think I've ever truly been in love... not even with my daughter's father although I do love him for giving her to me! That is a story in itself....

Love to all!!!

 

[jazey_43]

Thanks, Jazey!! I learn by example... thru watchin others and seein what happened. I don't think I've ever truly been in love... not even with my daughter's father although I do love him for giving her to me! That is a story in itself....

Love to all!!!

Honey, I think we ALL have stories like that to tell...I found what I consider to be "real" love..at the ripe old age of 41. And that was after my marriage broke up...so I know of what you speak. But now, I look back...and wonder just what that "real" love was! Like I said, at 44, I'm STILL learning!!

 

[coppertop429]

To be perfectly honest, I haven't read through most of this thread, only the first page or so. Despite that, I still want to respond and put my own two cents in...sorry if they're repetitive!

To begin: What is your definition of love?

I'm not sure I have a definition, or that there even is one. I mean, love is an abstract concept that human being have defined as existing. That's not to say that we still wouldn't have feelings for others if we didn't "define" love...I just see love the way I see the concept of time: we basically created it and defined it to suit our own purposes.

Taking familial love as a given, what other forms of love can you identify?

That's something I'm only recently discovering about myself. A good friend of mine died the summer after my freshman year in high school, and it was hard to deal with (which I won't go into here). After her death, though, I realized that I don't tell the people around me how important they are to me and my life. Then I had to "define" for myself what the do mean to me--and the conclusion I came to with many of them was love.

Of course I love my family...but it also goes beyond "of course." I care about them and want to be near them because of who they are; I'm lucky that I'm not in the kind of family situation where it's "love" just because of bloodlines. I also love many of my friends, though, male and female, and since I figured this out I've been expressing it freely (despite the previous high school conventions that would dictate otherwise). Now on the phone, I'll say good-bye with an "I love you," and (most of them ) have gotten used to it, with some of them feeling comfortable enough to say it back. I'm happier now that I know how I feel about a lot of the people who mean so much to me...and I think I'll feel fewer regrets in the future. Such open communication about my feelings has also helped to strengthen many of the relationships I'm in, including family, romantic, and, especially, friendships.

Thanks for keeping us thinking, MWY!

 

[coppertop429]

And now that I've gone pages and pages backwards...

Here is a request for the next few people who drop by here:

True or False: Absence makes the heart grow fonder.

What do you think? What has been your experience with long absences from a beloved?

I think it's a relative thing; it can vary significantly depending on the situation. Longing is a reality for some people, so it would make sense that absence would add to that longing--to an extent. At the same time, though, distance can be a huge obstacle in love, especially romantic. You miss them and always will, but sometimes such a huge absence can cause a gap in communication that just can't be crossed...

My boyfriend and I are in love (by our own definitions ). We've been dating since October of 2002, and I'm always happy to be with him and around him. Unfortunately, I'm moving away in the fall...and we've already talked about what will happen with our relationship. Neither of us thinks we could handle the pressure of a long-distance relationship, and we both know that we're still relatively young. ALong with that, neither of us believes in a "soul mate," so that's not a huge issue. But the truth is, there is a part of me that will always love him and will remember him as the first boy I ever loved. The cliche that I'll "always hold him close to my heart" is true, and while I hope to love again many times in my life, every one of those times will etch themselves into a part of who I am and who I was in the past. As for now, he and I are determined to spend our remaining months as happily and fully as we can, and we're hoping to spend as much time together as possible.

In my case, absence will hurt--but I don't know that I'm strong enough or even should push through it.

 

[Bobmi357]

Taking the plunge....

Defining Love is somewhat akin to trying to describe "blue" to someone that has never had the benefit of sight.

I don't think its possible to define love objectively at all, which means that the best we can do is give it only a superficial description of what it means to us as individuals.

I can't say what love is, just like I can't describe what a neutrino tastes like. But just like a physicist, I can describe its interaction with my personal environment.

Once, when I was much younger I would have said love was sex and sex was love. I was young, inexperienced and learned the hard way that love is not sex, and sex is not love. My ex wife used sex as a tool, a weapon, a reward for good behavior and I fell for it hook line and sinker. It wasn't until after the wedding that I realized that and for 12 years I tried to bring love into a marriage where the other partner knew less about love than I did.

It wasn't until I met my second wife that I experienced love, real, deep, pain in the guts if your apart, love. She was much younger than I, 13yrs to be exact, and I was more experienced than she was sexually. But she taught me what love was all about.

Love is wanting to kiss her good morning despite the fact that her breath smells. Its wanting to be near her and with her all the time, its what happens when you're not having sex and still want to touch her, or just be with her.

Love is complex, its a weird range of emotions running from exaspiration to joy to annoyance to playfullness. Its sitting up in bed at 3am and giggling like kids because one of you farted. Its being comfortable enough around someone that you're not afraid to fart. Its being willing to get out of the comfortable and warm bed to get her something to munch, or going with her at 11pm for a munchie run to the nearby 7-11.

Love is capable of taking and turning anger around, its wanting to tell someone your deepest darkest thoughts and knowing they will not tell a soul. Its trust, comfort, fun and sad all rolled into one.

Sex is fun, but sex with someone you're in love with makes your hands tremble. Its like reaching out and touching, if only for a brief instant, the face of god.

So what is love? (shrugging) It depends on who and what you are. It differs in all of us. But if you have it, nuture it, treat it like a rare rose, care for it and work to continually improve it. Love can die from lack of attention. So if you have love, consider yourself lucky. There are people, both here on these boards and elsewhere that are still looking for it.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[midwestyankee]

Coppertop429 - Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts (and they are not repetitive, btw). I especially liked what you said about how being open about your love is improving your relationships. So many people who have responded to the thread have said similar things.

 

[midwestyankee]

Bobmi37 - I've always enjoyed reading your posts in the How To board because you think things through and express yourself well. Here too, you have added some substance and heart to the discussion.

For my two cents, the heart of your post is this: "love can die from lack of attention."

In fact, here is how M. Scott Peck defines love in The Road Less Travelled, A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values, and Spiritual Growth (p. 81) Love is ..."the will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth." He elaborates by saying that our purpose in life is to continuously work on our spiritual growth. Thus, when we love another we act in harmony with them to help them achieve their purpose in life.

So love is all those actions we take that help our beloved continue to learn and grow in this life. So all the wonderful moments you described, all the giving and acceptance, would be ways in which we show care for our beloved. These are the actions of love. So while you said you didn't think you could define it any more than you could describe a color to the blind, I think you did a fine job after all.

What do you think of this conception: that love is these actions we take to care for and nurture our beloved?

 

[Bobmi357]

What do you think of this conception: that love is these actions we take to care for and nurture our beloved?

Hmmm I'm not sure I'm willing to agree with this. But only because its a little too self centered. I think that true love means that you are willing to put aside your own self in favor of a unit. Suddenly instead of it being just Bob, its Bob and Mary, or Tom and Harriet. So lets change that above statement to read;

"that love is these actions we take to care for and nurture our both of us as a couple."

In the first variant of that statement, it was too altruistic. People who continually give and give with no expectation of recieving anything back will soon become embittered by the process. As you noted, love is giving and taking. Part of the problem with the definition you're using is it describes it from a singular point of view when by rights, more than one person is in love in an ideal scenario.

In some ways love is kind of like a market economy. We do things fully expecting that our partner will participate fully in giving back. Oh sure we all do things that we don't expect to recieve anything back and there is nothing wrong with that. But generally speaking, in a healthy loving relationship action provokes reaction. If you continue giving and it fails to provoke any response, sooner or later you will realize that and stop giving.

While you can try to define love as it pertains to a single entity, we need to remember that there are two people involved (well usually thats the number), and because of that fact, we really need to define love in terms of what both partners contribute to the well being of the relationship, to the couple-ness. You could almost say that we have two individuals that have submerged their identities in favor of a one that combines the qualities of both of them, two individuals making a new unique entity being a couple.

So to that end, I'd say that I contribute to the health an welfare of my partner and just as importantly, to our relationship. For this much I do know, without her I am one half of what I am, incomplete, utterly alone and adrift.

 

[midwestyankee]

Hmmm I'm not sure I'm willing to agree with this. But only because its a little too self centered. I think that true love means that you are willing to put aside your own self in favor of a unit. Suddenly instead of it being just Bob, its Bob and Mary, or Tom and Harriet. So lets change that above statement to read;

"that love is these actions we take to care for and nurture our both of us as a couple."

In the first variant of that statement, it was too altruistic. People who continually give and give with no expectation of recieving anything back will soon become embittered by the process. As you noted, love is giving and taking. Part of the problem with the definition you're using is it describes it from a singular point of view when by rights, more than one person is in love in an ideal scenario.

In some ways love is kind of like a market economy. We do things fully expecting that our partner will participate fully in giving back. Oh sure we all do things that we don't expect to recieve anything back and there is nothing wrong with that. But generally speaking, in a healthy loving relationship action provokes reaction. If you continue giving and it fails to provoke any response, sooner or later you will realize that and stop giving.

While you can try to define love as it pertains to a single entity, we need to remember that there are two people involved (well usually thats the number), and because of that fact, we really need to define love in terms of what both partners contribute to the well being of the relationship, to the couple-ness. You could almost say that we have two individuals that have submerged their identities in favor of a one that combines the qualities of both of them, two individuals making a new unique entity being a couple.

So to that end, I'd say that I contribute to the health an welfare of my partner and just as importantly, to our relationship. For this much I do know, without her I am one half of what I am, incomplete, utterly alone and adrift.

Much of what you say has a lot of merit. However, I don't think that I can agree that the definition I proposed (from Peck) is self-centered. In fact, I see it as the opposite, as an outward-directed act of will.

Now let's consider the concept of self-love. In fact, Peck points out (as have many people who have contributed to this thread) that it's impossible to love another without first loving yourself. I love myself by doing whatever I can to further my spiritual growth.

The Peck definition includes love of self as well as love of another. And it takes the word love as a verb. He does this, I think, for a very simple reason: emotions by themselves are self-centered and do nothing for another person. If I have emotions but do not act on them, no one might ever know that I have those emotions and certainly no one could ever benefit from my having them. So in order to love someone, I have to act on the emotions I feel. Without action, there is no love.

Does this make any more sense to you?

 

[Bobmi357]

Much of what you say has a lot of merit. However, I don't think that I can agree that the definition I proposed (from Peck) is self-centered. In fact, I see it as the opposite, as an outward-directed act of will.

Now let's consider the concept of self-love. In fact, Peck points out (as have many people who have contributed to this thread) that it's impossible to love another without first loving yourself. I love myself by doing whatever I can to further my spiritual growth.

The Peck definition includes love of self as well as love of another. And it takes the word love as a verb. He does this, I think, for a very simple reason: emotions by themselves are self-centered and do nothing for another person. If I have emotions but do not act on them, no one might ever know that I have those emotions and certainly no one could ever benefit from my having them. So in order to love someone, I have to act on the emotions I feel. Without action, there is no love.

Does this make any more sense to you?

I am uncomfortable with tacking the concept of spirituality onto it. To be capable of love, the individual needs to be reasonably sane and stable.

Additionally I think you are confusing emotions which promote harmony and growth in a relationship, from the purely selfish emotions.

A purely selfish emotion might prompt you to to think. "I wonder if I can get her to give me a blowjob tonight?". While a relationship building emotion may prompt you to an action like doing the dishes while she sleeps, or cleaning up the living room.

We have these selfish emotions all the time. We can't help it, its part of who and what we are. The difference is most of us rarely act on them. A stable individual knows instinctively that some actions will be recieved gratefully and others will be rejected forcefully.

I don't care much for the term "self love". Its too narcistic for my taste. Self Respect is a better and more apt term. I don't "love" myself, I love my wife. What I feel about myself and how I feel about her are to incomparable sets of emotions.

So let us say that a person cannot love another unless they are reasonably stable and have a good self image for themselves instead. And more to the point, a very "self oriented" individual will find it difficult to experience and contribute to a relationship with another individual.