Is love a choice?

[slurpee]

I've heard it said that love is a choice. I wanted to believe this but now I don't. What do you think? Do we "choose" to love someone? Do we really have any control over it? Even if it is wrong to be in love with someone or just to love someone, how can we stop it?

 

I think about the parent/child relationship and the unconditional love there. No matter what one does to the other to disappoint or hurt, we will continue to love him/her forever. We may not "like" that person, but love is so much deeper.

 

I also think about people who have divorced. If the two truly loved each other, do they stop? How? How can you just stop loving someone? Is that a choice?

 

Also, if we do not see or talk to another person for YEARS, do we still love that person? My grandfather has been dead for over 30 years, but I still love him. What about living people? Is it possible to still truly love someone who is not a vital part of your life anymore? Do we "choose" to keep that love alive?

 

This all sounds very "deep", but I'd really appreciate some others' insight into this topic.

 

Thanks!

[UCFKevin]

Who the hell told you it's a choice?

 

You can't choose it any more than you can choose who your parents are. It just happens.

[moimeme]

Actually, you can choose to love. Some forms of bonding can be created by biology, and bonding is an important process and certainly enhances love, but you can choose. Sounds cold? Maybe, but it also means it can be more of a decision than we usually believe.

 

Have a read of this. It describes the mechanism of love. Pretty interesting stuff, actually.

http://www.relationshipsandlove.com/FreeStuff/WhatIsThisThing.htm

 

If the two truly loved each other, do they stop? How? How can you just stop loving someone? Is that a choice?

 

The love they share may be an illusion which fades in the light of better information. People change. People don't nurture love - it needs to be nurtured, after all. Like any living thing, without care it dies. Can you choose? Sometimes you have to force yourself to quit loving someone if your relationship isn't working. Yes, it's a choice.

 

Also, if we do not see or talk to another person for YEARS, do we still love that person?

 

Why not?

 

Is it possible to still truly love someone who is not a vital part of your life anymore?

 

Why not?

 

Do we "choose" to keep that love alive?

 

Sometimes, yes. Sometimes the love you have now is really the memory of the love you had then that you continue to foster.

[yes]

depends on the kind of love. go read that article moimeme posted a link to, about the different kinds of love.

 

i don't think the whole thing is a choice, but there's certainly a choice component that determines how you act upon the initial spark.

 

my 2c,

-yes

[Tony T]

Love is always a decision we make. It's not something that magically happens against our will. When two people make the decision simultaneously, it's great. And no longer loving someone is a decision as well and it's made all the time. There are many contributing factors to this decision, whether loving or ceasing to love.

 

The romantic notion that we somehow "fall" in love is engrained in us from people and music from childhood. It does have some mystical qualities which we bestow on it but, I promise, we cannot love someone we don't make a decision to love. It just won't happen.

 

Now, we're talking about real love here. We can think we are in love with somebody because they're beautiful or playing hard to get or something but that crap is infatuation and it doesn't last very long. The decision to love someone a very long time is a tough decision to make and requires that we commit to putting up with the good times and the crap and all in between. Loving a person may be very easy in the beginning and that's nature's way of luring us in. But the decision to take it the distance is one a lot of people are capable of making but incapable of fulfilling.

 

Considering a sex partner is a decision as well, based on attraction, chemistry, current horniness, sobriety, etc. One day we may find someone quite ripe for an encounter...and, under different circumstances later on, we could find them repulsive.

 

Kind of scary.

[dyermaker]

Originally posted by slurpee

I've heard it said that love is a choice. I wanted to believe this but now I don't. What do you think? Do we "choose" to love someone? Do we really have any control over it? Even if it is wrong to be in love with someone or just to love someone, how can we stop it?

 

I think about the parent/child relationship and the unconditional love there. No matter what one does to the other to disappoint or hurt, we will continue to love him/her forever. We may not "like" that person, but love is so much deeper.

 

I also think about people who have divorced. If the two truly loved each other, do they stop? How? How can you just stop loving someone? Is that a choice?

 

Also, if we do not see or talk to another person for YEARS, do we still love that person? My grandfather has been dead for over 30 years, but I still love him. What about living people? Is it possible to still truly love someone who is not a vital part of your life anymore? Do we "choose" to keep that love alive?

 

This all sounds very "deep", but I'd really appreciate some others' insight into this topic.

 

Thanks!

 

I have thought a lot about this, and while I think that it makes sense to say that love is so powerful of an emotion, that it is beyond our control--I don't buy it.

 

Undeniably, there are different kinds of love, but I assert that all are, to some degree--a choice. I'm going to break it in half--mutual love, and delusional love. I believe that delusional love is an unclear choice that one makes, fueled by some ignis fatuus of subconscious desire. Mutual love is also a choice that one makes, aided by another person, fueled by returned emotion.

 

With mutual love, to say that it exists without volition is contrapositive to the entire idea of love. It's not an action, it's an emotion--how we choose to act on it produces the tangible continuation of a relationship. The parent-child relationship is a great example of mutual love, love you call 'unconditional'. I believe that the deep, underlying love that you allude to is false, it's a societal feeling--that everyone loves their parents, so you'll always love them. This mutual love is rooted in your brain, because when you are extremely small and developing, you emotionally connect with your parents, and perhaps form a stronger bond to them than anyone else simply because an infant is more trusting than an adult. However, parental love doesn't last forever. Without getting to situational, my father doesn't love his parents, this is a concession that he made. He is appreciative that he lasted eighteen years, and he communicates with them from time to time, but he knows that he will never love them.

 

Love that is not mutual is delusional (I never mean delusional as a pejorative). When one stops loving you, you love them back through delusion. The attachment is no longer fueled by the actions or expressions of another; instead, it is fueled by your own thoughts, and own willingness (read:choice) to keep emotions alive. Essentially, you play both parts. This is why delusional love is the hardest to let go of, because you can idealize both sides--this is also why it is SO incredibly hard to stop loving someone.

 

Love is beyond a thought, it's an emotional Emotional attachments are a response, not a reflex--you CHOOSE how to respond to any feelings inside you. You choose to keep the love alive in your head, and when someone else chooses that as well, actions are done to maintain the feelings inside both.

 

Love is a choice, as is heartbreak. It's an extremely difficult choice to attach (or detach) from someone, which could lead to feelings that seem beyond control.

[moimeme]

That's it, Dyer. You're not 15. You're 156 and the reincarnation of Yoda.

[Thinkalot]

LOL moimeme! I think you may be right! Dyer you continue to amaze.

[Thinkalot]

P.S. Just to take the thread slightly off topic for a moment: I love these links Merry...I've printed them out to show to my Bunnyboy. I believe we have a mix of romantic and companionate love already, but more romantic and volatile than the other! I have been loving a LOT, but not always loving WELL.

[crysiet]

I dont believe you can control the fact that you dont love somebody, and I also think that You cannot destroy love once it is created. I think the person that you love can change that you love them in many different ways. And I do think that you can distance yourself from someone enough to stop you from developing love for them.

 

I know from experience that love for or from your parents is not always unconditional. In most normal circumstances, yes, it is, but there are things people (family or not) can do to eachother to demolish the pre existing love.

 

As in divorces, yes, sometimes the love is still there, but for some reason or another things didnt work out. In other cases the love does slowly dissolve. Relationships, especially marriages, change constantly. Over time you may realize that you no longer love the person that they have become.

 

Memories of love can be just as sweet as love itself. So of course you dont stop loving the dearly departed. Love is a bond and doesnt break for death.

 

As in choosing to keep love alive, I do think that there are ways of staying close to people. Talk to them, let them know on a daily basis how much they mean to you. Talk about issues that need to be dealt with. It may not be love but it helps with those you do love.

[Doreme]

To me, being born was not my choice, but love is.

 

Not everyone is capable of making choices. it takes intelligence, knowledge, strength, self-awareness, experiences, mistakes,...to make right choices. certainly not every one has all the qualities.

 

Just like smoking or drinking, it's your choice, but not everyone is able to give it up even they know it's not good for his well-being...

 

if you believe that Love is NOT a choice, well, at least, it gives you some comfort when you get stuck in a bad relationship/marriage, since you are not the one who made choice, of course, you are not who to be blamed, you are doomed to suffer, what else can you do but put up with it...

 

To these weak-willed people, nothing is a choice.

[missthang]

I agree, love is a choice, and tends to change over time, whether it grows or fades depends on the people in the relationship. Historically, our current notion of love and marriage are an anomally, before people married for other reasons than love-to consolidate their families properties, or to please their parents and marry whoever they chose for them-some of these practises still exist in other cultures today. It was expected that love would grow there, and I would argue that it often did. I don't like the notion of romantic love, I agree with dyer, it's an illusion/delusion, love has more to do with concrete actions and thoughts accompanied by wonderful feelings. We all choose who we love, at some level, whether it's an initial physical attraction, things in common, or our own position in life-ie. if you're single and your friends are all married, suddenly everyone looks a lot more appealing. bell hooks wrote a wonderful, practical book on love, she sheds aside the cloak of mystery surrounding it and provides wonderful examples of real concrete love. Her argument is that people don't know how to love in North America currently, starting from the parent-child relationship onto adult relationships. I think that's the key to many of our problems today, people don't know how to love themselves, nor do they know how to love others-they wish to possess or dominate or subjugate moreso than to meet as equals and respect the other person as their own person. Another truth is that you could spend a lifetime with someone else and never know them-I think feeling that you know someone is also overrated, I feel that this is an impossibility, given how often even I change. This is a very timely thread!

[Arabess]

I believe who were are attracted to...IS NOT a choice. How far we let that initial attraction go...IS a choice.

 

If it's not going to be a good thing....best to pull on out of it early on emotionally....before you really do let it get to a point of being bigger than you are. Once you really love someone...I'm not sure the choice is any longer yours.

 

You can get used to not responding to that love.....even moving on....but the love ultimately remains in your heart like a smoldering ember......till hell freezes over.