In love versus love

[donnamaybe]

I understand you did not willingly twist my words, it is about interpretation, and perhaps I did not express myself clearly earlier.

 

I know you are kind at heart, Donna.

Awww, thanks hon. Right back atcha!!!

[silktricks]

I believe THIS (bolded) I have never heard of any long term relationship, day in and day out through all the trials and tribulations, that has sustained that "in love" feeling I'm not sure if it is possible.

 

When you say "sustained" do you mean non-stop? In that case I would agree that it's not possible. However, if when you say "sustained" you mean still have the butterflies in your stomach when you look at your partner. Still want to make mad passionate love and wake up in the morning and gaze into their eyes - at least at times - then I can absolutely without a particle of a doubt say that it is possible. That's how I feel toward my husband, and I believe him when he tells me that this is how he feels toward me, as he shows me he does.

 

Does it happen every time I look at him, as it did when we first met? No, of course not. Does it happen often enough? It does for me. It does for him. So, it does.

[silktricks]

What's interesting about this is that invariably....without fail...the BS's view love as both an action and a feeling....and believe that love is somethng that is cultivated and developed.......and without fail the OW always believes that love is involuntary...something complete out of their control.

 

{snip}

 

Everytime...the drawing of the lines on this subject falls this exact same way.

 

It's interesting when you consider the "psychology" of it. Is this belief a common indicator of people who are predilicted towards becoming an OW/OM? Or is it a belief formed as part of the process of becoming an OW/OM?

 

And the same thing can be said on the BS side...we always take the mindset that love is deliberately built. I know that I've always personally felt this way.

 

As you know, in my dark and dreary past, I was for a short time an OW. Yet, I always have felt that love is deliberately built - that it is a voluntary action.

 

Though, I believe that it is a voluntary action usually taken after there is evidence of an emotion - so I believe it is a voluntary action (or rather series of actions) taken to build upon an involuntary feeling of attraction - but I do not call that involuntary feeling of attraction love - in any form. It is simply attraction (to me).

 

I do not now, nor have I ever believed the "I couldn't help myself - it just happened" line.

[Owl]

I stand corrected.

 

And I absolutely should know better than to make "blanket statements" that "ALL" of anyone are always the same way, or say the same things, or feel such and such.

 

So I apologize to Jennie and to Silk...thank you both for pointing that out.

[ladydesigner]

When you say "sustained" do you mean non-stop? In that case I would agree that it's not possible. However, if when you say "sustained" you mean still have the butterflies in your stomach when you look at your partner. Still want to make mad passionate love and wake up in the morning and gaze into their eyes - at least at times - then I can absolutely without a particle of a doubt say that it is possible. That's how I feel toward my husband, and I believe him when he tells me that this is how he feels toward me, as he shows me he does.

 

Does it happen every time I look at him, as it did when we first met? No, of course not. Does it happen often enough? It does for me. It does for him. So, it does.

 

Wow that is fantastic! No I no longer get the butterflies. I look at him and I love him we have really great sex and get along well, but I do not feel like I want to gaze in his eyes and such. That feeling left our M a long time ago. I am not sure if I can get that back

 

BTW I did not have those feelings with my XAP either. My XAP was just a boost to my ego nothing more nothing less. Quite sad actually.

 

It seems I may need to explore this and maybe enroll in some more counseling because I want those feelings with my H. I just feel so disappointed in him. Our life is not where I had envisioned us to be. I lost a lot of respect for him along the way which is slowly regaining.

[GordonDarkfoot]

Interesting that both of you immediately took for granted that I was trying to conceal something from my exSO.

 

Since you've already admitted that you are trying to conceal something from him, I guess your "unvarnished opinion" of his personality, what's your point?

[GordonDarkfoot]

One interesting thing I've noted in my years here at LS.

 

This topic comes up several times/year, and every time the line is drawn in the sand between OW and BS's on this very topic.

 

What's interesting about this is that invariably....without fail...the BS's view love as both an action and a feeling....and believe that love is somethng that is cultivated and developed.......and without fail the OW always believes that love is involuntary...something complete out of their control.

 

Which is interesting, but not surprising.

 

When it's out of your control, it frees you from the responsibility for it. It let's you believe within yourself that you're not at fault for the damages being done to others as a result of your actions.

 

Believing that it's something magical, momentous, and impossible to stop allows you to say that it's not your fault that it happened. That you "couldn't help yourself" when you started sleeping with someone's husband or wife.

 

Everytime...the drawing of the lines on this subject falls this exact same way.

 

It's interesting when you consider the "psychology" of it. Is this belief a common indicator of people who are predilicted towards becoming an OW/OM? Or is it a belief formed as part of the process of becoming an OW/OM?

 

And the same thing can be said on the BS side...we always take the mindset that love is deliberately built. I know that I've always personally felt this way.

 

Something to consider.

 

 

Actually it's simply a justification not for "involuntarily" falling in love; but for getting involved with people who already have spouses or significant others.

 

If falling in love is an involuntary act, then--given the frequency of this particular thread topic-- we should have quite a few posts from people who "involuntarily fell in love" in a NON-infidelity-related context--that is, the "involuntary" falling in love occurred where the person doing the falling in love was neither an Other Person nor an unfaithful spouse to an Other Person, and the person that they fell in love with was an OP or MM/MW either.

 

The "dividing line" or "correlation" you're picking up on isn't so much a distinction between "betrayed spouse" and "other person". Really, it's between "honest, responsible" person and "dishonest, irresponsible" person. A similar type of mentality prevails among people with various kinds of personality disorders such as bpd, anti-social disorder, and other adjustment disorders.

 

People who habitually break the law will frequently characterize their behaviors not as a result of voluntary choices made, but as an inevitable consequence of whatever circumstances they find themselves to be in.

 

So the "pattern" you have discerned is not limited to romantic relationships or fidelity/infidelity.

 

It's the essential distinction between a person who can be said to have "integrity" and a person who can be said to lack it.

[spriggig]

Wow that is fantastic! No I no longer get the butterflies. I look at him and I love him we have really great sex and get along well, but I do not feel like I want to gaze in his eyes and such. That feeling left our M a long time ago. I am not sure if I can get that back

 

BTW I did not have those feelings with my XAP either. My XAP was just a boost to my ego nothing more nothing less. Quite sad actually.

 

It seems I may need to explore this and maybe enroll in some more counseling because I want those feelings with my H. I just feel so disappointed in him. Our life is not where I had envisioned us to be. I lost a lot of respect for him along the way which is slowly regaining.

 

Let's say counseling doesn't work, nothing works. You try to get the butterflies back but some time from now--no luck. Will you be content without the butterflies, or will you leave him and chase butterflies with someone else?

[jennie-jennie]

Since you've already admitted that you are trying to conceal something from him, I guess your "unvarnished opinion" of his personality, what's your point?

 

I already told you he knows. There just isn't any reason to rub it in.

 

My description of you was close, I presume, since you did not refute it.

[GordonDarkfoot]

I already told you he knows. There just isn't any reason to rub it in.

 

My description of you was close, I presume, since you did not refute it.

 

No, you said the precise opposite: That your ex-SO does not know about this thread, and hence does not know anything you have posted in it. There is a difference between your opinion of your ex-SO expressed privately between the two of you; and expression of the same opinion, by you, in a public forum. But as you also previously said, this is "obvious."

 

In terms of your description of me, whatever that is supposed to mean, I am entirely unaware of it, and don't care about it, even if I had been paying attention to it.

[ladydesigner]

Let's say counseling doesn't work, nothing works. You try to get the butterflies back but some time from now--no luck. Will you be content without the butterflies, or will you leave him and chase butterflies with someone else?

 

No I am content with where things are at. Will not be chasing butterflies again, been down that dark road and don't ever want to go down it ever again. I don't feel that it is necessary for me to feel that way for my H. I love him tremendously and would never want to leave him. He is my best friend and a wonderful dad. Regardless of our sordid past both my H and I. I feel we both made mistakes and we both realized we want us (the marriage) and not someone else.

[wheelwright]

Jennie, I think again we agree and am unsure as to why you say we don't.

 

The only difference is that you seem to think, as many others do, that in-love isn't a choice.

 

I believe it is.

 

When "in-love" re-entered your life via MM, you chose not to stay commited to your SO.

 

But like many people, they do not realize they are choosing in-love too.

 

They believe the romantic fantasy that in-love is choosing them.

 

We always have choices as to who to love, based on where we place our commitment, according to Peck.

 

 

I just wanted to ask in response to this Spark, if 'not in love' is also a choice?

 

Unfortunately it ain't cookin' like that for me. Though what's left of my rationale mind after all this rigmorole would be gunning for that not in love feeling!

[wheelwright]

No I am content with where things are at. Will not be chasing butterflies again, been down that dark road and don't ever want to go down it ever again. I don't feel that it is necessary for me to feel that way for my H. I love him tremendously and would never want to leave him. He is my best friend and a wonderful dad. Regardless of our sordid past both my H and I. I feel we both made mistakes and we both realized we want us (the marriage) and not someone else.

 

Cheers to you LD.

 

Because after a long line of your posts I have read, each one sounds more balanced and head screwed on than the last.

 

Ending up with this one. Read it again what you wrote. I am happy for you.

[jennie-jennie]

Jennie, I think again we agree and am unsure as to why you say we don't.

 

The only difference is that you seem to think, as many others do, that in-love isn't a choice.

 

I believe it is.

 

When "in-love" re-entered your life via MM, you chose not to stay commited to your SO.

 

But like many people, they do not realize they are choosing in-love too.

 

They believe the romantic fantasy that in-love is choosing them.

 

We always have choices as to who to love, based on where we place our commitment, according to Peck.

 

When MM was entering your life, maybe you had already been withdrawing your commitment to the marriage because your needs had been unmet for so long.

 

The inverse: Many, many people do not have all their needs met in a marriage.

 

Nothing may be wrong with BOTH partners; the couple just does not choose to acquire the tools necessary to do marriage well.

 

But they are both still committed to it. And stay married. And believe they love each other. And they might.

 

I just wanted to ask in response to this Spark, if 'not in love' is also a choice?

 

Unfortunately it ain't cookin' like that for me. Though what's left of my rationale mind after all this rigmorole would be gunning for that not in love feeling!

 

What I understand Peck to be saying here:

 

This is not to say that the experience of falling in love is immune to discipline. Psychiatrists, for instance, frequently fall in love with their patients, just as their patients fall in love with them, yet out of duty to the patient and their role they are usually able to abort the collapse of their ego boundaries and give up the person as a romantic object. The struggle and suffering of the discipline involved may be enormous. But discipline and will can only control the experience; they cannot create it. We can choose how to respond to the experience of falling of love, but we cannot choose the experience itself.

 

is indeed that we can not choose not to love, we can only choose what to do with the emotions of love we are having, whether to act on them or not.

[2long]

Interesting that both of you immediately took for granted that I was trying to conceal something from my exSO.

 

Yes, that is interesting, isn't it?

 

Also interesting, by your own admission, you were!

 

 

-ol' 2long

[2long]

The best relationships are where the partners recognize that it isn't their responsibility 2 make their spouse do anything, including (perhaps especially) love them. The best relationships are between 2 individuals who don't "need" their needs met, but choose 2 meet (or exceed) their partner's needs because they want 2.

 

Frank Pittman seems 2 have a similar professional opinion 2 that of M Scott Peck, though he expresses it rather colorfully at times. People who believe they can (or should) sustain romantic love indefinitely are fooling themselves. It is the "altruistic love," as Jennie calls it, that is sustaining.

 

-ol' 2long

[2long]

Frank Pittman:

 

People who think they can't endure life unless they are "in love" are dangerous. After thirty-seven years in the trenches of family therapy and thirty-seven years in a totally committed, totally realistic marriage, I have come to see "romantic love" as an absurd, albeit delicious, crisis-induced escape from sanity, a narcissistic intoxication with no relationship to loving

 

Despite it all, if one is unpartnered and alone, romantic love can be a resolution to loneliness as magically ecstatic and lifesaving as Robinson Crusoe's spotting of the footsteps in the sand. While it will not last, the fact that it was once there and that memories of it can be conjured up from time to time makes a resultant marriage feel special and right. Of course misery (and/or an extensive sexual and romantic supporting cast) can result if the partners are so foolish as to require continuation of their romantic high for a lifetime.

 

John Gottman finds in What Predicts Divorce that long-term marital satisfaction comes from factors such as companionship and friendship, and the ability to provide support, validation, and understanding, rather than passion and in-loveness. It seems to me dangerous for people to stake their happiness in life on romantic love. They are ecstatic when they experience that most engulfing flight from reality, but miserable when they don't. Romance can pull you out of a funk, but it has far more side effects than Prozac.

 

 

-ol' 2long

[2long]

Jennie:

 

I really do believe that the notion that romantic love is the most important part of a relationship, particularly marriage, is foolish and a setup for major disappointment even2ally. Romance is what allows most people in committed relationships 2 have affairs.

 

There's no difference between romantic love between spouses and that between affairees - either way it's nothing more lofty than a chemical high. But at least when its between spouses it's not unethical, whereas between affairees it is.

 

There are a couple of basic, often "inconvenient" truths that we all must accept about being human on this planet - or at least in this country:

 

*infidelity is not illegal. In fact most people are idiots and rank "romantic love" so high that they often congra2late each other for "pursuing happiness" anywhere they can, regardless of who it hurts.

 

*We all have certain inalienable rights. One of the benefits of being human, is that we have the right 2 make our own choices in life. If our ultimate goal is 2 be enlightened, or even just remembered fondly after we're in the ground, obviously making a choice that hurts those we profess 2 love, like having an affair, isn't particularly expedient. But it is still our right 2 make stupid choices as well as smart ones. Hopefully, those who do choose 2 have affairs learn something useful from the experience after all the fallout has settled.

 

-ol' 2long

[GordonDarkfoot]

Despite it all, if one is unpartnered and alone, romantic love can be a resolution to loneliness as magically ecstatic and lifesaving as Robinson Crusoe's spotting of the footsteps in the sand.

 

Robinson Crusoe? Friday?

 

Who knew?

[seren]

H goes away, a lot, when he is away, especially for the long term trips, we send each other letters, e mails etc, all are loving, some things are mundane day to day stuff, some have poetry (usually from me) some are beautiful expressions of love. Do we talk like this when he is here every day? No, we still love, still act lovingly toward each other, but the absence and the writing of how we feel about each other becomes more romantic, often more intense because we are taking time to express how we feel.

 

When H comes home, I we have the butterflies kind of love, this usually lasts a few days and then we settle into our day to day lives. Doesn't mean we aren't in love, just that we are comfortable with each other - I can think of nothing more loving than settling down at night on the sofa and snuggling, it's a gentle familiar love and while I wouldn't be without the butterflies, it is the familiar love that is the most satisfying.

 

At times when we are out, I look at H and just think Oh how I love that man, it makes me smile. I am sure I could go out, meet someone else and feel the heady rush of passion, but to be honest, I wouldn't swap the famiiar love for anything.

[jennie-jennie]

Jennie:

 

I really do believe that the notion that romantic love is the most important part of a relationship, particularly marriage, is foolish and a setup for major disappointment even2ally. Romance is what allows most people in committed relationships 2 have affairs.

 

There's no difference between romantic love between spouses and that between affairees - either way it's nothing more lofty than a chemical high. But at least when its between spouses it's not unethical, whereas between affairees it is.

 

I never said that "romantic love is the most important part of a relationship". It is one important part of a relationship, and the part that makes this relationship special compared to friendship relationships.

 

There are studies which prove that people are capable of sustained romantic love alongside with altruistic love, so why on earth would you want to settle with less than you can have?

 

And yes, it is all about chemicals in the brain, but so is attachment. Anthropologist Helen Fisher about her study whether romantic love can last where she MRI scanned 17 people who reported they were still in love after an average of 21 years of marriage:

 

"The world thinks that you can not remain in love long term, and we've proven that that's not true. You can fall in love long term - if you pick the right person."

 

"Romantic love is a drug. It is one of the most powerful drugs on earth. And can it last? This is our third experiment and indeed, we found activity in the same brain regions associated with intense romantic love and also deep attachment. The one difference between long term love and short term love is that we find new brain regions associated with calm and pain suppression. In short, the obsession of intense early state romantic love is replaced by a new calm."

 

"LONG TERM LOVE

Ventral tegmental area: Romantic love

Antero-dorsal caudate: Romantic love

Hypothalamus: Attachment

Ventral pallidum: Attachment

Nucleus accumbens core: Attachment

Raphe nucleus and periaqueductal grey: Calm and pain suppression

Obssesion is replaced by calm."

 

(Quotes and slide from Helen Fisher, The Drive to Love:

Enterprise Communications

)

[jennie-jennie]

H goes away, a lot, when he is away, especially for the long term trips, we send each other letters, e mails etc, all are loving, some things are mundane day to day stuff, some have poetry (usually from me) some are beautiful expressions of love. Do we talk like this when he is here every day? No, we still love, still act lovingly toward each other, but the absence and the writing of how we feel about each other becomes more romantic, often more intense because we are taking time to express how we feel.

 

When H comes home, I we have the butterflies kind of love, this usually lasts a few days and then we settle into our day to day lives. Doesn't mean we aren't in love, just that we are comfortable with each other - I can think of nothing more loving than settling down at night on the sofa and snuggling, it's a gentle familiar love and while I wouldn't be without the butterflies, it is the familiar love that is the most satisfying.

 

At times when we are out, I look at H and just think Oh how I love that man, it makes me smile. I am sure I could go out, meet someone else and feel the heady rush of passion, but to be honest, I wouldn't swap the famiiar love for anything.

 

Seren, it seems to me that you are one of the lucky ones who have chosen the right partner. It sounds to me like you have the kind of long term love which includes romantic love, attachment and calm.

[jennie-jennie]

I never said that "romantic love is the most important part of a relationship". It is one important part of a relationship, and the part that makes this relationship special compared to friendship relationships.

 

There are studies which prove that people are capable of sustained romantic love alongside with altruistic love, so why on earth would you want to settle with less than you can have?

 

In answer to my own question above, I guess one motivation to settle would be that you want to honor a commitment once made even though it means that you deprive yourself of the kind of long term love which includes romantic love.

[Tony T]

These forums are for the purpose of asking for and giving advice. Off topic posts, chaos, bickering, etc. are not permitted here. Thanks!

Edited August 7, 2010 by a LoveShack.org Moderator