In love versus love

[NoIDidn't]

Interesting posts, GordonDarkfoot.

 

A lot of people think that love is involuntary. Its a common fallacy that is used just as you say, to avoid taking personal responsibility for their actions and their emotions.

[Spark1111]

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.

[jennie-jennie]

Staying in the relationship for 25 years was your choice. I suspect based on some other stuff you've posted in this thread that the "real" reason you stayed so long in an unsatisfactory relationship was because you were raising three children with him, and there are a lot of practical reasons to stay together "for the kids" even if the relationship isn't very satisfactory.

 

Once the kids got old enough and you found an alternative, you jumped ship. A lot of women (and men) follow this pattern of relationship behavior.

 

All I can tell you is if you're trying to refute M. Scott Peck's viewpoint, doing so by referencing your own relationship history isn't very persuasive.

 

Gordon, I think it would do you well to post about your own story and your own experience instead of trying to figure out somebody else's.

 

For everyone who knows me IRL, this is yet a hilarious post. I would never stay for the kids! I only stay for love. And sex.

[Owl]

A Cherokee Legend

An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life. "A fight is going on inside me," he said to the boy.

 

"It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil - he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego." He continued, "The other is good - he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you - and inside every other person, too."

 

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, "Which wolf will win?"

 

The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed."

 

I think this applies to ANY feeling you have inside you that conflicts with another.

 

It applies to the concept of love as well.

 

"In-love" is simply the attraction that you chose to feed.

 

If you "love" two men...you'll be "in-love" with the one with whom you choose to invest in the relationship.

 

My wife struggled with this in the days of her affair. She felt that she was falling out of love with me...and falling in love with OM.

 

She was...because she was taking away from the relationship with me, and investing in the relationship with OM.

 

Once she stopped investing in that relationship...and chose to start once again investing the relationship with me...her feelings for me returned.

 

But...she felt those "toe-curling, spine-tingling in love feelings" with OM because it was a new relationship that she was investing in. The relationship with me isn't new. So the love that we share and feel isn't the exact same feelings as the "in love" that we shared back when we met...or that she felt with OM.

 

My thoughts on the subject at least...your mileage may vary.

[jennie-jennie]

Falling in love is a chance to a revolution of your life. It is up to you if you take that chance or not.

 

"We fall in love when we are ready to change, when we want to discard a past, worn-out experience, and have the energy and strength to begin a new exploration and change our lives. We fall in love when we are ready to use untried abilities, explore new worlds and fulfil dreams and desires we had renounced. We fall in love when we are deeply dissatisfied with the present and possess the inner fire to begin a new stage in our existence. For falling in love to take place, therefore, there must be something amiss with the present, a slow accumulation of tension, a great deal of vital energy and then, finally, a spark to trigger it all off. Falling really in love follows on from a crisis in existing relationships, from an impression of having gone wrong and having got caught up in something unreal and false, while feeling acute nostalgia for a truer, intenser and more real kind of life."

Edited August 4, 2010 by jennie-jennie

[Owl]

Falling in love is a chance to a revolution of your life. It is up to you if you take that chance or not.

 

Agreed. ~ Edited to add: I agreed when this was the only line. The rest of the concept of something being amiss is something totally different...and I don't agree with it.

 

You can choose to do so, or not.

 

But then to follow up, the difference between the "feelings" of love (as in a long term partner) and "in love" can be huge. They're not the same thing...love morphs and changes in how it feels over time.

 

Love as a verb is then again an entirely different thing...it's a choice to DO something, rather than a choice to FEEL something.

[jennie-jennie]

Falling in love is a chance to a revolution of your life. It is up to you if you take that chance or not.

 

"We fall in love when we are ready to change, when we want to discard a past, worn-out experience, and have the energy and strength to begin a new exploration and change our lives. We fall in love when we are ready to use untried abilities, explore new worlds and fulfil dreams and desires we had renounced. We fall in love when we are deeply dissatisfied with the present and possess the inner fire to begin a new stage in our existence. For falling in love to take place, therefore, there must be something amiss with the present, a slow accumulation of tension, a great deal of vital energy and then, finally, a spark to trigger it all off. Falling really in love follows on from a crisis in existing relationships, from an impression of having gone wrong and having got caught up in something unreal and false, while feeling acute nostalgia for a truer, intenser and more real kind of life."

 

Edited to add:

 

(This is the presentation of F. Alberoni's book "I Love You - A Theory of Love" by Falling in love Center.)

[donnamaybe]

"We fall in love when we are ready to change, when we want to discard a past, worn-out experience, and have the energy and strength to begin a new exploration and change our lives.

Well this just guarantees people flitting from one sex partner to another. There's no lasting love promise in this sentence at all. I can't see a day when I would ever call my sweet man a "worn-out experience" even if the lovemaking becomes predictable. He's too good a man to ever be viewed as a mere sex toy for my personal pleasure.

[jennie-jennie]

Well this just guarantees people flitting from one sex partner to another. There's no lasting love promise in this sentence at all. I can't see a day when I would ever call my sweet man a "worn-out experience" even if the lovemaking becomes predictable. He's too good a man to ever be viewed as a mere sex toy for my personal pleasure.

 

And that is how you should look at him. That is how I always look at my relationships, like they will last forever. Sometimes it turns out though that my life needs a bit of a revolution.

[GordonDarkfoot]

Gordon, I think it would do you well to post about your own story and your own experience instead of trying to figure out somebody else's.

 

My story has nothing to do with understanding a quotation from M. Scott Peck. Your story is only relevant to the discussion to the extent you've broached it in the discussion.

 

For everyone who knows me IRL, this is yet a hilarious post.

 

Well I'm very curious to see if your statement is actually true. Since you made a claim about what you think others viewpoints will be, why not print out the entire thread, show it to your ex-SO and your current MM, as well as others you feel close to, and actually get their reponses? I seriously doubt they'll find anything about this thread to be "hilarious."

 

 

I would never stay for the kids! I only stay for love. And sex.

 

I thought you only stayed for "in love."

[Feelin Frisky]

When all is said and done, love is a subjective phenomenon that defies universal definition. But what I think the "falling in love" or "being in love with" usually starts with is a waking up of passions with someone slightly or very much out of reach. Let's ask ourselves if we feel those butterfly or weak-kneed feelings for someone who seems attracted to us and makes the first move toward us and how it's different from developing feelings for someone who may not even notice us and our eventually winning their reciprocation. The dynamics of satisfaction are very different.

 

If one acquiesces to the person who makes the first move, even if there is a mutual attraction, and then builds a LTR or even marries that person, they may come to consider that they love that person--feeling protective and warm and comforted in the relationship. But is that the same thing as harboring passions about someone and "winning" their reciprocation? That usually is full of romantic extremes--some of heart break some of enormous joy and fulfillment but usually always a possessiveness and undercurrent of worry that you were the pursuer and they your quarry. Such a range of passions and insecurities can be summed up in the notion of having fallen in love with or is in love with the object of our affections because we have invested so much more emotional capital in putting them on a pedestal and loving the idea of them as much or more than loving who they actually are.

 

If we have to choose I think most would choose the second scenario--the one with all of the perils and pitfalls than the one of easy acquiescence. In the acquiescence scenario we tend to fail to experience the range of emotions that are all part of the "animal being" which underlies our spirit.

 

In as much as there's no denying that we are first and foremost animals and not some "created being" separate and above, we should consider the lengths to which many animals go to "win" the mate of their choosing. They fight to the death often without any assurances that the mate of their choice will choose them in return. And female animals are known to play roles of the "won" while having secret dalliances with the object of her affections whether he was a loser in the battle or a non-combatant grazing up the hill somewhere.

 

So, "love" is relative and subjective and contingent. It is a moving target of passions--passions which are addicting and sometimes cause people to drop everything about who they were and transform themselves for an ideal they may never achieve. Or it may take the form of acquiescence to the security of being the object of another's passion and living somewhat outside of the animal model, making human vows to forsake all others even though they usually have no clue what that can mean until someone else wakes them up to their real nature. That brings such heroes and victims to none other than Love Shack.

[jennie-jennie]

Agreed. ~ Edited to add: I agreed when this was the only line. The rest of the concept of something being amiss is something totally different...and I don't agree with it.

 

You can choose to do so, or not.

 

But then to follow up, the difference between the "feelings" of love (as in a long term partner) and "in love" can be huge. They're not the same thing...love morphs and changes in how it feels over time.

 

Love as a verb is then again an entirely different thing...it's a choice to DO something, rather than a choice to FEEL something.

 

To me love has the basis in an emotion. From that emotion eminates action.

 

It all starts with falling in love. Then that emotion morphs into love (and in-love emotions).

[GordonDarkfoot]

Well this just guarantees people flitting from one sex partner to another. There's no lasting love promise in this sentence at all. I can't see a day when I would ever call my sweet man a "worn-out experience" even if the lovemaking becomes predictable. He's too good a man to ever be viewed as a mere sex toy for my personal pleasure.

 

Also, I think the Alberoni quotation portrays a very negative view of falling in love, as a reaction to negative events existing in one's life, rather than as a joyous, positive affirmation of a new relationship.

[jennie-jennie]

My story has nothing to do with understanding a quotation from M. Scott Peck. Your story is only relevant to the discussion to the extent you've broached it in the discussion.

It would still be interesting to know who we are talking to.

 

Well I'm very curious to see if your statement is actually true. Since you made a claim about what you think others viewpoints will be, why not print out the entire thread, show it to your ex-SO and your current MM, as well as others you feel close to, and actually get their reponses? I seriously doubt they'll find anything about this thread to be "hilarious."

 

Oh, my MM has already read it. For obvious reasons I can not show it to my exSO.

 

My MM so agreed you do not understand a iota about me or my life.

I thought you only stayed for "in love."

 

I include "in love" in love, which is what I have been trying to convey all along in this thread.

Edited August 4, 2010 by jennie-jennie

[Owl]

To me love has the basis in an emotion. From that emotion eminates action.

 

It all starts with falling in love. Then that emotion morphs into love (and in-love emotions).

 

Ahhh...but this is where you get into that chicken and egg conundrum.

 

When you do the action...it generates the feeling.

 

When you feel that feeling, it makes you want to do the actions.

 

It starts with attraction...then you do the actions which leads to falling in love...which morphs into long term love.

 

But the ACTIONS (feeding the wolf) generate the feelings.

[donnamaybe]

And that is how you should look at him. That is how I always look at my relationships, like they will last forever. Sometimes it turns out though that my life needs a bit of a revolution.

Well, unless my guy suddenly becomes a whole different person, I will always keep loving him. And not just because he makes my pu55y wet. I fell in love with him for reasons MUCH more substantial than that.

[donnamaybe]

Also, I think the Alberoni quotation portrays a very negative view of falling in love, as a reaction to negative events existing in one's life, rather than as a joyous, positive affirmation of a new relationship.

Yes - negative from the viewpoint of a person who truly understands love. It's not just that feeling you get in your stomach - that little pleasurable tingle of promise.

 

The reasons I love my man are - well, here's an example. He was at the house this a.m. and I was at work. My older son called and needed to come out to the house to cool off from a spat with his gal. She was taking the car later so he couldn't, and he had no way of getting there. I called my sweety and asked him if he wouldn't mind going to get my son and bring him out to the house, even though I knew he had things he needed to do. Apparently he heard the trepidation in my voice at the thought of even bothering him with MY son's problems because in a later conversation, just as we were finishing talking, he said, "Oh, and hon? Please don't ever be afraid to ask me to do things like that for you like take one your kids somewhere." He just wanted to reassure me that he cares for me and mine so I wouldn't worry about making such requests of him.

[GordonDarkfoot]

It would still be interesting to know who we are talking to.

 

Well you are free to look at my posting history if you'd like.

 

 

 

Oh, my MM has already read it. For obvious reasons I can not show it to my exSO.

 

I don't understand the part you wrote that is "bolded." You stated your exSO was now your friend. What about anything in this thread, do you feel uncomfortable about showing to your ex SO, and why? What are the "obvious reasons" for concealing the thread from your exSO if you are willing to show it to your current MM? Please explain.

 

 

 

My MM so agreed you do not understand a iota about me or my life.

 

I would be happy to listen to what he has to say, perhaps you should invite him to start posting on Love Shack.

 

 

 

I include "in love" in love, which is what I have been trying to convey all along in this thread.

 

No, actually, you distinguished "love" from being "in love." You pointed out that they are two different things, that you can "love" someone without being "in love," but that is unsatisfactory.

[jennie-jennie]

When all is said and done, love is a subjective phenomenon that defies universal definition. But what I think the "falling in love" or "being in love with" usually starts with is a waking up of passions with someone slightly or very much out of reach. Let's ask ourselves if we feel those butterfly or weak-kneed feelings for someone who seems attracted to us and makes the first move toward us and how it's different from developing feelings for someone who may not even notice us and our eventually winning their reciprocation. The dynamics of satisfaction are very different.

 

If one acquiesces to the person who makes the first move, even if there is a mutual attraction, and then builds a LTR or even marries that person, they may come to consider that they love that person--feeling protective and warm and comforted in the relationship. But is that the same thing as harboring passions about someone and "winning" their reciprocation? That usually is full of romantic extremes--some of heart break some of enormous joy and fulfillment but usually always a possessiveness and undercurrent of worry that you were the pursuer and they your quarry. Such a range of passions and insecurities can be summed up in the notion of having fallen in love with or is in love with the object of our affections because we have invested so much more emotional capital in putting them on a pedestal and loving the idea of them as much or more than loving who they actually are.

 

If we have to choose I think most would choose the second scenario--the one with all of the perils and pitfalls than the one of easy acquiescence. In the acquiescence scenario we tend to fail to experience the range of emotions that are all part of the "animal being" which underlies our spirit.

 

In as much as there's no denying that we are first and foremost animals and not some "created being" separate and above, we should consider the lengths to which many animals go to "win" the mate of their choosing. They fight to the death often without any assurances that the mate of their choice will choose them in return. And female animals are known to play roles of the "won" while having secret dalliances with the object of her affections whether he was a loser in the battle or a non-combatant grazing up the hill somewhere.

So, "love" is relative and subjective and contingent. It is a moving target of passions--passions which are addicting and sometimes cause people to drop everything about who they were and transform themselves for an ideal they may never achieve. Or it may take the form of acquiescence to the security of being the object of another's passion and living somewhat outside of the animal model, making human vows to forsake all others even though they usually have no clue what that can mean until someone else wakes them up to their real nature. That brings such heroes and victims to none other than Love Shack.

 

I like your post, especially the bolded paragraph. :bunny:

[jennie-jennie]

Well you are free to look at my posting history if you'd like.

 

I have already done that. As far as I can see it reveals nothing about who you are or why you are here.

 

I don't understand the part you wrote that is "bolded." You stated your exSO was now your friend. What about anything in this thread, do you feel uncomfortable about showing to your ex SO, and why? What are the "obvious reasons" for concealing the thread from your exSO if you are willing to show it to your current MM? Please explain.

 

Nobody can be that stupid.

 

I would be happy to listen to what he has to say, perhaps you should invite him to start posting on Love Shack.

 

He does have a screen name here. Yes, who could he be?

 

No, actually, you distinguished "love" from being "in love." You pointed out that they are two different things, that you can "love" someone without being "in love," but that is unsatisfactory.

 

To refresh your memory:

 

Anthropologist Helen Fisher divides love into:

Sex drive

Romantic love

Attachment

 

I need all three for a relationship to be sustainable.

[jennie-jennie]

Well, unless my guy suddenly becomes a whole different person, I will always keep loving him. And not just because he makes my pu55y wet. I fell in love with him for reasons MUCH more substantial than that.

 

:laugh: I am completely with you there - on all accounts!

[jennie-jennie]

Also, I think the Alberoni quotation portrays a very negative view of falling in love, as a reaction to negative events existing in one's life, rather than as a joyous, positive affirmation of a new relationship.

 

Wow, have you ever read anything of Alberoni? His portrayal of love is a very positive one. What you are reacting to is his explanation of why you may need to move from one relationship to another.

[donnamaybe]

:laugh: I am completely with you there - on all accounts!

But his dick could fall off tomorrow, and I'd still love him and stay with him. So much for the description of "in love" because the version that's been bandied about here is all about sexual feelings.

[Spark1111]

Also, I think the Alberoni quotation portrays a very negative view of falling in love, as a reaction to negative events existing in one's life, rather than as a joyous, positive affirmation of a new relationship.

 

Not only does it stem fom negativity, but I find it highly romanticized as the end all be all "rescue" from a sad existence; the Knight In Shining Armor Love that transforms all aspects of one's very existence.

 

While I believe in the transformative power of love and support from our SO, I rescue myself.

 

I choose who I love.

[Spark1111]

Wow, have you ever read anything of Alberoni? His portrayal of love is a very positive one. What you are reacting to is his explanation of why you may need to move from one relationship to another.

 

Oh yes, and many parts are beautifully written; but I would never be in the depths of despair in all parts of my life to realize I was in a less than fulfilling relationship; and I would not look for true love to rescue me from my last relationship.

 

I control my fate. My fate does not control me. I love myself enough to not need someone else to rescue me.

 

That is too much like the Cinderella Complex to me; believing Prince Charming will ride up on his steed and make my life perfect.

 

I make my life rich to the fullest extent I can; I am responsible for my own happiness in all aspects of my life; my lover's love just completes it.