Wisconsin

Cali's post, and some of the responses to it, have made me itchy to talk about love with y'all.

I know so many of us entered our relationships with our As quickly, intensely, and convinced that we were soul mates of rare proportions. My experience has changed my feelings about that. I still believe in deep, true, lasting love. I believe in monogamy, and in people being dedicated to maintaining love and connections over the long term. I do NOT, however, believe anymore that those things are rare, and only for "soul mates" who "just know" on their first date. I think everyone who is reasonably emotionally healthy is capable of those things. I WANT everyone to feel those things. Deep love isn't just for the chosen few, or the terminally unique.

So...what does real, healthy, grown-up love look like? I mean, we know what it doesn't look like. It doesn't look like getting your boyfriend's name tattooed on your back a month after you start dating (guilty!).

dandylion

I think of love as demonstrated respect and trust. Combine that with some standard biological male/female attraction.....and you have got something that, maybe, you can take home to meet mother...

dandylion

Thumpalumpacus

That sounds pretty damned good to me.

Ariesagain

For me, real love is low drama...no rollercoaster rides from heaven to hell, no breaking up to make up, no grand gestures, no crying jags, no compulsive texting, nothing anyone would make a movie out of...but it's my bedrock belief that this person always, always has my back. We're a team, no matter what.

I don't trust easily...I trust him and have for going on 25 years now. And he trusts me.

dandylion

dear Thumpalumpacus....LOl.....yeah, that sounds good.....
But....I cannot count the number of weddings that I have attended where this is recited......recited by dewey-eyed bride and groom.....only to be forgotten, later amid the noise of divorce proceedings......

dandylion

Bekindalways

Great question Wis. Sometimes I feel like instead of happy/romantic weddings there should be some kind of psychological test, advice based on the results and a hearty "good luck" and that is it. Sigh.

That being said, this morning when my Dad went to the nursing home to take my Mom to daily mass, she tried to bring her pajamas so she could stay with him instead of going back to the nursing home. (They are working on 56 years).

Thumpalumpacus

No doubt, what we thought was love was a passing fancy, and no doubt that a chance encounter results in the blossom of your life. We've all been there, mistaking the obvious.

Quoting Paul isn't an appeal to authority, or a Saturday vow to be forgotten on Monday -- but it is to my mind a good set of guideposts.

In that sense, love is surrender. We compromise, we care for our other more than ourselves, and somehow we still retain our own identity.

AnvilheadII

i think love is when you WANT to hit them in the head with a hatchet....and don't. seriously, it's seeing all the annoying flaws, that are just part of who they are (snoring, coughing, not wiping down the counters, having the romance of a sea urchin) and loving the WHOLE of them.

Priscilla84

I lol'ed at the original post, Wisconsin, as my AXBF started pressuring me to get his name tattooed on me about 3-4 months into our relationship. Of course, he has already promised to be with me for "infinity." Got that promise a month in. I didn't fall for it at that time, and I refused the tattoo. "But I want my name on you so you'll be ruined for any other guy if you ever break up with me." To be fair, I'm 98% sure that was a joke.

I'm so afraid of love now. Not just because of my ex. But the world in general. My generation and the generation after me are groomed to be so selfish. We expect perfection. We are narcissists. We think we deserve everything we want right when we want it because we are just so special. We deserve a perfect partner, even if we don't put work into being a good partner ourselves. One flaw, one bump in the road, and it's off to the next shiny thing. "This isn't fun anymore." How dare anything in your life not be fun 100% of the time?! How unfair! Dump them and find someone who will be FUN! And then screw whoever else you want behind their back because you deserve it, you special little snowflake!

I need love to be patient. The intense beginning of a relationship is such a turn off to me. I told my ex I needed to take things slow because those who fall in love so quick fall out of it just as quickly. So he was kind enough to attempt to wait three weeks before unleashing the intensity. He dropped strong hints before that though. Then when he woke up one day after relapsing and said "gotta go. Don't know what I want. Not sure we are good together. Oops my bad," it was MY fault that happened- because I had been cautious of his love in the very beginning and afraid it might burn out as fast as it came on, and as he so sweetly said as we parted "you're always gonna get your focus."

Well shoot. I'd have become a famous movie star years ago if that were true.

ladyscribbler

I have no idea what real love looks like.

SeriousKarma

Healthy grown-up love looks like trust. A profound and deep trust in all things.

Physical trust
Emotional trust
Financial trust
Spiritual trust
Fart trust (you know what I mean)
Fat trust (things start to wobble over time.)
Sexual trust
Parenting trust

Did I forget anything?

Bekindalways

I'm watching Love Actually and reading this thread during the commercials. Makes me think.

"Love is pushing your boundaries to benefit someone or yourself" Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled

The one time I am pretty sure I actually, actively loved someone was when I left my XABF. And accepted that he needed to be a meth addict.

DesertEyes

I've had many different kinds of love. The 20 year marriage that survived all kinds of challenges, untill she became addicted to pain pills. The instant super-intense nuclear-powered type that lasted untill we both realized it was just a rebound. And a few other kinds in-between.

I think "love" as a word and a concept is completely wrong. Just like the eskimos have 20 different words for snow, we should have 20 different words for all the different types of love. And then love changes over time, both in type and intensity.

I prefer to think of it as music. The kind you hear when two different instruments play in harmony. A good pair of musicians will start out slow and soft, and over the life of the piece change the tempo, volume, contrast, etc. etc. Both players have to be 100% invested in _making_ the piece work, but it only takes one of them to slack off and the whole thing comes crashing down.

Love is _not_ what I feel for my partner. Love is the music that we build together, one note at a time, year by year, over a lifetime.

Mike

Thumpalumpacus

So, I'm thinking I understand your screen-name better now? :P

Cooking trust. I'm not putting strychnine in your coffee, love.

dandylion

Thump.....LOL...LOL!

dandylion

Wisconsin

SK, maybe that's why I struggle with this so much. It is very, very difficult for me to imagine ever being able to really trust someone 100% ever again. I am sure that as I progress through my recovery, and as more time passes, it will get better. But right now, trusting someone feels a whole lot like giving someone the power to hurt me. My head knows that's not true, but my heart hasn't caught up yet.

DesertEyes

Oh I totally get that. I felt _exactly_ that way after I left ex#1. Exactly.

I even promised myself I would _never_ get in another relationship, not ever. Told my sponsor, so I could not chicken out later and change my mind.

Then I started working the al-anon steps, looking at my own part in relationships, started listening to peeps in meetings, and I learned a few things about _me_ that I was doing wrong in _any_ relationship.

I am not supposed to give 100% trust to my partner. That is just me putting all the responsibility for our mutual trust on _her_. I am supposed to give her the opportunity to _earn_ my trust, little by little, with her actions. In turn I am supposed to earn her trust with my actions.

If I suddenly find myself trusting her 100%, all of a sudden, right out the gate, then I am looking at a huge red flag in _me_. If she gets all google-eyed on our first date, tells me she wants to name our first child after me, and that she will adore me forever... that is a red flag on _her_.

* okay, I'm not going to get into dating horror stories, that would be way off-topic *

When it comes to relationships, I have just as many red flags on my side of the street as my partner does.

I am not supposed to give my partner the power to hurt me. If I pay attention to all the red flags, including the ones that are waving above _my_ head, then I will be able to see the hurt _before_ it gets to me.

That is the way it worked with ex#2. We both were totally into the "earn your trust" mode and took things _very_ slowly. By our third year I was starting to see some "pink" flags here and there, which got less pink and more red as time wore on. By the end of our fifth year we both agreed that this was not going to work out long term and we split up.

With ex#2 I felt the normal grief and pain of a relationship that ended, but I did not have the "gasoline on top of fire" explosion of anguish that came from my own dysfunction in my previous relationship. My sponsor says that there is a difference between pain and anguish in a relationship. Pain is normal, anguish is dysfunction.

Today I am still good friends with ex#2. She even started going out with one of my sponsees.... which is a little weird .... but he's a good guy and maybe they will be able to work it out better than I did.

Mike
p.s. I told my sponsee I could no longer sponsor him if he's going to be dating my ex. My recovery is nowhere near that serene.

lizatola

Hmm, to me and in my personal experience today? Love looks different and feels different than it did now that I'm older and...ahem...hopefully wiser!
It's shared experiences, common goals and working together, mutual respect and trust. Physical and sexual attraction(which probably started off as the first means of attraction) eventually come behind intellectual attraction and shared core beliefs and values. It takes time to build and will change and grow as a couple experiences life together. I don't believe that love is stagnant. I believe that love has days of boredom, complacency, days of frustration and anger, but that the current of respect and trust and admiration that lie below the surface are the bond that holds a couple together. Honestly, I believe that trust is the glue that keeps people together and that transparency and vulnerability and being open and honest in EVERY aspect of your being is what keeps a couple growing together in love. Love is just as much a 'feeling' as it is an action and we know through program that feelings aren't facts. So, can we really trust our feelings? That's what Hollywood and romance novels want us to believe. Love is a process to me because it's actions and sharing yourself with someone else fully. And, do we even fully know ourselves today? If we are continuing to grow and learn and flush out our shame and guilt from the past, then how can our partners know us fully? We can only share what we know about ourselves so as we grown, our loving relationships will change and grow with us. Or sometimes, as in the case of my marriage, it may wither and die. Not because I didn't love my ex, but because the foundation of our relationship and what I knew about ME and about God and about love changed. He chose to not grow with me and that's ok.

If one person in the relationship shuts down or puts up walls, then honesty and vulnerability are at risk of breaking down. One partner moves forward, the other moves back or pulls away or has fear or shame or guilt that get in the way. I also have come to believe that self love is key to sustaining a long term relationship. And, that is also a process where I have learned to trust myself first, to love myself as I am, and to accept myself. If I can't accept my flaws AND my assets, how can I love a partner fully?

And, some people may disagree with me here but I feel that saying 'the one', 'my soul mate', etc is just setting folks up for disappointment and that they are buzz words in our society today. By saying these things we are looking to someone else to complete us, that something is missing, that we need someone else to be 'the one'. What kind of expectation is that for someone else? I don't believe in soul mates anymore nor do I want to live up to someone else's soul mate expectation. I did that already and I didn't like being put on a pedestal.
I believe that we find someone we are first attracted to physically, intellectually, spiritually, etc. You find common ground, common hobbies, you teach each other things and share new experiences. You contribute to each other's knowledge base and you become cheerleaders to each other. You serve them without asking for anything in return and you serve them because YOU ARE LOVE not because you want or need THEIR LOVE in return.

healthyagain

I have no idea what "true love" is, but next time I get myself into dating waters, I'll know exactly what not to do and what the red flags are.

So someone says: Oh you love of my life, uuuuh you are my soulmate, we are meant to be together, it is written in the stars . . .

RUN, run for your dear life.

The moment love sounds like an obligation and immediate commitment is required, run. There is something fishy going on.

And beware of Valentine's Day!

SeriousKarma

Just to clarify: When I talk about "trust" I'm talking about my idea of "grown up" love. The question posed by Wisconsin had to do with healthy grown up love.

Personally, I don't think of the types of trust that I listed above as being something one could or should put on a shopping list. I think of them as being things that grow over time. Trust is what differentiates the fire and passion of a new relationship from the warm glow of an established one.

Again, for me personally "trust" is nowhere on my list of what attracts me to someone. That's something entirely different. Important, but different.

I'm also not sure I think we have any control over it. I don't think one can make themselves trust someone. You either do or you don't. It can change, grow over time or lesson. It can be earned, but not forced. Trust is organic, just like love. I remember years ago my XAH petulantly whining the line " I can't believe you don't trust me". Him saying it was the first inkling I had that maybe I shouldn't.

If I think of the arch of love. What I imagine to be an almost perfect relationship is one that starts with two people in each others arms, face to face, all hot and sweaty and excited. Years go by and the same couple are playing that game where both stand facing forward, one in front of the other, and the person in front closes their eyes and falls backwards.