Is love really just an illusion and waste of time?

[Floatsy]

Originally Posted by Somnia

PS. I really like your avatar. It's so blue!

haha Thanks Somnia!

Moon twins!

[Somnia]

Originally Posted by wolfgaze

This begs the question... Why is it so much easier to maintain feelings of love for certain family members, close friends, animal companions - than it is for romantic partners? Does it have something to do with the expectations that are placed on these romantic relationships, the dependency, and the seeking of personal need fulfillment (love, intimacy, acceptance) through another?

I would say having expectations with any kind of relationship, be it romantic or not, would affect the ability to maintain feelings of love for someone...

[jimrich]

Originally Posted by girlsearching

I know I shouldn't be the one to talk, sense I never really been in a relationship nor have I been in love with someone.

Therefore you've never had a motivation to examine and learn the good relationship skills needed to make a relationship work. Love alone is simply not enough. It takes Knowledge of relationship skills and techniques to make love last and get even better but many folks were not taught how as kids and have rarely been motivated to learn how later in life.

I've been thinking about a lot lately. Is love really just a made up illusion, a hallucinatory state of mind?

Yes and no! It's wonderful stuff but can die a very quick death if not nurtured and groomed!

I mean, when I look at so many relationships of people I know in real life, the man either cheats/cheated, or the couple is always arguing, or the man is a bum. And those are the older ones.

Those are examples of ignorant or lazy folks who have never bothered to learn how to make it work or were never taught how by their own ignorant parents. My parents were like that! Dad finally walked out and never came back - THANK GOD!

The younger couples put up this front that they are so in love and have a perfect relationship which maybe they do for now, but I can't help but think of how things will turn out a few years down the road when they're not young and dumb and able to overlook the red flags they've been ignoring for oh so long.

Unless they stop to learn about good relationship skills, they most likely will fail.
If you are interested, just Google: Relationship Skills and learn a few, simple things before you get involved with someone.

[jimrich]

Originally Posted by girlsearching

Maybe I'm just being super negative , but I haven't really had couples growing in my life to admire ( Aside from my Grandparents) .

It helps to have some good role models to see how a good relationship can and should work BUT, without them, there are still plenty of ways to learn how in many relationship books, tapes, videos, workshops, etc. so IMO, there is no excuse for not having a good relationship these days.

[jimrich]

Originally Posted by wolfgaze

This begs the question... Why is it so much easier to maintain feelings of love for certain family members, close friends, animal companions - than it is for romantic partners?

IM married Opinion, it's because the 'romantic partner' relationship is more intimate and intense than the other ones and thus requires a different and stronger set of relationship skills. You don't absolutely need to be: 100% honest and loyal to affirm trust with a family member, friend or animal and you don't have to give total respect and frequent affection to family, friend or animal but you need to be this way, and more, with a romantic partner

Does it have something to do with the expectations that are placed on these romantic relationships, the dependency, and the seeking of personal need fulfillment (love, intimacy, acceptance) through another?

Yes, and that requires the partners to know or learn HOW to make things work for both of them.
It takes specific skills to deal with "expectations, dependencies and getting their personal needs fulfilled by and with each other. Most folks were never taught how to do this at home and so, if they want to succeed, they will have to learn and USE these simple relationship skills along the way or let the relationship go to the dogs as most do anyway.
My wife and I learned these things and we have out lasted every other couple in our family so far. We are not PERFECT but, the few relationship skills we use are keeping us HAPPILY together after 24 years.
It's great stuff! LOL, try it.............

[Jon-Pax]

Love is the oldest emotion

[Tullyquinn11]

I don't think you CAN label emotions.
There are no words for how feelings really feel, each of us feel things differently so you can't really label a feeling.

[The Taoist]

Dear Girlsearching:






I can feel your inner conflict. Let me offer you a brief but clear defintion of what I have learned regarding LOVE.

Firstly, Love is not a feeling of attraction but rather.....it is that of knowing and appreciation, genuine appreciation, which is expressed in acceptance. In this, the knowing is also significant, actual knowing of yourself and knowing of another individual and expressing an acceptance which generates an appreciation. This is the genuine expression of love.

A genuine expression of love between individuals objectively is the expression of allowance of yourself to generate what you want without restriction. Individuals generally define love in association with a feeling. They define love in what is actually affection. That would be the more accurate term for what you generally define as love. Affection is an emotional expression with a feeling. Love is not. Love does not actually involve a feeling. Therefore, the actual definition of love is knowing and appreciating.

It is knowing and appreciating, and that would be a base element of consciousness. But if you genuinely experience genuine love, you can couple that with affection, which generates a powerful expression and experience and feeling. But if you experience it without affection, you will notice that it is not expressed in a feeling. It is a sense, for it is a deep and genuine knowing and the appreciation of that knowing.

Now, appreciation does not necessarily involve an emotion, either. But generally, you do express an association, for you do utilize such a strong attachment to emotion that you do attach feelings to these experiences; but in themselves, they do not necessarily generate a feeling. It is more of a sensing, it is more of an empowering, a genuine knowing and a state of being as the appreciation.

Therefore, if you define love in that term, it is not a distortion. If you define love in association with a feeling, yes, it is a distortion. Does that answer your question?

If you require more insight or clarity, please feel free to inquire.


In Light & Harmony Taoist

[Somnia]

Originally Posted by The Taoist

Firstly, Love is not a feeling of attraction but rather.....it is that of knowing and appreciation, genuine appreciation, which is expressed in acceptance. In this, the knowing is also significant, actual knowing of yourself and knowing of another individual and expressing an acceptance which generates an appreciation. This is the genuine expression of love.

This is a very good way of describing the core meaning of love in the unconditional way...

Originally Posted by The Taoist

A genuine expression of love between individuals objectively is the expression of allowance of yourself to generate what you want without restriction. Individuals generally define love in association with a feeling. They define love in what is actually affection. That would be the more accurate term for what you generally define as love. Affection is an emotional expression with a feeling. Love is not. Love does not actually involve a feeling. Therefore, the actual definition of love is knowing and appreciating.

I think this is why a lot of people get themselves into turmoil when it comes to romantic love when they confuse physical affections as love...The two can go hand in hand when everything is in balance and can be extremely powerful as long as there are no conditions/expectations involved...

Originally Posted by The Taoist

It is knowing and appreciating, and that would be a base element of consciousness. But if you genuinely experience genuine love, you can couple that with affection, which generates a powerful expression and experience and feeling. But if you experience it without affection, you will notice that it is not expressed in a feeling. It is a sense, for it is a deep and genuine knowing and the appreciation of that knowing.

Ah, this part relates to what I was saying about love and affections working together ^_^

Really great post Taoist :)

[girlsearching]

Romantic love is not a necessity and a person should never place their own worth in their relationship status or their partner. You can prosper by yourself just fine. It's nice to be in love but there are people who live without it.
I think the problem is now, as other fonts have said, that there is a significance placed on settling down with a partner. Whereas love can come in many forms without marriage. Love is only celebrated by society when it's romantic but love is also in families, it is in friendships, it is in yourself, your passions.

Laying hands on each other....bad. Never forgiving each other....bad. Being so mad at one another that you don't talk for weeks and can't even look at the other without getting mad.....bad. So unhappy all the time.....bad. That's not your true love and you have every right to leave if you're unhappy.
I believe that you need to look at your parent's. Granted, not everyone has had parents like this, but this is just my story. You know how they say "Ladies, look at your dad to see how you're supposed to be treated as a woman."? Yeah, that's not always the best thing because not everyone's parents are cut out to be parents, but you know what I'm saying right ?

A lot of people have told me about older couples, "They're only together for so long because they grew up during a time where getting divorced was unacceptable in their culture. They probably weren't happy. Just making it work. Ask some of these older couples how they feel about their relationship! They're not happy!"

If you APPROACH love as if it's an illusion, stupid, and a waste of time, you just might find, in the end that you got what you expected.


So whoever you claim to love: are they worthy of your love? Not everyone is. A lot of women are choosing to love men they shouldn't even say "hello" to, let alone have a relationship with.

Do you love yourself? It's hard to love someone else if you don't love yourself. If you don't love yourself first, you may only THINK you love someone else, and the fact that you don't will eventually manifest itself.

These are just some of the things that people need to consider. I mean, love is more than just a notion, and sometimes, love isn't even really love. And even if it is love, all love isn't the same.