I love you....I think...

[B_Kshelby67]

Questions 1- Have you ever said "I love you"? Were you really in love when you said it?

I have, and am happily married to the women I first said it too. When I said it to her, I think then, I did love her, but compared to how I feel for her now, that love is so much smaller.

Questions 2- What is love to you? Do you think you can love more than one person throughout your life? Can you fall out of love?

Personally I think love is greater then human comprehension. It's an emotion that just grows as days go by, and seems to never reach an end. It makes you do some of the stupidest things you could never imagine your self doing. It is the one thing you can think of, when upset and suddenly feel calm. It's peaceful, it's infuriating, it's joyus, it's painful, and all n all, it incoperates every other emotion we can experience, and yet in itself is disturbingly unique. Only able to truely be felt when two people have the same emotion towards another.

Love is the ability to carefor someone more then you care for yourself, to tie all your emotions, good and bad, into the other person for love makes them a part of you. Love is unchanging in it's nature, but has many faces.

I do not think now I could ever love another as deeply as I love my wife. Though, love is different everytime for every couple, so I may be able to love again but never the same love.

As for falling out of love. I think that is possible, I think I may choose to stare at the face of love I find less pleasing, but the emotion, the thing that love is will always remain with me, in my memories, in my heart, and in my soul.

I very much agree with you. You said everything beautifully. Your wife is very lucky to have such a partner. I hope that someday, someone will feel that way for me.

 

[Belly_Dancer]

Question 1- Have you ever said "I love you"? Were you really in love when you said it?

I've loved many people in my lifetime, and I've told most of them. I love easily, and I don't just apply the feeling to romantic partners, I apply it to friends, family, others I care about, and occasionally to virtual strangers. I find most people easy to love, and certain people to be especially lovable.

To me, love (at its best) is caring about someone's best interests, and being willing to sacrifice some stuff of your own, if necessary, to bring about what they need. It is spending time with a person, and paying attention to him or her. It is forgiveness, understanding, and acceptance. It is being on the side of the person you love when the world is tearing them down, not adding insult to injury by tearing them down yourself (as I've seen many people do). It is gentle honesty. It is believing in someone, even when they can't seem to believe in themselves.

As much as I have loved, I have spent most of the last 17 years believing that there was no such thing as being "In Love." Until recently, I chalked those kinds of experiences up to hormones, plain and simple. There was lust, and there was love. No need to confuse one with the other -- to do so just fucked things up, or so I believed.

But the reason I believed that was because I had a broken heart. My heart had repeatedly been broken, and it was safer to believe romantic love didn't exist than to admit it did, and I would never have it (because I was so committed to remaining in a relationship that could never make me, or my partner, happy).

When I was in my cocoon last fall as Chrysalis, a wise person said to me, "Being in love is subjective. If someone says they are in love, then they are." Interestingly, two men I met on this site philosophically helped me believe in love again, and I ended up falling deeply in love with one of them (Artfulwilly).

Countless people have said "I love you" to me, and I've said it back countless times (and almost always meant it).

But I think I've only been in love twice in my life. Once as a teenager, and again now.

But now that I've got my head on straighter, I can see that I've never fallen out of love with the guy I loved so many years ago. And I still love many of the partners I've had.

Question 2- What is love to you? Do you think you can love more than one person throughout your life? Can you fall out of love?

To me, love is not exclusive -- I am perfectly capable of loving more than one person at any given time. This is a very hard concept for some people to understand, but NIC_160 already eloquently made some points about it, so I won't rehash what he said. I'll just applaud it.

I am committed to Artfulwilly as my Partner and feel closer to him than any man I've ever known. I have no desire at this time (and may not ever) to have another lover, because he fulfills everything I could possibly want or need. But does this mean I love him and only him? No. It just means I love him the most out of everybody. And I am sanely (not madly!):wink: in love with him.

Can you fall out of love? Yes, I think you can, but I think you can also make the choice to stay in love. I don't think falling out of love is inevitable, nor do I think diminishing sexual gratification in a relationship is inevitable.

I used the following analogy once when talking with Artful:

I have been masturbating for over 20 years, and I am not at all tired of fucking myself. Obviously, when I have a partner, I don't need to masturbate as much, but overall throughout my life, my sexual needs have remained pretty consistent.

If I don't have to get tired of fucking myself, then why am I obligated to get tired of fucking a specific other person? The answer is, I'm not. It's a matter of choice.

During my marriage with my ex, there were a number of times when our sexual relationship virtually disappeared, only to come back later, sometimes in different forms.

But every time we stopped having sex, it wasn't because we were tired of the sex. It was because we had emotional issues with each other outside of the bedroom -- resentments, hurts, etc. and because of those, we didn't feel as comfortable being intimate.

My ex and I have since discussed a lot of this (we're still great friends) and realized that during the times when we weren't having sex much, we were still individually getting off as often as we needed to (more often for me than for him).

Anyway, the rambling point I'm trying to make is this: I believe that in couples, when sexual desire or feeling "in love" fades, it is a symptom of one or more other problems, not a problem in and of itself.

A lot of people would say Artfulwilly and I are being naive, but we don't think so -- we truly believe that if we love each other according to the true definition of love, accept each other and keep the way between us clear of resentment and conflict, then we will just as naturally stay in love.

 

[Love-it]

#1. Yes. Yes.

#2. I love my wife. Why? I don't know. I can't explain it and when she ask's why I love her I tell that I don't know why but I do.

 

[B_NineInchCock_160IQ]

Well, fuck you very much for misunderstanding my point, and blaming me for your error.

well, fuck you very much for misunderstanding mine, and taking offense at the presentation of my reality which had nothing at all to do with you personally.

 

[IntoxicatingToxin]

Questions 1- Have you ever said "I love you"? Were you really in love when you said it?

Hrm. I have told five guys that I loved them. I truly, honestly meant it with four of them. The other guy, I think I just wanted so desperately to be in love that I pretended I was, even though I wasn't. I loved them all on different levels though, based on my life experience and what I believed love truly was at the time. My first "I love you" went out to my first REAL boyfriend when I was 16. I never thought I could love anybody more than I loved him, but I've come to realize that's not true. As I grew older, and understood people more and appreciated them more, I had a more realistic idea of what love is, and I loved differently... in a good way. My second "I love you" was to the guy that I didn't truly love, Jerry. I was heartbroken... still in love with Peter. I just wanted to be in love again. My third "I love you" was with Robert. Our relationship was very short-lived, but I fell for him hard and fast, as he did with me. He killed himself about 6 months after we broke up. I was 19 when that happened almost exactly 6 years ago, and I still think about him. I miss him. Not in a romantic way necessarily, but he was such an amazing man. My fourth "I love you" went to Shaun. I spent about a year of my life with him, and it was great. We're still friends. In fact, I'm friends with all my exes, except for Robert. My fifth "I love you" went out to Mark. He and I were together for 3 1/2 years and broke up almost one year ago. He's the one who "adopted" my son since my sons biological father chose not to be around. (Oddly enough, I never told him I loved him!) So of course Mark and I talk on a pretty much daily basis... we get along well, and we do what we have to do to raise our son together. I hold a special place in my heart for all of these guys. Even Jerry, the guy I didn't truly love. They all meant something to me, and they all affected me in very profound ways. I could never forget them.

Questions 2- What is love to you? Do you think you can love more than one person throughout your life? Can you fall out of love?

ready, set, go!

Obviously, I believe that we're capable of loving more than one person, and yes, I think you can fall out of love. Like I said, I hold all of my exes very dear to me, but I'm not in love anymore with any of them. As far as the first part... "What is love to you?"... I don't even know where to begin. I'll have to cogitate on that for a while and let you know. When I figure it out, the answer will be heinously long. Just to forewarn you. :smile:

 

[seterwind]

I very much agree with you. You said everything beautifully. Your wife is very lucky to have such a partner. I hope that someday, someone will feel that way for

me.

Why thank you Shelby, I'm sure a women with a mind whose luscious wit and intellect (which reflects in your posts) is couple with the beauty/seductiveness that is your body, will be able to attract many men. And within that cornucopia of males that will (if not already do) swarm to you, I do believe whole heartedly you should be able to find one whom will love thee deeply, and elegantly.