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Does Love Exist? If So Is It Worth It?
notme
Registered User new member
Registered User new member
So I'm in a relationship with a pretty neat girl, but I don't think I'm really in love with her. Basically I'm looking for opinions as to if/how much this matters as far as long term relationships go.
Some background information:
So Internet strangers what do you think?
Some background information:
- I've never been in love.
- While I believe love to be a strictly biological function I am concerned that I might fall in love with some one else at a later point.
- I've had several previous girlfriends.
- I'm not gay.
- We have good sex on a regular basis.
- I enjoy spending time with my current girlfriend, and look forward to spending time with her.
- We have a good number of common interests, and similar tastes in many areas.
- She has made statements that lead me to believe she may love me.
- I may have some commitment issues that are causing me to subconsciously look for a reason to leave her in order to avoid being left myself.
- I want to have a family if I were to have a family with her it should probably be in the next few years(biological reasons).
- She has a number of non life threatening health issues that worry me on a fairly regular basis, as I find it disturbing to see her discomforted.
- Said conditions are heritable, and I find it mildly worrying that if we were to have children they would be similarly burdened
- Despite the fact that she is attractive and is easily able to arouse me, on occasion I have though that I could "do better" in the looks department(I am aware that this is incredibly shallow).
- I have thought that I may be "wasting her time" as most people are looking for "true love" some thing I may never be able to provide.
- I don't want to break up with her, but will be forced to either do so or marry her in just over a year(citizenship reasons on my part).
- She has already offered me a marriage of "convenience"
- One of the main reasons for not wanting to break up with her is that it will probably hurt her(white knight complex?)
- I am perhaps putting way too much thought into all of this
So Internet strangers what do you think?
notme on
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Just relax.
How is this in any way logical? You think it wont hurt years down the road? Shes offering marriage. You're a dick.
Bad bad bad bad idea. Bad.
If he is already worried about not having strong feelings for her, getting married won't help any, and deep resentment rather than deep appreciation can develop over time.
I don't think you should marry somebody if you are this unsure. And while I'm not one of the people who thinks divorce is never an option for anybody ever, marriage should be a lifelong commitment, and getting married now with the thought that you can just get divorced in a few years if things don't work out super well will end up hurting more in the long run
And to Awk, I don't understand what you are trying to say. Although I do feel like a dick when I consider breaking up over some possibly fictitious conception of love.
Hes saying that if you leave later down the line, possibly after you get married or have children, because you think you can do better or might fall in love with someone else like you said your worried about, then your going to hurt her a lot more than if you just get out now.
Is that the answer you'd like? You obviously think something of this woman, enough to write down your feelings and concerns on a message board and ask for advice. I think if you truly didn't have any feelings or emotions for her, you wouldn't have bothered writing this up. I'd say relax and see where it goes. It's not like you have to make an immediate snap decision on something like this. Or that you should make a quick decision about it.
Honestly, life is sort of trial and error. Do what feels right. I'm sure this girl knows you, and she knows what she's getting into. Honestly consider whether you think you would be better off with someone else, and how important this girl's happiness is to you. I don't know how old you are, but this sounds sort of like midlife crisis material. Remember that you might always be tempted to *think* the grass is greener on the other side of the fence, but it's usually just more of the same.
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But, bear in mind, that if you remain without this love, the relationship does not stand a chance at permanence. Breaking up is the inevitable outcome here. Unless you do find you're in love with her. But that's nothing you can encourage or coerce. It's either going to happen or it isn't. Trying to convince yourself or fake it is only going to make it a dirty break when it does happen.
And yes, you are overthinking it. A lot. You said you enjoy spending time with her, so spend time with her and enjoy it. Until the necessity presents itself where you are forced to make the distinction between love and mutual enjoyment as it pertains to the progression of your relationship, nothing constructive will come over any amount of deliberating you may or may not do.
It kind of really backfired and I've learned my lesson when it comes to looking for an undefinable attraction.
I don't think "love" as depicted in romantic comedies or movies really exists, at least not in long, healthy relationships. However, being extremely intimate with another person, really valuing and enjoying their company, are symptoms of long term love in my opinion.
Do not confuse infatuation, or the "honey moon" phase with love. I think the problem with love is that as a society, we've had advertisers tell us what that is, and as a result, it's poisoned many people's conceptions of what a healthy relationship and love entail.
Even if you didn't, you seem to be saying that you want to want to love her (doubled on purpose), if you don't already want to love her.
To break it down even further, there are two things you're talking about here, intent and capability. You seem to say you don't know if your intent is to love her, but your actions and therefore capability seem to say you do actually already love her.
If there is more to it then what you have like you think there may be, then make it happen. "Be the change you want to see in the world" - Ghandi.
Do what is good with what you have. Anything else is gambling.
But it just happens man - You don't go looking for it, and there was no way I thought it was going to happen to me, not then. I don't know if I'll ever find someone I'll love like that again, which too be honest is an absolutely terrifying thought. It made my life worth fighting for, and pushes me to be a better person every day, so yeah - it's really worth it.
my advice to you comes in two parts - first, never marry anyone out of convenience. Second, you need to spend some quality time thinking about yourself and the future, and what you want out of it. Maybe you need to go be single and get to know yourself better, I can't say. But self discovery is an incredibly difficult thing to do when you're in a serious relationship with someone else.
Don't let 'what ifs' cloud current judgement.
Think about what you have now and compare it to being alone
You do not appear to be becoming attached and ready for something more serious from what you've outlined in your post. Therefore.... here are my comments in no particular order:
- You and this woman seem to have different concepts of what you want out of marriage and relationships. For that reason, it would be best if you left her so she can pursue that with someone else.
- Marriages of convenience are not between two people dating who are having citizenship issues. That is not the definition of marriage of convenience, techically. There's probably another phraze. I don't know your g/f's motives but I have a sneaking suspicion she likes you more than you like her. I hear alarm bells, not wedding bells.
- Your girlfriend will be miserable eventually if you marry her and do not love her, because it does not appear from your post that she shares your opinions on biology/love and most likely her genetic suitability. Not trying to be a d-bag, just saying my advice is not to get married, and to allow this relationship to end when the citizenship problem you alluded to forces its end, or break up early.
- You're *concerned* about falling in love with someone else? That's an unsual choice of words. I see from your post thats because you believe love to be biological, unavoidable occurence. If this is your belief, then it is important that you wait until this occurs for you with a future woman. It would be pretty awful to suddenly fall in love with a co-worker after marrying your g/f and say "Oh well, sorry wife but I gotta go to this other woman now, its biology."
- It sounds like you are concerned about age and having a family at a particular age. I assume you're a guy, which means you have some additional time to be fertile, lucky you! However I do sympathise with you because I also have strong feelings about the 'right' age to have a family. People do leave it too late and wonder why they can't start a family at 35. There's always other girls to fall in love with, just because this wasn't the one don't start a family because of fear of your age.
Also, there is no time pressure. Absolutely none.
...
What was I talking about? Oh yeah, relationships are things that happen in life and they are kind of an interesting challenge and simultaneous pleasure. Holding out for "the one" or "true love" is silly, and something we can only convince ourselves is happening. So just go ahead and do that, make it easier on yourself. Or maybe you just feel you are not ready, and you need to feel heartache and pain before you make the plunge, if that's true, do that. Above all HF, and remember it's just a game.
...or real life or whatever, what's the difference?
People don't get into relationships because they're in love with the other person. Not often, anyway. That's something that builds over time. How much time? It depends on the relationship. Like I said, unless being in love becomes necessary for the progress of the relationship (and, really, the only people who decide when exactly that point is are you two) then it is literally not worth worrying about. So don't. Making bullet point lists or Pros and Cons columns will only frustrate you.
As cliche as it might sound, love isn't something you can gauge, predict, quantify or entice. It's also not incredibly easy to identify. Love is different things to different people.
You say you don't think you're in love with her, but she arouses you sexually and you have fun together and you look forward to having more fun together, so obviously to you, love is more than those three things. So it's up to you to ask yourself what the missing piece is, and if that piece is able to be filled in. If not, you're simply delaying the inevitable.
EDIT: As an addendum, you really seem to be worried about becoming tied to this girl. Your commitment issues, your mentioning that "if we wanted to get married/have kids we'd have to do it soon etc" and "I'm afraid I'll fall in love with someone else later on in life etc." How old are you, by the way? Even if you love someone, if you feel as though you aren't ready to be in a committed, long term relationship, then you shouldn't be.
Get it?
You are LYING TO HER about some of the most serious shit in life. Lying. Lying. Lying about your feelings for marriage. Commitment to love honor and cherish and you're just fucking around about it. To repeat; Jesus fuck.
Bull-mutherfucking-shit. You find it uncomfortable and you want to avoid it. Worse, you are using her feelings as an excuse to keep being dishonest. You may not have understood or realized you're doing it, but now you do.
You should leave, but even if you don't, please be honest. if you honestly care about her at all you'll at least tell her what you told us and let her decide what to do from there. It's the right thing to do. Love maybe isn't enough to make a relationship work, but lying is fucking toxic to relationships.
I love my wife very much but before we got married I did the whole "is this the right thing? Are we good together?" thing. I decided rather quickly that she was probably the best girl I've met and the best partner I've known, so it was rather straightforward.
It's OK to have doubts about your relationship, but your problem seems to be simply a definition of love. What would you define love as?
PSN Hypacia
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I suspect that this "missing Piece" is what you are hung up on. I can't say if you are in love with this woman, but you clearly care for her. You certainly feel more for her then some random stranger.
As for your fear that you will find someone better. This is an illusion, there will always be people that you will imagine are better in one way or another but you are only seeing part of this imagined person. Sure they may be pretty on the outside, but they could be horrible people. Or maybe they might seem to like something you like more then your current mate, but are horribly inept in many other ways.
Like DiscoZombie said...
Don't stick it out because you are afraid you will hurt her. If empathy is all you feel towards this girl, then its over. On the other hand, don't throw away something good just because you aren't sure it is "love" as yet undefined by you.
You've said you worry about her, this is one good sign that you love a person to some degree.
You say you enjoy being with her, another sign.
Really, not something we can define for you, first you need to figure out if you are actually in love...and if so...accept it.
"I may have some commitment issues that are causing me to subconsciously look for a reason to leave her in order to avoid being left myself."
Ok this is a problem. This is probably the root problem. I think you are absolutely right - you have commitment issues. You've seen that this girlfriend may have an interest in letting in go further; but you're afraid that if you do, you will progress past the "point of no return" that you've likely built up in your head. You may believe that going past that point will result in one or both of you getting horribly hurt.
You NEED to get over this fear; the potential for getting hurt is kinda what love is about, unfortunately. You have to accept that if you want that incredible high of love, you might get stuck with the incredible low of heartbreak. If you want to spend the rest of your life in the same emotional doldrums, then don't ever commit - you won't have incredible happiness but hey, you won't have incredible sadness either!
You are also extremely insecure about yourself. "May not be able to provide true love"... "don't want to hurt her"... Stop worrying about this.
And about "doing better in the looks department": Dude, you need to mature if you're honestly going to consider "looks" as a viable reason to reject someone for marriage. Marriage is kinda supposed to be for the rest of your life (unless you already have other plans?) so at some point, one or both of you is going to start to sag and wrinkle and get liver spots, etc etc. Her mind and her personality should be the FIRST criteria that you feel you could "do better on", NOT her looks. As long as she turns you on, that should be enough. If "looks" are your first criteria, you're going to keep rejecting girls until you get a Barbie lookalike.
Sorry, but relationships and love are something you figure out on your own. Only you can make the best call, and it's best because you made it.
My sister once told me she though of love like a race, one where the only worthy competitor was her lover, where they constantly strive to run ahead of each other only to be delighted at the neck and neck closeness.
I have friends who describe love as being comfortable with each other, being attracted to each other so strong that no force could pull them apart, being able to sit in the same room for five minutes, or even something a simple as considering her indisputably your best friend.
But for you, the question remains...
What is love?
No, that's a good definition. I find love for me is the feeling that I can be myself around the other person, I don't hide a thing. We can sit in the same room without having to entertain each other and still enjoy each other's company.
And you find yourself looking forward to seeing that person if you're away...even for a few hours.
(Baby, don't hurt me, don't hurt me no more)
I'm sorry, I've been resisting it, and this just broke me.
And I was beat!
My husband can sit in a room together and not have to talk to be comfortable. I know what he's thinking, and he'll bring home things from the library that I want without me asking for them. It's love.
PSN Hypacia
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Discord Hypacia#0391
Anyway, I would say that if you aren't sure, either stop the relationship now, or be prepared to hide your uncertainty for the rest of your life, because screwing her with a divorce later is not cool.
Is it worth it? For some people, yes. I need someone in my life that I can share it with. I get lonely easily and, when I was single for a while, quite depressed (even though I had lots of friends...they just don't do it for me.) For others, being alone is okay, even preferable. In that case, love isn't worth it, or even really possible. Only you can say what type you are.
Oh and for those of you have asked we're both late 20s.