posted February 19, 2013 03:38 AM            

how do you define the difference between true love of your life and love?

is love fearless and fights or does it fold because love is not supposed to be hard and difficult?

does love endure?

can someone be that emotionally closed off and refuse to work on the relationship and acknowledge problems?

how do you get love back?

how do you know you love someone and what would make you fight for them and flee away from them?

is love scary?

posted February 19, 2013 04:10 AM            

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Originally posted by northvirgo:
how would you define love?

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Originally posted by northvirgo:
how do you the difference between rue love of your life and love?

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True love and love? I don't understand the question.

But taking a stab at it I'll say that there's the difference between love & infatuation. Real love is about sharing and standing together, helping each other more often than not, and feeling the happy & sad moments of the other person as intensely as your own. (Some sick people excepted.) Of course mistakes get made but it's easier to forgive someone you love (OTOH it's easiest to hurt the ones we love than any other and when forgiveness doesn't come, watch out!)

Infatuation is about not caring about how the other person feels and instead trying to smother them, control them, perhaps cut them off from others and get rid of their pets, because you don't love them you just want to own them and typically expect him or her to fulfill a fantasy in your mind rather than be who the person really is. Real love can let go even though it hurts, but infatuation cannot and is more likely to punish the other for failing to comply with one's sick and extremely selfish demands because it's not love that cares for the other person as a human being independent of one's self. And when the object of obsession actually submits to this (usually a woman, I think because of that "beauty and the beast" garbage she's raised with from childhood, though I can't help but notice every woman I knew well who did this had a history of being sexually abused as a child, and I suspect that's true of the 2 men I knew like this as well) it's downright scary, such a person is like a pod person to me and I've been seriously creeped out in the past.

Both love and infatuation can apply to children (either love them or instead love a fantasy and try to force the child to conform to it, for example) and friends as much as romantic interests.

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Originally posted by northvirgo:
is love fearless and fights or does it fold because love is not supposed to be hard and difficult?

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Depends. But generally speaking life is hard so one has to be strong. Love can also help us be strong.

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Originally posted by northvirgo:
does love endure?

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Sometimes.

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Originally posted by northvirgo:
can someone be that emotional closed off and refuse to work and acknowledge problems?

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Of course. OTOH, others can be so intense in projecting their own infatuations that they're sure the other person actually loves them (or would if given a chance) and these people often become stalkers, and sometimes worse.

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Originally posted by northvirgo:
how do you get love back?

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Make amends, seek forgiveness and healing? But I'd have to ask if it's worth it because if it's a mix of love & hate, that's a very dangerous mix and the stuff crimes of passion are made of.

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Originally posted by northvirgo:
how do you know you love someone and what would make you fight for them and flee away from them?

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If you don't know then I'd say you don't love them (but then there's that dysfunction that gets mistaken for love mentioned above that creeps me out in which the victim and/or stalker THINKS they're in love and are loved but those people are out of touch with reality in more ways than one, and I explained the difference above).

I suspect when you say "fight for them" you mean to have someone rather than defend or support someone so I'll say if they're willing to fight for our relationship then so am I. If they don't care to then I won't bother. And as for what would drive me away that would be someone who tried to smother me or made me fear for my safety.

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Originally posted by northvirgo:
is love scary?

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It's usually a little scary at least because one is so vulnerable. Also, when one passes the crush phase into something deeper then chemicals in the brain suppress serotonin IIRC, essentially when you feel good you feel really good but when you don't then you feel a lot of anxiety (though after awhile this passes and those who love each other can become very comfortable with one another). And then there's fear FOR a loved one, too...

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Originally posted by northvirgo:
thank you.

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posted February 19, 2013 04:50 AM            

Love shouldn't be scary, if should make you happy. Before either fighting or folding, you should try to work things out maturely. Love does endure but abuse should never be involved, for that isn't love.

Love requires trust and trust can build or break the strongest love. The two go hand in hand...and getting it back? That generally requires work. Like a fixed broken mirror or re-flatted crumpled paper, it may never be perfect again, but that's all a part of life, and it adds dimensions and uniqueness, yes?

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posted February 19, 2013 01:40 PM            

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Originally posted by Randall:
Love is exiling a troll back under the bridge.

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posted February 19, 2013 03:28 PM            

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Originally posted by northvirgo:
What I got most out your reply was that true love is willing to let the person you love go in order for them to be happy

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posted February 19, 2013 03:43 PM            

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Originally posted by PixieJane:
Yeah, but I think it gets more to the point to say true love is about caring about the other person as you do yourself so that his or her needs are just as important as your own (which as an example can mean letting go when you don't want to).

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posted February 19, 2013 03:57 PM            

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Originally posted by MillyX:
Baby don't hurt me don't hurt me no more ~

lol i couldn't help but think of that song when i read the title

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Same here! Haha.

posted February 19, 2013 05:06 PM            

If a person comes into your life and then you part ways, it wasn't love, that person was put there to teach you a lesson or else it was infatuation. True love endures.

And this is relevant to platonic love as well as far as I am concerned.

posted February 19, 2013 05:08 PM            

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Originally posted by sweet-scorpion:
Same here! Haha.

But in all seriousness, I feel like love is quite difficult to define. This is coming from a Venus-Saturn and Saturn-Descendant person, so I do have a more realistic but somewhat cynical view of love... the Piscean/Scorpio influences tone it down some. But to me, love is pain. It's learning how to get through fighting, differences, and especially the other's flaw or the other person being able to accept every part of you. True love to me is a soul connection, and can come in the form of friends or sexual relationships - love knows no bounds, and there's nothing wrong with loving your friend. I feel like love is genuine when you are able to embrace each other totally...and survive beyond petty fights or large arguments, and life crises.

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posted February 19, 2013 05:19 PM            

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Originally posted by Aquacheeka:
This is going to sound very Saturnian but I instinctively feel like love is tied with longevity.

If a person comes into your life and then you part ways, it wasn't love, that person was put there to teach you a lesson or else it was infatuation. True love endures.

And this is relevant to platonic love as well as far as I am concerned.

I've had people come and go in my life, I appreciate what they meant to me at the time and in some cases they made a huge impact, but I still wouldn't call it love. Maybe I'm stubborn that way.

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posted February 19, 2013 05:24 PM            

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Originally posted by aquaguy91:
well that sounds good on paper but i'm going to have to disagree. what if the breakup/divorce wasnt mutual and one person never gets over it? that does happen sometimes.. my uncle never remarried after his wife divorced him, the family would always encourage him to move on but he wouldnt, he would say" cindy was the only woman for me,i still love her." also you're position on the issue depends upon the love being mutual, that doesnt always happen.sometimes we love people who dont love us back, but that doesnt mean our feelings arent real.

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posted February 19, 2013 05:28 PM            

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Originally posted by Aquacheeka:

How can we love someone who treats us like dirt or discards us? That means we are idealizing someone instead the person (and most likely the relationship as well) instead of seeing the person for who and what they are. Which I'm not sure is love so much as self-delusion or self-pity.

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posted February 19, 2013 05:31 PM            

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Originally posted by aquaguy91:
not neccesarily...not every split up is because one person treated the other like crap, sometimes the two people just dont feel the same way about each other.

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Well personally, I think in order to truly love another you have to first love yourself and if you're pining after someone who doesn't deserve your love, that is a marked lack of self-love/self-respect. That isn't genuine love, that's martyrdom.

This is of course also dependent on whether you are the type of person who believes that people are victims of their feelings or whether they have some measure of control over them.

Personally, I don't believe someone can just "fall in love" with someone else, like, "WHOOPS! I'm married, but I love this person now! Who is not my spouse! Oh well!"

posted February 19, 2013 05:46 PM            

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Originally posted by Aquacheeka:

Well personally, I think in order to truly love another you have to first love yourself and if you're pining after someone who doesn't deserve your love, that is a marked lack of self-love/self-respect. That isn't genuine love, that's martyrdom.

This is of course also dependent on whether you are the type of person who believes that people are victims of their feelings or whether they have some measure of control over them.

Personally, I don't believe someone can just "fall in love" with someone else, like, "WHOOPS! I'm married, but I love this person now! Who is not my spouse! Oh well!"

I think love is actions as much as declarations and as such we cannot be victims of our love. So to use that as an example, that individual would have chosen to take the steps that would facilitate a romantic relationship. They would have fostered that relationship; they didn't just "fall in love."

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posted February 19, 2013 05:49 PM            

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Originally posted by aquaguy91:
people have control of whether they "act" on their feelings or not, but they dont have control of the feelings themselves. for example: if someone says something that ticks me off i can choose to punch them,cuss them out or walk away.

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posted February 19, 2013 06:05 PM            

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Originally posted by Aquacheeka:

Well going back to your uncle as an example, he could very well have chosen to get out there and meet someone else and then those feelings would have had a chance to develop and grow with someone else, thus allowing his pining for his ex-wife to fade with time as his feelings for someone else grew, but he chose to be single and avoid potential hurt or rejection again/to carry that torch and to idealize his former relationship. That was his choice. I wouldn't say he was completely helpless in the matter. So again I would have to disagree.

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posted February 19, 2013 06:58 PM            

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aquaguy91: what if the breakup/divorce wasnt mutual and one person never gets over it? that does happen sometimes..

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Our refusal to learn a lesson doesn't make the lesson go away. Perhaps in the next life, the person will have to learn to move on and grow from an un-mutual break up AND have take care of kids at the same time. Now they have the lesson from their past life and the lesson from this life, how to put your children before you, to learn. As an example.

posted February 19, 2013 07:37 PM            

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Originally posted by Aquacheeka:

How can we love someone who treats us like dirt or discards us? That means we are idealizing the person (and most likely the relationship as well) instead of seeing the person for who and what they are. Which I'm not sure is love so much as self-delusion or self-pity (both very Neptunian concepts.) Neptunian love is often linked with 'unconditional love.' It means maryrdom, self-sacrifice. Personally, I think that's a fallacy, I think love is more Saturnine in nature. It gives and it serves but it does not suffer fools gladly. I guess it depends on your perspective.

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My 'rents have, for the most part, discarded me, and I have few fond memories of being a child in their care. Nevertheless, I feel love & compassion (though not trust) for both, yet I'm not in denial about my feelings being one way, I don't deny how they've wronged me, but neither do I cry tears over it, it simply is what it is.

Granny is leaving me the house for multiple reasons, which Mom is expecting to get (she's not going to be pleased when she finds out it's me who's getting it either and I'm expecting her to fight me in court for the deed with some dirty tricks, but as I know her repertoire of dirty tricks, and Granny has already fortified her will against Mom's likely legal actions, I'm not particularly worried about it, I'm more worried she'll burn the place down out of spite when she loses). Under me she'll be allowed to live there and in all ways treat it as her house while I'm not there. Should I move back (as a last resort, but possible) she'll even get to keep the master bedroom, I'll just take the room I slept in when I (and she for that matter) was a little girl, and I'll show her more care & consideration than she did me when I was growing up (though I'll be ready to put my foot down when she tries taking advantage of my goodwill). I do have compassion for her, and I believe I love her, though it's a very wary love. It's not martyrdom, and it's not seeing her as "simply misunderstood, I know she loves me deep down and will one day realize it," it just strikes me as love & compassion with realistic expectations of her.

posted February 19, 2013 08:09 PM            

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Originally posted by Aquacheeka:
I would also add as a last thing, that I think it's possible to feel something for someone while recognizing that it's not love. Like in my case I feel a strong lingering attachment to someone from my past because of our shared history. I wouldn't call it love, though, just because there are feelings that exist.

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