"What Is Love?"
"We live under a massive cultural delusion about the nature of real love … inundated with the belief that love is a feeling and that when you find 'the one' you'll sense it in your gut and be overcome by an undeniable sense of knowing. When the feeling and corresponding knowing fade (for the knowing is intimately linked to the feeling) and the work of learning about real love begins, most people take the diminished feeling as a sign that they're in the wrong relationship and walk away. …
"Love is action. Love is tolerance. Love is learning your partner's love language and then expressing love in a way that he can receive. Love is giving. Love is receiving. … Love is recognizing that it's not your partner's job to make you feel alive, fulfilled, or complete; that's your job. And it's only when you learn to become the source of your own aliveness and are living your life connected to the spark of genius that is everyone's birthright can you fully love another.
"Although it's nearly impossible to capture this elusive word into a single definition, M. Scott Peck says it poignantly in The Road Less Traveled:
"'Love is as love does. Love is an act of will -- namely, both an intention and an action. Will also implies choice. We do not have to love. We choose to love.
"'By stating that it is when a couple falls out of love that they may begin to really love I am also implying that real love does not have its roots in a feeling of love. To the contrary, real love often occurs in a context in which the feeling of love is lacking, when we act lovingly despite the fact that we don't feel loving.'
"And as my favorite fiction writer on real love, Kate Kerrigan … writes in her fabulous essay, Marriage Myths:
"'You don't have to encourage it, or welcome it, but you better learn to suck it up from time to time. We have mythologized love to such an extent that people are no longer prepared for the realities of long-term relationships. … But here's the good news: when the initial infatuation feeling fades and you do the real work of learning how to love and be loved, something infinitely richer and sustaining than flimsy infatuation flowers… Over time, these plants grow roots that are sturdy and strong. They are nourished by soil that is well-worked as you've sat beside each other and yanked out the weeds of intolerance, impatience, frustration, and fear.'"
-- Sheryl Paul, M.A., "What Is Love?"
(Courtesy of @LiterateHiker , who referenced the article in another post's comments.)
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Do not be confused Time has a limit money has a set limit but love does not. If I marry and I have a 100% of love to my wife then I have a son I say 100% of my love is to my wife to have no love to my son no love grows to 100% again to my son then if I have another child all my love is taken I have no more love. That is also bullshit then I also love my 2nd born a 100%. Love other women love people it's exponential and limitless.
PinkyandtheBrain
Level 7
Oct 28, 2018
1
Although I disagree with her assertions on monogamy and the "best" sex, I think Dr. Susan Johnson's scientific approach to love is highly accurate in just about every other respect. I recommend this book: [amazon.com]
The major point is that love/attachment (love and emotional attachment are essentially synonymous in her view) represent an evolutionary survival strategy of mutual interdependence: stronger together. The model of original attachment is the primary-caregiver (usually mother) and infant bond, in which the infant is totally dependent on the primary-caregiver for survival and the primary-caregiver feels a deep, instinctual need to nurture. This system is thought to be recycled in adult romantic pair-bonding, whereby the system is now more mutual instead of one-sided. That would make excellent sense, given that human infants are all born essentially premature compared to every other species, and require more support than one person can easily give. Adapting a compelling system for keeping at least one other partner around for a while makes excellent, adaptive sense from a survival standpoint.
Once you understand this perspective, it accounts for just about every feature of love you can imagine: joy at togetherness, despair at separation, a feeling of need, a desire to nurture, etc., etc. And it's not just for hetero partners or those with kids - we all share the same genetic tendencies in this regard. I can also confirm both from scientific studies and personal experience that working from this perspective is the most effective couples therapy modality in existence.
As a side note I would argue it also helps account for the life-and-death feeling of jealousy some people experience as a result of an anxious attachment style, but that may be a bit technical. In any case, I myself have been able to successfully work professionally with polyamorous partners still using this model and it works great. Almost all problems in love can be attributed to interruptions or distortions of the essential desire for loving connection that is one of deepest human strengths.
Having come from a background of information technology before becoming a therapist, I sometimes compare the emotional attachment system to the ubiquitous networking protocol we now use for internet communications: TCP/IP. Emotional bonding allows for "networks" of at least two and often more to form as tight, cohesive teams in order to meet common goals - the most compelling and evolutionarily salient one being the safety, growth, and nurture of the members who comprise the team.
ejbman
Level 7
Oct 27, 2018
1
@sweetcharlotte TCP/IP is a communication standard that allows computer networks to interact. The point is to show that emotional connection allows humans to interact in networks as powerfully and flexibly as we see happening with computers (and even more). It’s a metaphor.
If you care to know more technical details about TCP/IP, here they are: [en.m.wikipedia.org]
As for love’s strength, I don’t know that frequency has as much to do with it as consistency.
As for polyamory, I am not necessarily advocating it, only pointing out that it is at least as valid as pair bonding - and possibly stronger in some circumstances.
The last sentence was just describing the evolutionary benefit of small networks forming regardless of size, applying equally to the pair-bond or a larger network (including, perhaps, polyamorous groups or even just extended family). Examining their evolutionary benefits can help account for the existence, nature, and function of networks and their constituent mechanisms - the main one I’m examining here being emotional attachment / love.
Does that make more sense and/or answer your questions?
The least you can do is credit me for posting this Sheryl Paul quote, "What is Love?" first in:
That's just good manners. You asked for the source of this quote, and I provided it.
LiterateHiker
Level 9
Oct 27, 2018
6
The socially-accepted normative model of 'marriage-targeted serial monogamy' is chock full of some incredibly toxic behavior models being normalized, like aggressive jealousy, complete monopolization of the other person's time, affection, and energy, lies and trickery as everyday occurences, there's a lot of really selfish and toxic things that people regard as just the 'normal' way a romantic relationship is supposed to operate.
geist171
Level 6
Oct 27, 2018
1
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