futility of romantic 'love' - Page 4

u r right about these being the only solutions in the realm of reality. and each one of them is so full of sadness at the outset.

in the realm of fantasy, there are two more solutions tho' :
1. that he will see the value of what we had and understand that i cannot help but leave unless he changes
2. that i had grossly misunderstood every thing about him and his evidence.

for two years i have been part of his life, dealt with his infidelity (thru his fantasy) and shown him how he broke my soul with it.

he did a lot to convince me that it meant nothing, but he didnt do the one singular thing that wud have saved us - he didnt close doors or exercise any better control on himself.

i suffered and my despair came out as anger. and both of us got damaged - him thru my anger and me thru his acts.

its not that he does not know what i felt. he had full knowledge and full understanding of my issues. but maybe there was a block in revealing it to himself.

maybe he thot he cud get away with it like most men do. maybe he thot, as cynic-al mentioned that me closing one eye to this wud result in us both keeping a good thing. maybe he seriously believes that life and love are delivered to him thru discrete packets of experiences by different women - each one delivering a different experience but all doing it in the same span of life- and so no one encroaches on another becos they satisfy different needs. maybe he does it all in purity and his love for me is true and does not get affected by his lust for another or his exploring with another. just as one can love many many offspring - he loves/ lusts many women. maybe i was the one who did not 'see' him correctly

who knows !

but clearly there is a difference between what i need and what he needs. and walking this path of romance together , in our current mindsets is not going to work for either of us. i am tired of the grief of jealousy and the callousness i percieve and he is probably tired of having to defend himself and of my anger.

so it leaves us with only the three unhappy solutions u mention !

even if i choose to go into a coma now and refuse to think feel or act for a period - eventually one ofthese three paths will get chosen, either by me or for me, by serendipity.

I don't think that your view is wrong at all. I think you have an amazing perspective on your heart and the world around you.

Listen to me.

What you seek is beautiful and pure. You could spend your entire life searching for this beauty and your life will not have been wasted. Embrace your heart and soul. Don't settle for less.

Even if all three of your options are sad in the outset, you will make it through this. Keep hope in yourself and your values. If you can't find the strength to stay true to yourself, you will never be truly happy.

I am only 19. I am learing and still very young. I may be an idealist to the core, but I know this is true in my heart. I will never settle for anything less. Also, I must reassure myself that no one is perfect of course. But there are boundaries that must be upheld in my heart.

I truly empathize with how you feel. <3

there's only one guiding principle i have followed - 'to be true to myself' .

and u r right - that its easy to compromise - but its so so hard to stay on course. i would love to just give in and say the hell with this fight, at least there is some happiness with him. but i have been there and know how temporary that peace can be.

being true to yrself is the only stable way. and will lead to a permanent solution. the rest are all solutions based on cheating myself.

( these, by sheer coincidence happen to be the phislosophy of not just gandhi but also some other books like the gita)

'truth above all else"

when i was young i was an idealist - and then as u live life u give up on a lot, u comrpomise, u bend backwards. all done to save this or save that - save the relationship, save yr self concept , save the structure of family and so on.

but today i'm closer to what i used to be at 20 - the circle is nearly complete. back to being myself.

(and to give my guy his credit, it is his presence that brought me back to the person i used to be and had given up on. but its just ironic that he is facing the impact of my idealism which i need in our little story )

I've never been an idealist, always a cynic, thus i always feel the need to run and hide when people use "i know that it's true in my heart" as backup for anything (nothing personal zach). I am probably not the most useful person to have here, but as a cynic among idealists i feel the need to play devils advocate.

Surely relationships are based on compromise, no relationship can survive purely on one person dealing with the wants of the other, there has got to be compromise. Is there nothing you do that hurts him to a similar extent to how his fantasising hurts you?

Another question is do you love him? (having just been sad enough to read back through the previous 4 pages, i noticed you never actually came out and said as much) I have been with my girlfriend for 2yrs8mnths and i love her to the point of distraction, but there are things she does occasionaly (completely unintentionally) that nearly destroy me, i have asked her to try and avoid doing them, and she has made some effort, she has by no means completely stopped, as like i said they are unthinking actions. your husband is no doubt doing the same but trying to deal with a much more deeply rooted primal urge that he must overcome, it is your strength as much as his that will deal with the problem, remind him when he does it and adise him how to avoid it.

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and to give my guy his credit, it is his presence that brought me back to the person i used to be and had given up on.

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this would suggest to me more than anything else that he deserves the time and effort to work through the problem.

if everyone agrees with everyone we wud probably not arrive at a robust model that survives the next contradiction. in fact, cynic-al, u are as useful, if not more, thru yr dissidence.

1. i can see what u are saying about the compromise bit.
there are things that are too critical and too much a part of u to compromise on and others which are important but not critical.
to start with lets say i was made up of 100 factors which were important to me, of which 10 were critical to my self concept and 90 were just important. all of those 90 i can give away happily - just so that "we" can be happy together. then as life progresses, i bend backward and give away 5 or 8 more and lose myself along with it. the point is that these critical ones are meant to be presevrved at all costs so that my spirit doesnt die just to save 'us'. and i think thats the point i had reached.

2. what hurts him about me is things that have happened in my past when he was not a part of my life - exes. things i cannot change anymore. but i have seen him completely get devastated when those resurface in his memory. and no matter how much i argue about his issues being current and mine being past, i know that the pain we both feel is of similar magnitude.

3. yes. i love him like crazy. all that i am unsure of is the relationship.

where love is concerned there are parts to it.
one is all that he is and stands for that i love him for.
second there is all his loving and doting that he showers upong me that i enjoy.

and finally there is the relationship or the interaction which is a manifestation of the love as we live life thru our words and actions with each other and with others.

it is only the relationship which is trouble. the love is too deep on both sides and chances are it may not ever die.

but the relationship gives pain and hence all these questions.

4.

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he deserves the time and effort to work through the problem.

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THIS comment is making me rethink and sad and sadder !!

I think that if you love each other you should fight as much as possible. I think you may have already fought long and hard.
You can try your hardest to get him to work through this but realize we cant make people change. If he wont, or doesn't realize that there is a problem which he needs to work on himself then you must walk. You cannot compromise these critical self concepts.

If you can't cope then he must change. If he won't/doesn't except this change that is needed then you must walk.

There is always the possibility of him coming to the realization of all this and change completely like I have in the last few months. But then again I do not know every factor within the situation.

Well, for me.. I feel a bit lonely and that I may never find a women who I can relate to in this way. I have dreams everynight of meeting someone amazing. But it doesn't happen. All I have is hope.

I think zach may well have summed it up there, they guy is worth the fight, but if the fight is turning into the hundred year war then mayb backing out is the option. i would however still say that for as deep seated an issue as the one you are trying to deal with 2 yrs may not be quite long enough for things to change noticably. (though if i remember correctly you did say he had given up some habbits?) also when he asks what is wrong with it just tell him that it bugs you, mayb then he will stop talking to you about it, and if he isn't making the comments will then move on to just not thinking about it.

yes two years is not too long in real time. but considering the fact that i have talked to this man more than i have spoken collectively to everyone else in the rest of my life, that two years is quite enuff. and i talk a lot to everyone !

right at the start of the relationship this issue cropped up and it has not been resolved. we are still at the stage where he denies that it "shud" have any impact - so the point where he will acknowledge it and the situation may get better is a few light years away.

in the meanwhile, while i fight, it has also impacted my psyche and have gone a bot crazy. so everytime i see a woman dressed sexy - it comes back to me as 'wud he find her fuckable ?' - women on the road, women in the media are all personal threats to me as seen thru his eyes. this damage is a bit wild - and i have never competed or felt threatened in this way ever before. so while its a great love, its also pretty scary.

whether a guy IS in love or isnt. its not something to be negotiated. and if he IS in love, i cant see how he'd let hismelf so easily out of control. in the first place his head shud be so full of me, that there is no space for anyone else.

if that hasnt happened, maybe there is someone else out there for him who will do this.

and as for me, i can love him, but the bridge of a relationship - built on words and acts, which wud deliver my love to him, must be shut.

two years we fought to keep this bridge open - without arriving at a solution that worked for both. now the love can remain within our souls and does not need to be communcated.

its time to give up.

Spicesoup - Do you hope to find someone else who can love you for who you are and all in all? To find someone who can meet your expectations? (atleast the "essensial" ones?

Or are you going to give up completely on everything?

I hope its not the latter.

its a hard stage right now.

i know that he is my final destination. and i think also that i am not his.

my love for him remains. for things that he stood for. for things that i fell in love with in the first place. bad things that did not suit me have happened but those qualities still remain in him.

i think i will not stop loving him. and so my search and my lifelong quest is done. i gave it my best so that we cud be together in day to day life as well. but if that is not to be, then its only one part of the whole story. the other part is love i live in my soul.

the interaction and the relationship i give up on. there needs to be no more access to each other anymore. because in a reduced format its only going to bring more pain.

but there was the infininity of this experince which i am not giving up on. there was a feeling of 'this is all i ever want to be doing'.

and so i am ok to live in the memory of that part. which i still think i am lucky to have experienced at all.

i am giving up on expectation from him. i am giving up on his presence in my days in the future (except as a memory). but i am not giving up on the love he has evoked in me. or the experience and how real it was once.

i think that is the most fulfilling path forward. soon my anger and the hurt will be gone. but the pain of missing him will remain and will get overcome by the memory of what we had.

am somewhat content to live like his widow maybe (not in the sense that decius meant widow) ? and its not for him. its just the only thing i want to be doing.

i'll live my truth while he can go and live his.

I went through the same problem as you, Spice soup. I was with my ex-boyfriend for 3 1/2 years before I broke up with him. Throughout the entire time, I always loved him. Eventually, I fell out of love with him. I always thought that he loved me, and there were just certain aspects of him that I thought I could stand. For example, I always treated him better than he does to me. I put in more effort to accomodate him, and him less. But I was okay with it, because I loved him, and I figured, "Well, I can accept that side of him." However, in the end... if someone you love is hurting you and they know it, they don't REALLY love you. Maybe he does REALLy love you, but if that's the case, do you want him to continue his actions and hurt you in the name of love?

exactly my point too

if he KNOWS he is hurting me - which he does - and still continues, his love is questionable.

and so i react my not letting him get the benefit of my love anymore.

loving him is something i am driven to do - and is happening involuntarily right now - it hasnt stopped just becos of the hurt he caused me.

the hurt he caused - only points to the fact that he did not love me enuff or in the way i imagined. and i think its not something we can change.

the emotions we have evoked in each other at steady state - after two years are in their mature stage and i doubt i can stop feeling love for him.

but the relationship is what can be managed and i have withdrawn from that. so that i dont expose myself to more hurt and him to my anger.

Good girl. I know that it feels like you can't help but continue the feeling of loving him. But, I went down that road and continued for a while. I realized that even though I loved him, eventually it turned into disliking him. So, it was actually easier on me emotionally when I decided to part ways with him because I alreayd lost all those feelings. When a person has had enough, that's what happens. The point of the matter is, you love him and treat him the way YOU want to be treated, and if he doesn't love you like he would LOVE himself... WHY would you want to stay. YOu deserve so much more. If you give 100%, then you should receive 100%. My point isn't that you have to count everything to the tee, but at the same time, it's important to preserve your dignitity and not feel taken advantage of. If you let that happen, you lose more than you bargained for.

Spicesoup- Im am amazed that you have the strength to pull through in the way you have described. I think that must have taken enormous amounts of strength on your part. Im glad you are no longer letting him take advantage of you in that way. You got people on this forum who are here for you, even though we are only text on a screen. ^^

Digital_Kitten- I was with my girlfriend for 2years 2months and she broke up with me for, what sounds like the same reasons you broke up with your ex. I didn't give my all to her and I let her down numerous times, yet she never let me down once. She deserved better, but now she is dating my bestfriend. Terrible situation + both her and my bestfriend knew I wasn't over her when got involved with each other. It had only been a lil over a month since we broke before all this happened. I think it was terrible of them. Anyways, thats not the point. I had issues with porn throughout our relationship and I always struggled to keep my mind in complete control. This was because I didn't realize what I could have had. Once she left me I knew I made a huge mistake by not giving my all. I thought I was giving my all and I was except about the porn. I now realize this and have changed. Just some food for thought.

may i commend you on coming to such a well reasoned and thought out decision on the matter. thinking through matters that concern your love life is always a hard thing to do.

it seems ironic that guys seem to be stuck in one of two mindsets, either we appear to be complete assholes and never give as much as we take, or we try far too hard and attempt to give so much that women just find that we get irritatingly under their feet. I would count myself as in the latter of the two (as the lesser of two evils) but still wish there was some way of finding a middle ground.