What is love?

I have found that love is something that comes from knowing the other person and then appreciating them and growing closer to them with a deeper awareness of them.

Going completely by feelings is not always a best rule, though you should have good feelings.

Hey, if you make a mistake it's not the end of the world. Love is where you find it. For me I found it in Oregon

 

Love is comfortable silences, love is taking care of each other, love is mutually bustin' out laughing sometimes during arguments, love is work- that at it's finest feels like play...

But, then again...Someone once said love is a trick of lighting.

 

Every time I read the title to this thread I think of Night at the Roxbury and then I giggle to myself.

 

My wife left me two months ago, and she's left me with a painful realization: I have no idea what love is.

I think I still love her, but my emotions run the gamut. Maybe I just still want to fuck her. At least I'm sure of that. But I also feel rage, anger, sadness, betrayal, jealousy, fear, pity, sympathy, tenderness... I can tell it's going to be a long time before I mellow out and everything fuses together into some kind of perspective.

I never got married until I was 42, because I never wanted this to happen. She'd only been married once before (because she got pregnant) and told me I was the only guy she'd ever met that she felt like she could spend the rest of her life with. But we didn't even make the five year mark.

There were problems, almost from the start. She has to be surrounded by animals and (mostly male) friends all the time. She hates material possessions. She came into my life with nothing but a beat-up '84 Honda Accord, two dogs, and her clothes and art supplies. She argued with me when I put her on my medical insurance. She doesn't have a bank account. She doesn't have a credit card. She didn't have a credit rating until I married her. She doesn't even have a driver's license in this state, and we've been here almost two years. She hates "Man's World Stuff."

I hate it myself, but I recognize the need to deal with it. I had to carry my end of that load, and hers too. I came to resent that.

At some point, I realized that I was taking a back seat to her hippy lifestyle. Hell, it wasn't even the back seat, I was in the trunk. I developed a lot of anger. She doesn't compromise. Given a choice between her menagerie and entourage, and me, she picked her menagerie and entourage. Our marriage has already sucked down more than half of my life's savings.

I let her co-sign on the house we bought nine months ago (I paid every penny of a $30,000 down payment, and have made every payment since) and for about six weeks after she left me, she said she wasn't going to sign the deed over to me unless I took out a line of credit on its entire equity, let her use half of that to lease some land out in the country to hold "Burning Man" type festivals on, and use the other half of the line of credit to pay its own interest for two years (that deal is like rolling a snowball in reverse--ask an accountant, you end up with nothing). I wasn't to be allowed to participate in the negotiation of the lease-option agreement; I was simply to hand over the money. She said if I did that, she might come back, if my attitude toward her changed. She said if her business venture failed, she promised to pay back every cent.

With what? She's a dog groomer. She's so broke she can't pay attention. The failure of her deal would have left both our credit ratings in ruins. Plus, by the time she made that demand, she'd already renounced her vow of sexual fidelity, said she was divorcing me, moved out, and (I'm more than fairly sure) had sex with a really scummy guy as a symbolic gesture. Needless to say, I wouldn't sign anything.

She finally got that through her head three days ago, gave up, and signed over the deed, so at least I still have a home.

But oddly enough, in spite of all of that, I still love her.... or part of me does. I can't even say that what I'm feeling is love/hate. It's more like love/rage, or love/pity. I've come to believe she's not entirely sane.

Looking back over this, I realize I've made it sound like I'm a materialistic, Man's World drone, but I assure you, I'm not. I simply worked very hard over the years to achieve things like owning my own home, and I'm not going to throw that away on a business venture that sounds like a whacky recipe for failure to me.

Years ago, when the reality of our situation was starting to dawn on me, I yelled at her, "By the time you're done with me, you're going to have me squatting in the woods in a breechcloth!" It does look like that was where we were going. I believe she's still going there, she's just decided to not take me with her.

And I don't want to go where she's going.

I also realize I've made it sound like she's a terrible person. She's not, although she's become perfectly terrible in her behavior towards me. Two nights ago, I lost my temper with her again, when she said something like, "Okay, I've signed over the deed. When do I get my cash settlement? I'm worried you're going to change your mind and go back on your promise."

I was like, WHAT?! I haven't gone back on anything! She's the one who broke her marriage vows, not me.

Like I said, I'm not sure she's entirely sane. And there's nothing I can do about it.

Love hurts.

 

Sorry to hear that, R. August.
If it's any consolation my current SO came into my life pretty much the same way..
Dragged a beat up car up here, turned out it didn't run. No bank account, no credit rating...Can get pretty frustrating.
Prior to this, I was married for five years.. The night I threw him out he was protesting...He yelled, but I still love you. I turned, & said..You don't even LIKE me anymore.
At that time, it was true. Shut him right up.
We're back to at least being friends again. Not that we go out of our way to talk to each other, but the 'hate' is all gone.
Give yourself healing time. Don't expect to make sense of it all. Humans rarely make total sense. We're emotional beasts...
Takes awhile to come back to yourself.
Best wishes to you.

 

Funny, my estranged wife and I have had exactly the same conversation. And you know, it is true, in a way. But it didn't shut me right up.

I told her both were true, and they are. Nothing can change that I've held the spark that is her, the "I AM" at the core of her being, in the palm of my hand, and that she's done the same with me. Nothing can change that I know her soul. I've felt her.

I love her, regardless of her issues, which I think come down to having had an abusive father that didn't want her (he threw down his cigar and stormed out of the maternity ward when he heard, "It's a girl"), who eventually walked out on his whole family, and she's now setting up guy after guy to play the role of him. She went through all the stages, made me be her daddy, then she got revenge. Now that they feel free to do so, people are starting to tell me everything about her history, and that does appear to be the case. She has a bona-fide Dissociative Disorder. She's done this pattern four or five times now. A couple of the guys she did it to probably deserved it. A couple of us didn't.

I think women feel purer, more consistent chords of emotion at any given time, and for longer periods of time. It's one of the reasons we men often look stupid to women. It's difficult (although not entirely impossible) for us to experience anything like an emotional "chord." We just get single notes, and they play us a tune. We're like little kids that way. We can be raging at you one minute, caressing you the next. Y'all can play us like violins. But it makes us frustrating to deal with, too.

But women are frustrating as well. Y'all can seem downright pig-headed to us, although really, I think you're probably the more emotionally logical sex. We men tend to be arbitrary and capricious with it. It's not our fault. We're starting to find that men's and women's brains are wired quite differently, is all.

 

Oh yeah, very true.

I'm glad you could come in here and get some of that out.

My ex felt like I was condescending to him all the time. He felt that I treated him like he was stupid.
I tried to tell him that I generally don't waste my time talking in depth to people I don't respect irl. But, he still feels that way, even now.

 

Damn, we've had a lot of the same conversations, haven't we? My ex and I have not only done that, but we've done it more than once, with each of us playing alternating roles.

We're really in a loop.

Thanks for the kind thoughts, Fritz. You and a few others here have been a help. I'm a newcomer, and the need to talk this out is why. I couldn't do it at either of the other two boards I frequent: one of them was where I met my ex (yes, we met online), most of the people there have known us for six or seven years, and I don't want to start a shitstorm. Also, my ex doesn't have much access to a computer right now, so it wouldn't be fair. The other is here, and my ex and I co-created it, and its message board is not only really dead, but the few people who do post there are mostly our family and closest friends. No way was I going to spew all over that place... again, especially since she isn't in a position to defend herself.

Anyway, thanks for listening. I appreciate the feedback.

 

Anytime.

 

Love and in love are two completely different related things.

In love basically is the lust for another person. In other words, dependency.
Love is the glue that holds everything together.

 

Yeah, back when I was in high school, and a girl said, "I love you, I'm just not in love with you," I knew it was really just a euphemism for, "I don't want to fuck you."

Truth be told, she didn't love me either, but I suppose saying she did was supposed to soften the blow or something.

 

^ lol

Love is short and sweet, but also painful and fake.

 

rofl That was EXACTLY my thoughts when I saw the title of this post.