I should have said I didn't want my opining to be a distraction from what I would assume your goal is - finding the best balance of yourself, the best relationship, if any, with your W, and so on.
I can be allowed to rant a little, I agree with begging the question as to why the marriage rate is so high. One person I feel epitomizes the true value and meaning of marriage is Britney Spears, Esq. - she of the 55-hour Las Vegas nuptials. Seriously, if this is the evidence of a modern society, have we really evolved past arranged marriages? Have we really evolved past the early 20th century marriages where you spot a pretty girl, call on her for tea, and ask her dad for marriage?
My point about modern day thinking being so selfish is this: there are no moral boundaries anymore to randomly sleeping with people, living together, etc. If you have an arranged marriage, and hate your spouse, that could be understood. If you had a guy "call on you for tea", and you get married on a wink and a smile, that could be understood. But what is the excuse now? Again, to me, it boils down to literally pure selfishness. Maybe that WAS the cause in 1929 as you quoted, but it seems to me that people have every opportunity to walk into marriage with their eyes wide open, and yet we still have the WAS pouring in by the dozens... Why is it that now people even live together for several years before getting married, and STILL end up getting divorced?
The pastor in my church won't marry a couple unless they've had a minimum of 6 monthly or bi-weekly counseling sessions - in essence, forcing them to wait an additional 3 months at minimum, and people get furious at him for "making them wait". Sheesh.
To me, the problem is not marriage or divorce, it's people, and self-absorption. I get nauseated when I hear, "You complete me." That's the PROBLEM! You should be a complete person in yourself - if you are only 70%, how can you give a spouse 100%? I understand no one is perfect, and no one ever will be, but still.
Finally, back to you, SP, you sound like you are exactly where I am.
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and at the end of the day frankly I'd rather have WAW be xW and sound in mind, body, and spirit than have her be piecing-W and still carrying all this stuff around.
To me, this is a sign of emotional and relational maturity - obviously not where we started. I am doing the right thing because I respect my vows, and believe a man is only as good as his word - but I see now that W is carrying around what you so accurately described as "junk", and at this point in time, she is not interested in releasing it, as a matter of fact, she wallows in it.
Although you may be a little wow-ed by Mrs. SP's frenetic anger, perhaps it is palliative to know that she at least realizes it, and is attempting to deal with it!
I believe when you can release the frenzied "I-must-save-my-marriage" feelings, and can stand back and realize that your spouse is in a bad place, and be OK with either letting that go, or waiting until she/he gets through it, I feel like you've made it to a good place. Then, your spouse will benefit from you being more relaxed in knowing what's going on, and being able to focus on YOU - wait, is that DETACHING!?!?!
All quite true, yet one hears that Player X "just doesn't have heart" or that Player Y "sure has a lot of heart."
These are all implicit measurements, based upon observation -- conclusions reached through analysis (say, comparison of X to Y).
So the mere fact that they are intangible doesn't mean one can't explore them objectively.
Sure, love is like pornography which Justice Potter Stewart famously said in 1964 he couldn't define but recognized when he saw it.
I'm still struck, however, by the internal contradiction that lurks in so many posts -- love is a choice (verb or noun), WAS is in the fog because s/he's not "in love" anymore (feelings are not a basis for decision-making), assess who you were in the M and make changes (analyze and deduce) -- but wait! Don't try to analyze love! Paralysis through analysis! It's all about the feelings!
Well? Which is it?
But that's the catch isn't it, I don't think you can be objective when talking about love.
Everyone's reality is subjective, only we can feel what we feel, we can try to describe it, try to relate to others, we may feel similar but we can't feel what others feel and they can't feel what we feel. We only get to live in our skin and no one else will know what that feels like, the only brain we get to use is our own, the only pair of eyes we get to see through are our own, etc. etc.
Everything is subjective, it's based on our point of view, our experiences.
Everyone's definition of love, what it feels like to them, what it means to them will be different from everyone else's understanding of it.
How could it be anything else?
So in the end, everyone's definition of love is right and wrong all at the same time, depending on the viewpoint.
Boy... this is confusing.
My own problem is this and I don't mean to hijack your thread SP but it seems to be similar, after playing LBS for a while and then becoming WAS when the tables turned, my excitement is gone, I feel like I'm going through the motions and I'm trying but I find it difficult. I've owned my part in all my own relationship issues (or I've tried to at any rate) but I find it so easy to want to walk now, to quit. How do you give that person the chance and be true to them about that chance, how do you get excited again. When you get so used to disappointment, you remember the rejection, the problems, the hard work and all the effort that went into this, something new & different is so much more appealing and attractive than working at something that hasn't been anything like that in such a long time and when the dynamic in the relationship changes and the original WAS is now trying to make amends, trading spots with them makes me feel what they must have felt originally: this is too hard, so much time has been wasted on this, is it really worth it, why am I doubting this all of a sudden when I wanted it for so long, why am I disappointed when I look at them, why do I have such a long list of everything they've done wrong, why can't I attribute value to all the good things my spouse is doing, when they slip why do I feel like quitting and walking away so easily?
Is it just me, did/is anyone else experience/ing these feelings when things turn/ed around?
Am I just being crusty after all of this crap has happened and because I now have more control in the relationship am I attributing less value to it and that's why I don't want it as much anymore. There are days when I want it to work but there seem to be more days now that I don't want it to work. I'm just being honest with these feelings, maybe it's too early to tell what any of this means.
"I am not going to sit on my ass as the events that affect me unfold to determine the course of my life. I'm going to take a stand. I'm going to defend it. Right or wrong, I'm going to defend it."
I feel the same way. It's like the gym. You're on a plateau. Without the obvious forward movement, it's like swimming in one of those little pools that generates the current or running on a treadmill. You're not getting anywhere, but you're making good time.
How do you give that person the chance and be true to them about that chance, how do you get excited again.
Two different issues. But if the foregoing discussion is to be accepted, then you'll just "feel" it.
Which isn't much of an answer, is it?
Which was the point of the exploration in the first place. What goes up must come down spinning wheel got to go round Talking about your troubles it's a crying sin Ride a painted pony Let the spinning wheel spin.
Poets, philosophers, authors, professors, preachers, priests, rabbis, song-writers, and judges all have grappled with love and it's strengths, gifts, foibles and wrath.
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Results 1 - 10 of about 95,600,000 for Quotes on love with Safesearch on. (0.25 seconds)
Imagine what would happen if I Googled "quotes on love" without safesearch on?
M22,H45,W45 S21/18D12 Retain faith that you will prevail in the end, regardless of the difficulties and at the same time confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.
LOL! honesty, I love it, I really do, don't lie to me ever because I think that when people lie to you it's like they're trying control your reaction when they say something to you.
I would rather have the truth than a lie, good or bad, at least I wouldn't feel like someone is trying to control or manipulate me.
I feel the same way. It's like the gym. You're on a plateau. Without the obvious forward movement, it's like swimming in one of those little pools that generates the current or running on a treadmill. You're not getting anywhere, but you're making good time.
How do you give that person the chance and be true to them about that chance, how do you get excited again.
Two different issues. But if the foregoing discussion is to be accepted, then you'll just "feel" it.
Which isn't much of an answer, is it?
Which was the point of the exploration in the first place. What goes up must come down spinning wheel got to go round Talking about your troubles it's a crying sin Ride a painted pony Let the spinning wheel spin.
That's it, "you'll just feel it", is it that simple?
Maybe it is and I'm just overthinking all of this.
Of course, some of us just have a life-long penchant for kicking this kind of twaddle around. (Excellent Spouse and I knew we'd found our song when we heard the line, "Let's waste time/chasing cars/around our heads".) It's all good so long as you don't (as Dia mentioned) over-escape into analyzing at the expense of actually living-n-stuff.
The whole ILYBINILWY thing has always struck me as kinda ludicrous. It all rests on the totally-unreliable-from-person-to-person definition of love. If "in love" means the cosmic mindtwist of new infatuation chemicals and you expect that to last and last at the same level indefinitely, sans effort .... well, good luck with that. I tend to share the view of whoever upthread suggested that that it's a spirit compact of both action and emotion, choice and spontanteous response. You can (hopefully) evoke the emotion by actions such as speaking each others' LL, observing the five-to-one-or-better-positive-to-negative interactions rule, practicing gratitude, doing shaky bridge stuff, etc, etc. I know some people think that's "fake" and "you shouldn't have to work on it if itz reeeeeeeel", but that seems both unreasonably pollyanna and fatalistic to me.
Re: why the divorce rate/WASness now, I found this, from Esther Perel, compelling: "Traditionally, Perel points out, marriage was a business relationship, designed for procreation and economic survival. It asked nothing more of its partners than stability, reliability and a day-to-day ability to get along. Recent generations added romantic love and sexual passion to the mix, followed by demands for equality after the resurgence of the feminist movement in the late 1960s. As our society placed new requirements on the institution of marriage without stripping away much of its historical functions, we responded by expecting our spouse -- one person -- to provide what in the past it had taken an entire village of people to give us.........Relationships are crumbling under the weight of our expectations. We want marriage, companionship, economic support, family life -- and then on top of that we want our partner to be our best friend, confidant and passionate lover."
Also, from the same article, speaking to the belief that "in love feelings" should be spontaneous: "There is a notion people have that in the beginning of relationships passion is spontaneous. They actually forget that the beginning was one big story line. There were hours spent anticipating, planning, plotting, developing the script, imagining what you're going to wear, what you're going to eat, where you're going to go, the whole thing. But people remember things as explosive and in the moment and unplanned. And that's not true. But passion can die because we forgo the willfulness, the intentionality and the imagination that fuel the erotic. " Now *that's* what I'm talkin' about.
SP, here's what I think is brilliant about where your wife is right now. She knows she is angry at *a lot of things/people*, Not. Just. You. That story about how everything was your fault, she's letting it go, she's letting herself recognize and sit with her own emotions and not just projecting it all immediately Smileys-Personward. Seems like that has to be a net positive for both of you, however it all shakes out in the end.
"Show me a completely smooth operation and I'll show you someone who's covering mistakes. Real boats rock." -- Frank Herbert
The whole ILYBINILWY thing has always struck me as kinda ludicrous.
Since Coach mentioned the Greek names for love, I'll explore that, and I think the quote above is dead on. I'll preface this by saying my observations are almost entirely based on "feelings" - not an objective, structured dissertation.
There is phileo love or "brotherly love" - my interpretation is that this is the "enjoyment love" - meaning that this type of love is the love you would have for a brother or good friend. You enjoy sports together, knitting, taking walks, flying to Europe, playing board games, reading the same types of books, etc, etc.
There is "eros" - I "love" your hot bod! It usually applies to sex, or perhaps, if it goes deeper, an appreciation for beauty.
Storge - the love like a parent feels for a child, typically not applied to a marriage - at least not in healthy sense!
What I believe is lacking is Agape love. Wiki describes it as a contented love - also described as "an intentional response to promote well-being when responding to that which has generated ill-being." Or in other words, "for better or worse".
It is my opinion that many marriages have one or more of the first two, probably more heavily weighted toward eros. And since eros is very over-powering, it is sometimes mistaken for other types of love, generating the "love is blind" statements. Eros is also very focused on self receiving pleasure, and what the person does for you, as opposed to a two-way relational love.
Basically, I believe many relationships start with eros, and pretty much skip over most of the phileo part - thus self-destructing before ever building enough to reaching the agape part.
Call me old-fashioned, but if more people would do Phileo > Agape > Eros, then I think it would be a better world!
Here's the thing: Eros is easy, but typically incredibly shallow by itself. Phileo is easy, but dependent on how the other person treats you. Agape is controlled by you, and not affected by external circumstances - much in the way SP said he'd rather Mrs. SP be xW and happy/balanced, than Mrs. SP and miserable.
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But people remember things as explosive and in the moment and unplanned. And that's not true. But passion can die because we forgo the willfulness, the intentionality and the imagination that fuel the erotic.
I can put jet fuel in my car, and it'll go like crazy. But eventually, it's gonna burn out my engine because my engine isn't outfitted to handle it. That's why I go back to my thoughts on people that explosively fall into a huge crush, and race into a relationship/marriage, and burn out, because of not being prepared.
I'm excited for SP and his honey-bunny. Here they have outed all of their baggage, realized who they are/were, and now have a low pressure chance to just be who they are, and learn to love in a real manner. Hard times may be ahead for Mrs. SP to work on. SP may have to swallow some pride, but if it goes through, then it could be beautiful.
Maybe this type of interaction should've happened before the vows? (This applies to all, not just SP)
