Does true Love exist?

Not really, all man woman relationships are transactional in some way.

 

What do you consider true love?

It's quite possible it will be invisible and not seen, look at how many people believe they need to be online and use a dating app. While they're busy there they may very well miss an opportunity irl/without meeting through an online service, especially if it's rare in the first place.

 

It depends how one looks at it. Our perspective about relationships is definitely shaped by our family environment and personal experiences. It will be tough to see and experience love from the point of view of someone who was deeply hurt of his or her family environment or having been rejected by the people one is interested to approach or get along with. But for someone who grew up in an ideal family set-up or was reared with so much love or affection, there is love everywhere.

There is a lot of soul searching to do before one ventures into romantic relationships. One has to be really ready to make sacrifices. Only then one can truly say that we have found true love. Love is sacrifice. That is the ultimate essence of true love.

 

I think this paragraph hits the nail on the head.

I've thought about this topic for a while now; I swore off pursuing relationships not too long ago, but I also disavowed many beliefs that I used to hold on this subject. I now think that true love does exist, but most people lack the character to achieve it.

In our modern world, the word love is poorly defined. For example, we say we love a movie, when we actually mean that it makes us feel good. Meanwhile, when we say we love a person, we actually mean that we find that person attractive, or that they make is feel good. We aren't thinking about that person, we are thinking only about ourselves and how we feel. Love is supposed to be selfless, but too many people are self interested. That's why we have people who view relationships as purely transactional, as if conducting business.

The best relationships involve people investing in each other because they like the other person, but that's not how most relationships work these days. It's more about whether or not one is attracted to the other person, and feel stood as a result. That's why teo people get into a relationship with their partner, only to despise them afterwards.

Looking back on my own life, I had a crush on many women, hut I hindsight realized that I knew next to nothing about who they were. I didn't know when their birthday was, what their family was like, whether or not their life goals coincided with my own, or what their character are temperament was like. In other words, I liked how they made me feel, without really knowing who they were at all. Of course, as I got to know some of them, I found I didn't like them as people, and some of my friends warned me to steer clear of them.

Then there's the other issue: most people will bail at the first sign of trouble. As stated by others here, true love rarely feels good. It requires patience, work, mutual investment, sacrifice, trust and is often saddled with hardship and disappointment. Without that hardship, you can never know if your love is true, but too many people think that true love is supposed to be perfect, which nothing in life truly is.

Speaking of true love, one such tale inspired my username (sort of): the tragic love story of Frederick and Elizabeth.

Elizabeth Stuart was daughter of James I of England (VI of Scotland), while Frederick V was elector Palatine (Kurfürstentum Pfalz). Although he was far below her station, the two married, eventually becoming king and queen of Bohemia (modern day Czech Republic). Unfortunately, this incurred the wrath of Ferdinand II, the then Holy Roman Emperor, who felt Frederick had usurped his throne. The couple were driven out, sparking the Thirty Years War. Frederick was stripped of his Palatine lands, and died a poor, broken man. Elizabeth would go on to fight for her husband's land back from her court in the Hague, but their children were also marked by tragedy. Two of their sons drowned, their youngest died of bladder stones, their third daughter died shortly after her wedding, and one son became a fugitive.

Despite the hardships, the two never fell out of love for each other. At the end of the Thirty Years War, the eldest son got the Palatine back (or at least the Rhine portion; the eastern part went to Bavaria), one son founded the Hudson Bay Company in Canada (or was it's first governor), and their youngest daughter is the matriarch of the reigning British Royal family.

 

One thing is people asking this question are probably thinking long term, right? After all what if true love existed and it only lasted for a few days, that's not very satisfying.

As far as what makes a relationship last, I think an interest in development and growth is essential. That's very general and there is no guarantee that two people develop in the same direction, but if only one person continues to change in significant ways and the other doesn't that is probably not going to work in the long run. And if there's enough interest at least there's the potential for the partner to remain interested and if they do that together over time it wouldn't be a big shock.

A lot of the times people talk about personalities etc. like it's a static thing, like I'm like this, she's like that, and we're the perfect match as if that's that forever and ever. So in that sense I suppose if two people actually arrived at their peak of development and maturation then it actually will work in the long run, even if that could reasonably be called stagnant.

 

Most of time, we think of what we can get and receive from others, especially our special someone. We tend to forget that before expect to receive, we must be ready how to give, how to make a sacrifice.

I have learned now as a married man that once I become selfish, when I think more of my needs than what I can sacrifice for my wife, then I am forgetting what True Love is.

So many relationships and marriages break down simply because of this. When we forget how to mutually sacrifice for one another, then the concept of True Love disappears.

 

Sacrifice implies a kind of conservation of resources, which is fine as far as those kinds of things go, but it's basically just a context of two unchanging selves rather than one, where one self gives up the desires of itself for the other. In a context where the individuals change significantly you can no longer say it's for the sake of one or the other self because after a period of time it's either not seen as a sacrifice since the giving self may have changed or the receiving self is no longer the same in wanting whatever if was at the outset.

I don't think this is a possibility in the minds of many simply because the self is seen as an unchanging /unchangeable entity, when the very point of a partnership even implies a potential third identity at least in the context of the relationship. This doesn't fit the familiar frameworks and language so a good percentage of people will probably dismiss the possibility, and it's probably not that likely in the first place - but a lot of worthwhile things are rare.

Look at the idea of unconditional love, it's also not what people want it to be. No conditions would involve not even staying together, you might just choose to because you both want to, but that's not the same as taking the condition as love itself - which would be putting the cart before the horse. Continue to choose to be together in that case would not be in contradiction with freedom because you enjoy being together whereas choosing to be together because that's supposed to be a good thing while the relationship may not be that good is just being concerned about the condition of being together rather than being in love.

 

@Krillin1993 why do you ask?

 

That is why true love also involves a deep commitment to continue and pursue in spite of hardships and challenges. The question being asked is if True Love exists? If there are so many parameters to consider in loving in the truest sense of the word, then the concept of True Love becomes so arbitrary and definitely we may have so many notions about what true love really is.

I would like to qualify that for true love to exist and continue, there must be mutual commitment to give and take, to sacrifice for each other, from both lover and beloved. Pursuing true love is hard work, it entails constant effort from both partners.

In addiction recovery, I admire the spouse who remains committed to his/her addicted partner in spite of so many reasons to disengage, and just give up. In True Love, we seek the goodness of our beloved even if it entails so much sacrificing. Now if it's not reciprocated (by the addicted spouse for example), then there is the danger of a falling out of love by the one doing the sacrifices.

The question is a difficult one to answer I must admit, but thanks to @Krillin1993 it made me reflect!

 

Maybe fall out of love in terms of the relationship, but not necessarily out of Love in terms of ones relationship to life itself. When the context isn't a closed system of the couple only others around the person may very well appreciate them even if the sacrifice wasn't for them.

 

Yes, I certainly agree with you! True love doesn't have to be romantic at all. We may also receive love even from people we least expect.

 

Yes. I married to the girl I started dating in 1983. I feel very 'in love'.

 

@Krillin1993 I feel a big part of the issue is a lack of social context, community. It is still possible for individuals to have certain values but it just becomes much harder when it isn't supported or appreciated by the larger collective. From that perspective, it may be that there's more of a chance that in the absence of such a community and culture that supports that it would be more like soul mates simply because the two people will stick out like a sore thumb in a way, even if most people just don't pay attention but consider them weird or old fashioned. In fact, even those who notice may just kind of think it's nice but not realistic and largely ignore them still.

In principle, one of the things that would make me really take notice of someone is if they stand up for something even if everyone else around them don't see it the same way. I think it's just far more likely for people to either not talk about it and not rock the boat or even kind of at least half go along with popular opinion on an issue. It could be a relatively minor issue, and this is not something we have the opportunity to observe often, but I think that would be very telling about what that person is about. I think there are a lot of important issues but these days a lot of people seem to have what really kind of amounts to pretty generic opinions that's at best an average of what a certain group of people already think. And here's the relevance to the topic: Why would it be so unique as to warrant a soul mate designation if most people within a particular group just kind of think the same already? What is that like Soul Mates-R-Us? (American toy store chain if you didn't know)

 

Thank you.

Inevitably in a forty year relationship there have been times when we have hurt each other. For me the key has been to always believe in our future together so that if I am feeling hurt, ashamed, angry, etc. I know it will end and our love will win through.

She did. My porn use was destroying her self-esteem and making me emotionally absent. But she loved me too much and stayed. Then, years later, her self-esteem hit rock bottom and she thought she would have to leave me. There's no way I would choose porn over her so I started this journey of trying to quit (and now succeeding!) so she stayed.

That's hard to answer. My wife believes in love at first sight so she didn't really know me (in a rational way) when she fell in love with me. We were both 17. She got some things wrong, for example she thought, from the way I dressed and acted, that I was an artist and that she was destined for a life of poverty. In fact my favourite subject was mathematics and my career has been good. I think three things made it work in those early years: we each found each other very attractive, we shared lots of interests and goals, and we each had personality strengths that were weaknesses in the other.

 

No, I'm introverted myself so I guess that has something to do with the interest. That and several years of Covid lockdown and seeing most people have not given much thought about it kind of made me think about it more.

 

I'm in a weird boat where I believe it is for everyone but me.