So many of us write that we have relationship difficulties, lots of short term relationships, none at all....and some of us have had long term relationships or marriages.

I haven't seen a poll on this, but I'm curious to know what the distribution is like.

I'm in a long term relationship and I'm not sure how its going.

Can I say none of the above??????

Legally I'm still married [12yrs] although we've been seperated for 8months...this is the only relationship I've had lasting longer than 5yrs...

status is no S.O., and looking...

Me :D

None fit me exactly either. Chose "several 5-yr r-ships", it was closest.

Posted some of this on another thread. I had a r-ship for 7 years & then was with ex-fiance about 3 years.


I'm single. Not actively looking (but open ;) ), unless you count drooling over the policeman helping park cars at a dinner party the other night :o , and my poking around a couple dating websites.

I've been available about 6 years. First I needed time to myself. Then I was going through personal growth. Then I was figuring out which Master's to do. And now I've been in grad school 2 years. As a student, my life is hectic. The reality is between classes, homework, work-study, and church duties I'm not good about making time to go meet new people.

When I eventually try to meet people, I'll get the extra challenge of finding someone who won't freak or be threatened by their potential girlfriend/spouse being educated to be an ordained minister. Picture the scene at a friend's party:

Man (all laid back and flirty-like): so... what do you do?
Me: I'm in seminary. Oh yeah... and I have inattentive ADD.
Man: Disappears in a puff of smoke. :eek:
Me: Was it something I said?

Heh! :D

Sure, I'd be interested in marriage if the person/timing were right this time. But I have to do what I can to have a happy and fulfilling life regardless of my marital status.

~~bythesea

well, none of my past relationships/dating fit into a category on your poll...ummm, you might want to add a few more choices..

-Never married
-no kids
-lived with 2 woman(both lasted less than 6 months)
-have had 4 girlfriends in my life so far
-longest relationship was close to 2 1/2 years.

-I'm getting old
-I want to get married to a sane woman, who by a miracle likes sports and possibly plays golf.
-oh yeah, I'm getting old.
-I want one or two kids..
-oh yeah, I'm getting old.

hmmmm .. . . I'm with bookfan, none of the above.

I'm currently single and don't have time for a SO (until Dec 2006).
I've had several relationships that have lasted around a year, some more, some less.

you left out " i've been with the same person for >20 years, more or less happily"

which is me.

You also left out 'I'm the poster child for being eternally single because I can't tell the difference between someone who loves me, and someone who likes having sex with me, because they tell me they love me, also' :)
Singularly yours,
I

Single for 3 years and appreciating it immensely. I have so much of my own crap to deal with, I reaaly dont want to deal with another persons luggage. Though I dont worry about being alone or that people will be scared off by my ADD. It's part of what makes me fun so much to be around and TOtally irresistable! lol

It's part of what makes me fun so much to be around and TOtally irresistable! lol


I miss your laugh, Sis !!
Nova

You also left out 'I'm the poster child for being eternally single because I can't tell the difference between someone who loves me, and someone who likes having sex with me, because they tell me they love me, also' :)
Singularly yours,
I
Nova, this fits for me too! I don't know why I forgot to include "Happily unattached", "Unhappily Unattached" or "Happily Unattached with good reason".

I never could tell the difference between someone who loves me and someone who likes having sex with me telling me they love me. I married the first guy who told me he loved me and wanted to do other things besides have sex with me.

Can somebody tell me why so many men feel it's completely okay to say "I love you" when they don't mean it? Is it because they don't know the rules, or because they think it's okay to lie about something that important if it gets what they want? Or is there some way to distinguish the difference between "I love you (as a person and want the best for you)" and "I love you (enought to want to have sex with you....now)"

Is this one of the lessons I missed when I was secretly reading a novel in grade school, or gazing out the window? Tell me where I can sign up to take the class over and I will!!

Joyous56,little, fyi , we don't know ,you give us men too much credit ,we are not in touch with our feelings ,we do know how to hide them ,we learned that from the men who came before us ,but we never learned what ,how ,about emotions from our mothers or fathers ,

Oh yea ,3 5+yr. relationships ,think they were all bad ,cept the first one ,that was a lota fun and a rediculous amount of sex :D
heads a whole lot clearer now ,being medicated ,not as wild {only because I'm older :D }the next love is right around the corner ,and I don't even know who it is ,yet.But one thing I'm sure of ,never go backwards
I'm not sure if I've ever really been in love ,they all served a need ,but where was I ? I hope I'm on top of it now

Joyous

I never use the "L-word" unless I mean it. I am rather literal about such things. I will tell my close friends that I love them, and I mean it. I will tell my mate that i love her (If I had someone) and I would mean it. But I won't tell someone who is a stranger or who I am unsure of that I love them. I generally discourage casual friends from using that awful "L-word" in reference to myself too..... :)

I differentiate between love and sex, and I never confuse love with passion. :eek: I differentiate between romantic love and platonic love. The two are different. :p What I am trying to say is that most guys can do the same. If you are having problems with guys who are ruthless enough to say anything to have sex, then you definitely have an axe to grind with them.... but please... It is not me, I was not there, I did not do it, so please do not blame me. :)

An awfully discouraging pattern that I have seen in too many women is a tendency to select guys based on what he can do for her... love has less to do with it than greed, and a neurotic desire to have physical security provided by someone else, it seems... :(

Because of that I tend to watch for, and weed out those types early... and they usually don't get further consideration once I have ID'd them as unsuitable. ;)

The only advice I can give as a male is that you might reevaluate how you pick men. You might also take the time to compare what they say with what they do and ask yourself what it all adds up to. :faint:

Just my two cents worth...

Me :D


Nova, this fits for me too! I don't know why I forgot to include "Happily unattached", "Unhappily Unattached" or "Happily Unattached with good reason".

I never could tell the difference between someone who loves me and someone who likes having sex with me telling me they love me. I married the first guy who told me he loved me and wanted to do other things besides have sex with me.

Can somebody tell me why so many men feel it's completely okay to say "I love you" when they don't mean it? Is it because they don't know the rules, or because they think it's okay to lie about something that important if it gets what they want? Or is there some way to distinguish the difference between "I love you (as a person and want the best for you)" and "I love you (enought to want to have sex with you....now)"

Is this one of the lessons I missed when I was secretly reading a novel in grade school, or gazing out the window? Tell me where I can sign up to take the class over and I will!!

When will we all learn that there are a--holes out there--everywhere, male and female. We are just as likely to get screwed by those we love as friends as those we love romantically. My feeling is that we all just tend to let our expectations get out of control when it comes to romantic love. We expect that person to fulfill parts of our lives that we would never dream of asking from any of our other relationships.

That is one of the reasons I think I am happier overall not in a romantic relationship. I saw my own expectations grow to what may have seemed within reason at the time, but ultimately more than any one person could fulfill. Even if that person seemed ready, willing and able to meet those expectations, I think our very human needs and emotions ultimately lead to unrealistic and unhealthy (for both parties) expectations. Sometimes it's a lot of pressure to put on one person!!!

Does this make sense to anyone? Or am I far more cynical than I know??

William Tell and Speedo.....Thanks!

What I'm getting from this is:

1.) There are men who know what "I love you" means, and men that don't.

2.) There are men who will say "I love you" and might be thinking "I love your smile", "I love your mind", "I love your soul", "I love you and want to be with you forever"....or maybe "I'd love to have wild crazy sex with you".

3.) Since some men don't know exactly what they mean when they say "I love you", I first need to decide how I feel about them and whether I want to encourage that love...and love them back.

4.) Then I need to give them the time to decide how they really feel, and if it's compatible with what I want. If I don't want a relationship that's all about wild sex, I need to let him know what kind of relationship I want, and give him time to decide whether he wants that kind of relationship. If he indicates that he doesn't - by his behavior - then I need to let him know.

If I'm right, it sounds so simple. But why does it always seem so complicated? Maybe I need to work on my communication skills. And maybe leave the sex for later. Now I need to figure out what 'later' means.

It sounds silly, but to me love was always the logical remains of lust. :eek:

It would take me a long time to explain this (and I'm going to **** off A LOT of people) but what I mean is that I don't think love is an emotion per-se such as anger, or happiness or even lust is.

:soapbox:
After the initial lust subsides, and all that giddy-ness is not clouding our thoughts, what we are left with is the questions of "reality". Is this person really right for me? Are we moving in the same direction, or can we exist together well? Do we complement each other? As well as other questions that may be important to us.

Once these questions have been answered and you begin your life to gether, then "love" is created. More of a bonding of trust, loyality and understanding than an emotion.

So, if I was to say, "I love you" to somebody, you can belive that there was considerable thought put into it or I didn't get past the lust stage and I just said it so I could "get some".

Just so you know, I couldn't do the latter.;)

Wait, where was I going with this? Did I forget to take my meds?:eyebrow:

KirkT:

I agree with most of what you said. One place I disagree, and it's more a matter of perspective because we both more or less see the same progression and end point, is that love is what "remains" after lust.

I think that many people, especially young people, mistake that initial giddy, hearts and flowers, lustful, "high" where they feel like singing and think about the person all the time and want to spend time together as "love". Some, after the relationship progresses and moves past this stage think that they've lost something and try to regain it. People will say when they met someone "they just knew" that was the person for them. I think this is the initial stage of bonding, of relationship, but it can't stay there.

It starts out pretty on the surface and superficial, but if it's going to last it has to become more solid, go deeper. You learn that you don't have to be joined at the hip all the time or else the relationship feels threatened, that it's okay to disagree. The main thing is how do you handle the disagreement? Like you said you get into trust, loyalty, do we want to go in a similar direction, are we compatible enough and complement each other. I don't know if I wouldn't call it an emotion. You look at that person with whom you've built this bond of trust and intimacy, with whom you've shared a lot of experiences and memories and you feel for them more deeply and in a more complex way than you do for the good looking guy or gal that you made out with at a party last weekend and hope to see again. I don't know about others, but I definitely "felt" something strong for my partners and so I would call love an emotion. Also I believe many people who study love categorize it as an emotion.

~~bythesea

Been in a lot of relationships..most abusive...been enganged once..when I was 18 ... main reason cause I was prego... had a miscarrige broke that off...I think the longest I was with a guy was almost a year and thats only because I got prego again (yeah...) and to make a long story short...left the state, had my baby and a BRAIN!!....so that was when I was 5-6 months prego and my daughter is 30 months...


So I haven't dated anyone since then and I started "seeing" my b/f when my DD was 25months ....I've been seeing my boyfriend since May and we are like (as forrest gump would say) peas and carrots...he's my other half and I love him with all my heart...or whatever lust, love whatever some of you are saying its that and he's wonderful and loves me back and my DD...so it's all good. :) He wants to marry me within the next year, year in a half and i personally can't see myself with anyone else.. so that makes me happy :) :)

So there's my lovely story! i checked the longterm and happy cause i'm happy and i know its gonna be long term...

It sounds silly, but to me love was always the logical remains of lust. :eek:

After the initial lust subsides, and all that giddy-ness is not clouding our thoughts, what we are left with is the questions of "reality". Is this person really right for me? Are we moving in the same direction, or can we exist together well? Do we complement each other? As well as other questions that may be important to us.


So.....what happens if your lust is not satisfied...or does it need to be satisfied in order for you to get past 'lust' and into 'love'?

What I'm getting at is, does that mean I've got to sleep with you before you will be able to consider the question of love?

Would you act on your lust if you had no interest in considering love?

Definition of lust: 1) Intense or unrestrained sexual craving, or 2) An overwhelming desire or craving (Source: The American Heritage Dictionary).
3)Self-indulgent sexual desire (personified as one of the deadly sins) (Source:WordReference.com).

For example, I might lust after....the blond, buff pool boy, just by watching him clean the pool....knowing nothing about him, nor caring whether he was some innocent underage kid or a married father of two. In this case, to act on it would be, in my opinion, just plain evil. So...to me, lust is just a feeling, and feelings aren't bad or good..they just are.

I don't know where I'm going with this, do you? Perhaps just going for a dialog on the topic....

Maybe I need to work on my communication skills. And maybe leave the sex for later. Now I need to figure out what 'later' means.


Above is the "root" of my current problem.....sex to quickly.....how long is "later" for some that may be longer than for others.........for me I want to go at least a year from ending one relationship (present one) before beginning any other relationship that even resembles dating...sex well I may be entering into metapause by then!!!!!


I don't care...I have been hurt by my impulsiveness this time more that I care to write about but I blame too enger to have sexual needs satisified.......never want to be here again!!!!!! I just need a B.O.B.F.

I am divorced. I was with my ex for four years. Since then I have been in one long term relationship, two years. I just gave up on ever finding someone and I found someone, she is going to be moving with me back to San Francisco. That is the way it always works for me. The five real loves of my life all came along when I really gave up on the idea of ever finding somone. I dosent work when I fake give up though, ive tried...many times.

Joyous56

Lust may never be satisfied. Perhaps this is what causes people to commit to a relationship that is not in their best interest. Or, perhaps, you are that type of somebody who can see past the lust and understand the qualities for the other person and be able to make a qualified decision on that understanding, all while feeling lust.


I don’t mean to suggest that it’s simply lust then love; I do, however, suggest that people can have neither lust nor love for somebody, lust but no love, no lust but love or lust and love. <O:p</O:p

To me, the latter are the luckiest; to be able to look at your partner and always have that feeling, to me, would be the greatest thing I could know. You would have the trust of a friend, the excitement of a lover and the comfort of a relationship.<O:p</O:p

My lust/love suggestion is simply to say that lust is an emotion, whereas love, since built on trust, loyalty and such, is not an emotion per-se but more a reliance of another person such as trust and loyality is.
<O:p</O:p
To answer the question of, "Would you act on your lust if you had no interest in considering love?" -- generally, yes. I'm married so I probably wouldn't now, but otherwise sure, why not?