sTr Wrote:! try to make sure she has everything she needs in life. !'m never worried about what she does for me, ! want her to feel like she's important. ! cook for the most part, which apparently not many men do. Plus the little things like massages and what not.

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Autumn Wrote:That's why I think romance doesn't exist. I feel like its true in the beginning and it completely dies. Chivalry and romance? Pfffft

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holagatita Wrote:I have to show him i can cook almost as well as he can, lol

FxXxckOff Wrote:<bitterness>

love is an evil, evil thing

</bitterness>

Autumn Wrote:I know people who have been married for years and are still head over heels with each other. I feel like it takes both people to put forth effort to keep things fun and exciting. Bleh.

Autumn Wrote:It's hard to force yourself to wanna be sugar sweet when you're really not happy.

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fred Wrote:so then end it..... dragging it out only makes it worse, trust me.... rip that shit off like a bandaid.... yea it stings for a while.... but it hurts a lot less, for less time, than it does peeling it off slow

holagatita Wrote:

fred Wrote:so then end it..... dragging it out only makes it worse, trust me.... rip that shit off like a bandaid.... yea it stings for a while.... but it hurts a lot less, for less time, than it does peeling it off slow

QFT

So much this. Life is too fucking short to spend it miserable. You will think that you'll never find someone else, but you will. Or even if you don't, being free on your own feels better than being tied to someone you hate.

holagatita Wrote:

Autumn Wrote:I know people who have been married for years and are still head over heels with each other. I feel like it takes both people to put forth effort to keep things fun and exciting. Bleh.

It really does. It's easy to be jaded and say it just doesn't ever last, but I like to believe that it can. I don't know..
Or when both parties don't feel like making the effort anymore, to just fucking end it already. I think the reason we feel like it's hokey and doesn't happen is we see or have been through so many examples of it not working. Or the vicious fight/make up cycle. Fuck every bit of that.

fred Wrote:

The Professa Wrote:Ive thought about this in the past quite a bit. I think there are a few dimensions that should be considered.
Sorry again for the longer posts, but this one may be worth the read. I'll try to be as concise in my writing as possible while still explaining adequately.

The original post was asking how you make your SO feel loved. I'm convinced that you can never make someone feel anything, just as someone can never make you feel something. Feelings are just responses (or reactions) from our deep subconscious. So deep in our subconscious it takes a lot of time, practice, and effort to begin breaking the process down. The process of something happening, all the stuff that happens in our subconscious, then our feeling, finally our reaction. We choose how we feel, all of it is our choice, though it is easy in our culture to get so caught up in our conscious mind that we are unable to recognize everything thats really happening. (this particular topic is super interesting to delve into if anyone wants to discuss further :) )

There was some writer, he has his phd in philosophy, who had described that there are five different languages that people use to communicate their love (i think this is what the OP was meaning to ask- how do we communicate or show our love to an SO). The five languages being: words of affirmation, quality time, receiving gifts, acts of service, and physical touch. where words of affirmation are as fred's girl, I'm sorry i forgot your name- I'm horrible w names :(, had described where they are not out of habit but are instead genuine (no matter how frequently said. I've noticed some associate frequency with genuineness); you can also include in this one compliments and reassurance of things i.e.: theres times where as a female i question if I'm attractive enough, reassurance that your SO finds you attractive counts for words of affirmation. Quality time would be "us time", where theres a needed ability to distinguish doing a task/project together and being in the same space but doing your own things, simple enough on the surface. Receiving gifts is just what it sounds like. Acts of service include cooking for, doing laundry for, creating a nest for your SO and so on. Physical touch is pretty self explanatory.

I've found that all misery and unhappiness is one of two things. Either something is happening that we do not want to happen (we have something/some situation that we do not want), or something is not happening that we wanted to happen (we are not getting the something/some situation that we do want).

All of that being said, we all need and probably express love/affection/romance in each of the five ways. It is important to note that none of us express each of the five ways in equal portions- we have a subconscious preference, a default setting if you will, for how we show love; indeed there is a default setting for the 'language' we respond the best too. If you watch other couples interact, especially ones who you're close to and see in their own space and expressing affection, you can start to pick up on who responds to what languages best. Even looking back on past relationships we can start to recognize that there were times where both people were trying to show their love with all their might, but it wasn't in the language that the other person was most responsive to - like a miscommunication. Sure they recognize and appreciate the way you are showing it, but what ever the big default one is may not be being fulfilled.

Which brings us to fulfillment. Its just a feeling; in short the feeling of fulfillment are all of the good and happy feelings in a relationship. Imo, we should be dating for fulfillment and trying to find someone who's complementary to ourselves; doing that removes the issue of 'i can't live without him/her' or 'he/she is the only one for me' because that other person is not what we are inherently seeking (in our deep subconscious). indeed, we are seeking those feelings of fulfillment and the relationship that provides them. if you are not feeling fulfilled then why are you there? you're not happy- infact, you're sad, maybe even angry (recall how i defined misery and unhappiness).

There's another issue as well, being taken advantage of. Im still chewing on this, but its like you've got to walk a fine line and not be or do things too good or too frequently that they are just expected and not appreciated. This kind of links back to what i was saying about the process of stuff happening in the first paragraph. An example: someone from high school was a jackass/jerk/bitch, imagine in your subconscious that you've created a bust of this person. ten years go by. high school reunion time, you see this person, your immediate response is that they are that same prick, in fact thats what you are expecting- you've already made up your mind. Similarly, imagine someone doing some task thats either a pet peeve or something that you very much enjoy. again, your subconscious creates a bust of this person and attaches that to the bust. you see this person and you come to expect that something. To make matters worse now that you're not happy/angry about what happened/didnt happen we keep re-running the situation in our heads, "re-boiling" ourselves if you will. The moment passed but we continue to waste time (one thing in life we can't get back) re-boiling. Overcoming this involves practice and self observation, its funny when you start noticing yourself doing these things, like aww shit. haha.

Even just *thinking* that I've got at least somewhat of a handle on this stuff doesn't fix things to its all gravy. I don't think anyone will ever be perfect, but its the folks who don't even try and find what they deserve (happiness) or care to try that are missing out on ... well, life.

holagatita Wrote:

Autumn Wrote:I know people who have been married for years and are still head over heels with each other. I feel like it takes both people to put forth effort to keep things fun and exciting. Bleh.

It really does. It's easy to be jaded and say it just doesn't ever last, but I like to believe that it can. I don't know..
Or when both parties don't feel like making the effort anymore, to just fucking end it already. I think the reason we feel like it's hokey and doesn't happen is we see or have been through so many examples of it not working. Or the vicious fight/make up cycle. Fuck every bit of that.

Its like once either person is not wanting the relationship to succeed and overcome whatever issue 100%, that things start turning to shit. 90% isn't enough, toying with splitting (when in a serious relationship) just says that they/you aren't in it 100%. imo thats when you know its time to end it. and like fred said its hard, but its the better option in the long run. you never know if you'd have met your mr.right if you'd ended it when you realized this wasn't gonna work. theres no shame in things not working either, none of us deserve to settle. we have to live with ourselves in our head all day everyday, why should we keep ourselves in a situation where we are left feeling unfulfilled. For me and in the past, its easy at that point to blame myself- why wasn't i good enough type of mind set. that whole mindset is flawed for many reasons, taking a step back and looking at it from afar usually helps me see things as they really are without so much emotion in the way.

Autumn Wrote:Wow. Sammy, its like you're speaking directly to me. Food for thought.

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holagatita Wrote:

Autumn Wrote:Wow. Sammy, its like you're speaking directly to me. Food for thought.

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Sends mad hugs and <3 and happy thoughts your way, girl

Autumn Wrote:Wow. Sammy, its like you're speaking directly to me. Food for thought.

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fred Wrote:

Autumn Wrote:Mikey, you're a sweet dude. :) Can you picture many people continuing this way after dating for years, or being married for years?