I believe love can be found in many different people. All that is required is an attraction and commonality such as likes and dislikes, interests etc. But once found, love requires commitment to be true love. So do you believe that there is only one true love for everyone?
I like the way you make me feel even when I'm nowhere near...
I think love comes in many forms, I think I have found true all round love with my wife which is why we've been married for 40 years.
Anyone who has dealt with loss and recovery learns that love has many forms, if there was only one true love for them this world would be a lonely place. There are people we connect with, some there is an instant attraction, dare say a spark. We talk late into the night and watch the sun crack on the horizon. Others it is a slow build up, we suddenly see something we never saw, they never attracted us and then one day ... they said a word, share a thought, and it is a new person in front of us that we realize they are one of the most amazing people in the world.
However, as in everything love is never enough, it takes work, changes, compromises and an investment of time and selflessness. Even with the most intense connection, it will fade if not fed, even with the best relationship if you take it for granted it will one day cease to be.
The elephant in this room is the use of the word True.
Love can be found with many people, I believe. True love brings that love to a different level. It is about sharing a life together, imho. It still doesn't have to be exclusive, as I know many could who have been together a long time and who have had other lovers. I know that some have really been in love, not just in lust, and if they hadn't been in a committed relationship probably would have said they had found or could find true love with that person.
What does concern me are those who have lost their long term partner, and find that they just can't or don't want, to move on and find another committed relationship. They idolise the deceased partner, and feel that if they did "move on", they would be disloyal to his or her memory.
My brother-in-law is one such person, and after 8 years he is still often very sad and backwards looking. Am I being hard hearted or callous if I can't find it in me to constantly sympathise? I haven't yet told him to "snap out of it, get over it, and start to live again" as I know he wouldn't take it in the spirit in which I would have intended it. Was his relationship true love? or an imbalanced dependency?
No, I believe you can still love and have someone else truly love you. I believe in soul mates, if you got together with that person, you'd be a match. If not, you could still find love and happiness with someone else. I'm not too certain that soul mates end up together so easily though. Call me crazy.
Not at all, people come, people go, whose to say the next one will be the right one, or not. In fact you may never meet your true love, because most people find it impossible to be true !
In the world's harsh wear and tear many a very sincere attachment is slowly obliterated.
Είμαι ταξιδιώτης τόσο στο χρόνο όσο και στο διάστημα
What is true love? Can it be measured by the commitment you make to one person, the many times you forgive that person's mistakes and infidelities, the changes you're willing to make to please your lover, and the way you trust that person? I don't love someone because I need that person, or because that person needs me. True love and soul mate are usually linked. I found these quotes that express my understanding: "Our souls crave truth too greatly to pretend that we are only attracted to one person. The soul mate myth puts the lives of so many in limbo only to await for an illusion that never comes... You are your own soul mate. There are far too many lessons to be learned to expect one person to be the source of your ongoing evolution. It is tempting to simply try to stop this story…stop the growth…stop the change. Instead of seeing how we create the pain in our minds, it’s very tempting to think that a soul mate will make everything simply stop and in this space we will find eternal bliss. However, it is as straightforward as math to understand that 0.5 remains half since two bodies never become one. It is simple math to know that we are all part of one interconnected web of spirits and to try to break off two spirit chunks does not add up to one." (Life, Mystic. Spiritual Polyamory (Kindle Locations 433-458). iUniverse. Kindle Edition.)
There are two elements to this:
True Love
One
The former may be possible, though difficult. Depends on the definition you use.
The latter I don't buy. Surely it is possible to have true love more than once in one's life, though it may be rarer even than "true love".
My personal opinion is that everyone is different at a certain age .it all comes down to the right person at the right time. We evolve as people . We have different priorities in our 20's then our 30's or 40's . So you might find true love be different in your 20's than your 40's . If you are lucky enough to evolve together this is true love and probably forever.
I think Robert Heinlein had it pretty close to right when he wrote in Time Enough For Love "The more you love, the more you can love -- and the more intensely you love. Nor is there any limit on how many you can love. If a person had time enough, he could love all of that majority who are decent and just. "
That said, there is some merit to the argument that "true love" is indicated by the willingness to self-sacrifice. I can state with absolute surety that I am an example of someone who is unable to put a person ahead of my muse. Does that mean I place myself first? Not necessarily. I place music performance and the audience first. Consequently, I have played jobs when I was running a temperature over 100; I have played jobs when I was tired, both mentally and physically; I have played jobs where I drove over 100 miles and played for free. I have played outdoors in the rain, and in snow, and I have played indoors where there was not heat and the temperature was so low you could see your breath. After one of my best big band performances several years ago, I drove myself to the hospital, where I was diagnosed with pneumonia. So I would say that I did not put myself first; I made a sacrifice for the music.
MY third marriage ended because I felt so guilty taking time from us to play, that my wife said to me, "I can't let you do this to yourself any more. I am leaving you, so that you can play music without feeling guilty." I was so depressed, I nearly committed suicide, and had figured out how to do it, but couldn't get a substitute to play a job I had scheduled (and for which people had paid money for tickets), and couldn't figure out how to be sure someone would find my dog before she suffered. So, instead of hanging myself in the basement, I put on my tux, and went and played the job. Fortunately, during that performance, I had a request from someone to play in a pit orchestra for a show the following week. One job led to another, and now, seven years later, I am probably as happy, overall, as I have ever been in my life.
There is still one individual whom I love more than any others, but I know that I cannot commit to a person; I am already committed to music. There are others for whom I feel deeply - is that love? I think it is.
"There's only three tempos: slow, medium and fast. When you get between in the cracks, ain't nuthin' happenin'." Ben Webster
There are so many different loves that lead to so many different truths, yet each one can build us up just as quickly as tearing us down. By being able to continue to give your heart, a person can find many perfect true loves. Yet finding the one that will love you equally and without fail, well they are the ones that show that not only is it true love, it is also unending. I always worry that if I find such love, will I know it is actually love, or will I throw it away, afraid that it isn't. When those thoughts cross my mind, I realize that I'm surrounded by love. And no matter what comes, Love is never something that will just quit coming, in any way, shape or form.
First of all we have to define what true love is. For me true love is unconditional love and we must be aware that the only unconditional love in the world is of a mother for her child (it's not me that claims that, it's popular psychology). Following that line of thought I would say that the only true love is that of a mother for her child...From then on we can have a variety of feelings for a certain person and for sure we may call that love. Whether it is true or not, it is a matter of interpretation and in the long run it doesn't really matter as long as it makes us happy and complete...I believe everybody has their own truth about love - for some it is committing to one person for good, for others it is falling in love in different people all the time...Who is to say what is right and what is wrong? There are people who are so affectionate that they can generate love for dozens of people and they have no problem loving several people at a time, and there are others, who can't love completely even one...Intellectually, love is an abstract concept, like happiness or joy etc...But let's not forget that the sensation we feel when happy or in love is caused by a chemical substance caused endorphine...Then, is love a chemical phenomenon? To some extent yes..It isn't by accident that when we fall for someone out of the blue we often say that this was pure chemistry.
All in all, the topic of love presents different aspects for consideration and it's always enlightening to see what people think about it ...
yes I do. It's all about chemistry. Your love is someone you should be happy to fall asleep with..and wake up to. No better feeling. Love
Yes I believe there is A perfect soul mate for every person. However finding them is A Billion to one shot.
A lot of good thoughts on this string. I like to think that I have an open heart and that I love any number of people, but with a slightly different "version" of love for each. For me it's still a learning process...maybe a life-long process. But there is one woman that I think of more than any other when I hear the word "love". And then there are past loves, that oft-times don't feel like they are in the "past" at all. And...I have been extremely lucky in love. I've not always been a walk in the park, exactly.
“It's nice sometimes to open up the heart a little and let some hurt come in. It proves you're still alive.”
I would say that it depends upon your definition of true love.
And whether you consider that someone who classes themselves as poly-amorous, would love all the people they love equally.
I believe there are many forms of true love and soul mate around...and yes, finding them can cause many issues for a person, be that as a friend, best friend, lover, family member (non i word)
Insert something witty here.
Love can come in many forms, but I am not sure that there is just one true love.
One hears occasionally about someone in a great relationship, which then ends with an untimely death of their partner, but the survivor eventually finds another great love of their life. The two relationships are different, but equally good and satisfying, lasting to the end. When one is content, then perhaps they have found their "true love" for the time being. But, things change, people change, and true love is possible more than one time.
"Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than open one's mouth and remove all doubt" - Mark Twain (or Lincoln, or Confucius, or...)
For some people there is only one great 'love of their life.' But others there may be more than one, it all depends upon what life does to one and how they respond.