[phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 112: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 112: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead ¤ milky moon ¤ • View topic - The Love thread
Polliwog ... I sort of think that what you're saying is the conclusion people come to, y'know, with wisdom and stuff. I mean, I'm not totally sure, but it always seems like the young people are all about passion, where once you've lived a little longer, you realize love might be a little more about dedication and trust and all that.
I'm a messed up regarding my love life, but I don't even know where to begin. Agh.
I agree with you and Ann. I think perhaps we are reaching that age when you finally realise that this is what relationships are like, frankly boring! Flippin' heck it took me this long!! I feel like a child
I want more fun *stamps feet*
I totally saw through the eyes of passion for about a year, it was like I was on some kind of drug. When I first started talking to that guy my mind was racing along with my heart. My imagination was allowed to run around like an unruly child.
Hugs for everyone who is having trouble
And every little gust that chances through Will dance in the dust of me and you
The whole growing up and making do without passion thing seems to be 'settling' to me. "Settle" is among that category of words that are generally regarded as positive that I revile. I can't think of a single use of the word "settle" other than its raw, physical sense (a rock settling on the seabed, for example) that isn't deeply ugly to me. Settling a new continent is spoiling it, settling for someone is abandoning one's dreams, settling down and having a family is giving up on one's own life and making some new ones to make up for it, settling for less than the best is giving up on idealism, etc. Other words in this category include "healthy", "normal", "family" and "tame".
I don't hate family itself - I love my family, naturally - but I hate the word and the way it's used. It's become a byword for commercialised wholesomeness (I'm not keen on wholesomeness) and commercialised feeling. "Good, clean family fun" is a horrible phrase. Nothing described as "good, clean family fun" is ever any fun, it's usually something deeply boring that doesn't deserve to exist that touts the word "family" to guilt trip parents (who are probably at the end of their tether from caring for their infants and to whom the prospect of 'fun' [fun is also a fairly grim word] that transcends age group seems as attractive as a methhead's next fix) into taking their kiddlywinks along to see/do/whatever whatever it is that's being sold. It's also used to grant a false legitimacy to things in politics and to ostracise people who don't have families as weird social nonentities who contribute nothing. Politicians will espouse family values, say that they're acting in the interests of "<insert nationality here> families", etc. - what about people who don't have families or don't want families? Are they worthless? Do they not vote, too? "Healthy" is used similarly, but what I can't stand about the whole family of words related to "healthy" is that they're used as if health is an end in itself. Okay, I'm perfectly healthy! I'll live till I'm 350 naturally! Now what? Wither away into a vegetable with skin half-heartedly clinging on to my skeleton? Who wants to live that long (naturally)? Eternal youth is something to aspire to, eternal life is not. And why be healthy at all unless it's actually improving your life? I see health as a means to an end. I seek to be healthy enough that ill health doesn't get in the way of other things and no more. It's experience that matters, and I'm not about to let the fact that my body was designed by a blind watchmaker get in the way of that. "Normal" is something akin to "settle". One settles down for a normal life. It's also held up as a good thing. No. Normality is homogeneity. If everyone was normal the world would be an utterly miserable place. It's the abnormal, the exceptional, that makes life worth living. If the Grand Canyon were normal no one would visit it. If Joanna's music were normal we wouldn't listen to it - normal music is generally bereft of artistic value. It's a synonym of "banal" and "mediocre", and yet people see it as something to aspire to. I hate the word "tame" because I hate the idea of being tame or of taming something. It carries connotations of breaking the spirit, subjugating, etc. for an increase in utility - tame a wolf so it can pull your sleigh, tame a horse so you can use it to carry things, tame Africa so you can bleed it dry and leave it in ruins. It implies an exploiter/exploited relationship - the tamer and the tamed. And yet society generally considers that something tame is better than somethild wild. Wildness is something to fear, despite its being beautiful and majestic and free. It seems ideologically oppressive; some remnant of the Middle Ages when the native religions that idolised the wild were being tamed by the church and the kings wanted the peasants to be docile and compliant, not proud and free - an equally convenient notion, note well, to today's exploiters.
But that rant aside, I would say that you can have both passion and the intimacy and familiarity of a long-term relationship. It might be difficult and exceptional, but it's possible. One of the most heartening things I've ever seen is an old couple in a record shop. They were probably in their 60s. Most couples you see that age look rather like they're waiting for something; not these two. They were practically dancing, possibly slightly drunk, picking things up and looking at them together, making eachother laugh, holding hands, and, of course, they were eccentrically dressed. I'd have them down as aging thespians. I don't know the story - I didn't speak to them and I never saw them again, and I daresay there's a whole lot I don't know. Heck, he could have been her gay friend as far as I know. But assuming that everything was as it appeared, that looks ideal - they had all the excitement and vigour of much younger people, most of it seemingly coming from the other's presence.
I am a hopeless idealist, ever tilting my lance at life's windmills, and I doubt I'll ever be satisfied as a result; for a realist's opinion you'd have to look elsewhere. I live my life by an unwritten code that can be neatly summarised in a Streetlight Manifesto lyric: "Never settle for anything less than the best of (I will die for no less than the best of) life." There's the word "settle" being used positively - settling for the best is okay. My philosophy is exactly that - and by life, I mean all life, and not just myself. It's likely futile and impossible, but there's only two things that can happen: I can achieve it or die trying. And either way, that's not bad.
But I think you have to work on things too. OK maybe never settle for anything but the best, but perhaps that potentially lies within most relationships that have at one point been passionate, you just have to try and keep it going. Otherwise we are just being slaves to our ever changing emotions.
I guess the biggest fear for a lot of people is being alone when they are older, that is probably why a lot of people "settle down".
And every little gust that chances through Will dance in the dust of me and you
I am not sure why I read this thread - I've nothing much to share and would be the world's worst advisor.
But one thing did strike me about your posts. You wrote about the decrease in passion in your relationships, about the lack of excitement, and (if I may be so blunt) about boredom. Yet it was clear that you both had so much in common with your partners, that you 'love' them on a practical level, and admire many of their qualities - just not all of them.
All of this you told us with great clarity, and without knowing who may read it.
So: have you told these long suffering partners? I don't mean just grumbled a bit and hinted (I assume they're both guys, and we simply don't DO hints ... you have to spell it out to us!) Why not arrange to spend a period of time (I don't mean an hour or two, but a day at least; a week if you can) without distractions, and to promise each other you'll be frank with each other. Then tell each other your fears, gripes, groans, as well as your hopes and praises. If necessary, plan an agenda: it's easier to be honest about certain subjects when it's in a context where that is expected. Both try to make sure you say everything that's upsetting you, and ensure you listen to one another.
By the final day, perhaps you will understand one another more fully, appreciate each other's misgivings, and begin to see a way in which you can address all these points.
I do wish you - all four of you - the very best with your futures together, and apologies if my intervention has been unwelcome or unhelpful.
I'm sorry if I sound a little rude, but it is really hard to keep a relationship interesting after 21 years and yes we always talk openly about everything. You can't change a person so no matter how much you talk about some things they will not change. You just have to decide if the rest of the relationship is worth the sacrifice. I know for a fact that there are a lot of things about my personality that are difficult for my boyfriend to deal with.
This is the only outlet I have for talking or having a moan about my love life, I have nobody else I can talk about this openly so I come here to vent a little I guess.
Things are getting better between us now, I am just trying so hard and it is hard to hear stuff that reminds me.
And every little gust that chances through Will dance in the dust of me and you