Are Open Relationships Stronger than Exclusive Ones? (date, long-term, gay)
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Location: Everybody is going to hurt you, you just gotta find the ones worth suffering for-B Marley
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Originally Posted by LS Jaun
Unfortunately "Love" is an emotion. Making emotional decisions amost automatically implies the lack of logic.
The only time I see an example of lifetime "Love" ever working in its purist form whould be if you stayed with your first sweet heart forever. Almost any one else has been through multiple relationship exclaiming they were in love with that person. After they leave them they will exclaim that it really wasn't love and that the next one is.
Oh come on people "I am only in love with the current person I am with" is bull because you said the same thing about the last boyfriend or spouse. Convienient amnesia is what it is. "Love is Blind"
There IS nothing logical about love. It's a beast. You can't rationalize, explain, package it.
I agree with the second paragraph. I fell in love at 18, lost that love, and never fell out of love with him. I had relationships after him where I thought I was in love but when we broke up, I was over him within two months or so. It was not love and none has ever matched my one true love. My belief is, if it was true love, you will never ever get over them. But only time will tell that.
Definitely. That's what confused me about the term 'being in love.' People talk about 'being in love' with people they barely even know, or haven't even spoken to! Isn't that just a crush though?
In my opinion - yes.
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To me actually being truly, deeply in love with someone is more than a warm fuzzy feeling. It is a deep sense of connection, of unity, of loyalty and commitment.
I agree with this as well.
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Yet the relationships between a lot of people my age do indeed seem fickle...and of course what pop culture spouts out, celebrating promiscuity. There are like no pop songs celebrating romantic love as in past eras, of sticking in it for each other, of growing old together.
I don't the fickleness of younger people has anything to do with pop songs or pop culture - but of just youth itself. Have you heard of the older songs - "When I'm not near the girl I love, I love the girl I'm with," "It's my party and I'll cry if I want to," "If you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with," etc. Romantic comedies are still as rampant today as they ever were. Love may seem fickle amongst young people to you because young people are young - and therefore many of them are fickle. It just goes with the territory.
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I guess, sadly, if I can't pass that first hurdle I will never experience 'true love.' I believe many my age have not yet either. Sex has nothing to do with it. I mean getting into a relationship is nothing, really, but that special type? Is it merely a matter of familiarity, day after day?
Just live your life one day at a time. Things will happen when they are supposed to happen. You can't force love. You can't make love happen. Someday - love will find you. Until then - just live, laugh, and soak up as much as you can.
I believe sex, and sex with your spouse only, is an integral part of a marriage, and if you take sex outside the marriage, it pretty much renders the marriage a sham.
How about if it is an arranged marriage where love doesn't have anything to do with it?
I don't think it's necessarily an excuse to be promiscuous. But it gives people a sense that they are less 'trapped' than if they committed entirely to one person. Basically, why bother getting married in the first place, then?
Would it be different with a live-in partner instead of marriage? I was married once and do not want to do that again. But I am open to a live-in partner.
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Originally Posted by Whyte Byrd
I think it's lust. Which brings us back to, why not just stay single then?
Not directed at me but I'll comment ---
I have never had an open relationship before but I am opened to it, but only on a very limited basis. As mentioned above a main live-in partner interests me because I'd prefer to live with someone than alone which is what I am currently doing. Say if I do meet someone and she tells me she has a long time lover but does not want to live with him or there are other circumstances, do I have the right to say no? I guess I could but I won't.
Or say the female is bi and wants to have sex with a friend she has known for a long time and can't live with her because her partner is part of a family. Or she likes to have sex with both males and females and tells me she wants to continue to see her. Again, no problem with me.
I guess I'm just more open-minded than many. Most relationships are temporary anyway. But whatever works for you and makes you happy...
Monogamy has never worked for me and for the record I have never cheated on anyone, ever. I'm thinking it may be time to try something different.
There IS nothing logical about love. It's a beast. You can't rationalize, explain, package it.
I agree with the second paragraph. I fell in love at 18, lost that love, and never fell out of love with him. I had relationships after him where I thought I was in love but when we broke up, I was over him within two months or so. It was not love and none has ever matched my one true love. My belief is, if it was true love, you will never ever get over them. But only time will tell that.
"There IS nothing logical about love. It's a beast."
How true, Touche' An example of True Love. What happened to him?
How about if it is an arranged marriage where love doesn't have anything to do with it?
That's a different situation. People in those types of marriages (most of my neighbors, for instance) say that they eventually learn or grow to love each other, and they, too, stay monogamous and keep sex within their own marriage. Now, whether they were in love with each other when they started having sex together (after their arranged marriage) is beyond me.
I'd like to know where you got the notion that I believe all there is to marriage is sex. You didn't get it from any of my posts.
You said that without sexual exclusivity there is no marriage.
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I believe sex, and sex with your spouse only, is an integral part of a marriage, and if you take sex outside the marriage, it pretty much renders the marriage a sham.
Ah. You have a different definition of marriage than I.
You said that without sexual exclusivity there is no marriage.
I did no such thing. I said there is no marriage without sexual exclusivity. See the difference?
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Ah. You have a different definition of marriage than I.
I have a fairly universally accepted definition of marriage.
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