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So that is the logic behind needing the man to be more in love. It gives the woman the ability to call the shots as pertaining to her sexual and emotional health, because in general women do tend to be more vulnerable in those areas (women are the ones that get pregnant, that catch STIs easier than men, that tend to prefer sex within a commitment, etc.). It's not about a power trip or needing to feel powerful or wanted in a Narcissistic way. That seems to be what a lot of people assume. It's about having enough power to ask the man for what you need, and for him to feel you are worthy enough to abide by the boundaries you set.
Excellent points. I don't require a man to be more in love with me, because that would feel strange and actually kind of awful and selfish, but these points need to be considered.
To me, quantifying love is not something I feel I can do with logic and reason and strategic explanations. This falls under, for me, the "more of an art than a math/science" concept. I don't know that I could analyze love/not love without falling back on some pretty illogical concepts.
It reminds me a bit of something I'm undertaking right now, I'm going through ALL of my belongings, getting rid of a lot, putting a bunch into storage, getting ready to move out of state for a while, right? I am taking a lot of things that are not strictly necessary with which I decorate my home so that I feel happy and it feels like MY environment. And I'm having lots of those, "does this spark joy?" moments. I'm following my gut when it comes to what stays and what goes. Why is one candle just a bit too bright a shade of red? Why is one object a little more "me" than another one? I can't explain it logically.
I believe in a very generous interpretation of the word, "love." I love my parents, even when I recognize their flaws, even if I can go months without talking to my Dad, if someone asked, "but do you love him?" Well, yeah. I love many of my friends, I love my cat, I love my kids even when they drive me nuts. But that's different, that's not what we're talking about. Um, exactly. The love I have for my husband has a lot of passion in it, beyond even lust. The way his eyes look when he smiles gives me a rush of warm feels somewhere in the area that feels like, "my heart." How? Why? Isn't the heart simply an organ that moves blood around? What is there in that part of me that would respond somehow to the visual stimuli of seeing him, seeing me? I crave the smell of him, the sound of his voice.
Do I love him MORE than I love my children? ....I don't even want to answer that. Yes no kind of maybe? But I love him differently. And it drives my life choices. How I direct my resources. My plans. It is tied and tangled into my logistics.
It is a lot more than fear of loss. I actually expect to lose him one day, he's a lot older than me! But I would rather it go that way than the other way around, and risk him having to suffer watching me perish of some lingering thing, if I had the choice. I would protect him from that pain and deal with it myself. Because I know myself, and I know that I CAN cope. It'll hurt, yeah. It will. I might not be very functional for a time. But I'm a strong and resilient person, I will go on.
And there's another thing, what about protective feelings? Every time I had a significant role in caring for a child (my much younger brothers, my own children) I had actual repeating nightmares where they were in peril and I had to protect and/or save them. I would have given my life for theirs. I feel protective of my husband, his feelings, if someone says or does something hurtful to him I will be very angry about that, and I don't anger easily.
I definitely love this one friend I have, very much. She has the ability to lift me up or cast me down. Her compliments MEAN more than they would coming from pretty much anyone. I trust her and I'm vulnerable to her. I am invested in her thoughts and opinions. I know that she feels the same.
I actually don't think that I have ever loved any two people in precisely the same way. It's always got a different flavor, as unique as the people themselves are. I do not consider people to be fungible, exchangeable one for another. And so one love is not exchangeable for another to me, either. How does one explain in logical terms, something that has never felt exactly the same way twice, even if there might sometimes be some common aspects? EDIT: And yet, I generally can point to more love/less love in many connections, if mostly in unbalanced ones where it seems obvious. And the "more love" has not always been healthier or better.
I can't lie, defining love even platonic love is kind of hard for me to do. If something were to happen to my parents or my siblings or any of my family members I spent a significant amount of time with I'd be devastated. I often say, the day I lose a parent, is the day I lose my sanity. It's something that I wrestle with almost daily. Do I feel that way about my best friends? I think I would be sad but I don't think I would be as devastated. That is why I'm really funny about who I say "I love you too." I tell my parents constantly. My siblings as well. My best friends think of me as a sister and they tell me they love me all the time. I can't really say I've felt that kind of love for anyone outside of my immediately family. It's kind of like it depends on who has the potential to impact my life the most. It sounds kind of bad when I say it like that. I honestly it gets overused and it's become something people say to be polite. To me love seems like it would be a deep profound connection, you take care of each other, look out for each other, etc. I'm just reading these posts and pondering.......
Sad thing is that even if it's unintentional in most couples the one least in love has most of the power in the relationship(because they are slightly less emotionally invested in the relationship) even if the difference is small, it's just more obvious when it's a "he loves her with all his heart" vs "she thinks he good enough....mostly" type of situation.
There is a reason many women in these forums say they won't date or avoid dating "pretty boyz" or "rich guys". because many of those guys have so many options they don't often appreciate who they have and thus the typical power balance is reversed.
The way I quantify love when I answered the OP is how afraid someone is to lose someone else, hence, how motivated they are to please their partner. The more "love" there is, the more that person is motivated to please their partner and go out of their way for him or her. That is how Dr. John Gray quantifies it too when he gave the advice for women to be with a man who loves her more.
I disagree with the premise that the primary motivation for acting to please a romantic partner is to avoid losing them. The implication is that a partner's happiness is of no intrinsic value, and only to be pursued to the minimum extent necessary to keep them attached for one's own benefit.
To me, healthy interpersonal relationships don't result from purely selfish motivation. I am not a believer in Objectivism as a moral philosophy (perhaps you are?)
Even if we accept a selfish premise, I'm not convinced that fear of loss (the dark side of attachment) is a hedonistically efficient criteria for life choices.
I disagree with the premise that the primary motivation for acting to please a romantic partner is to avoid losing them. The implication is that a partner's happiness is of no intrinsic value, and only to be pursued to the minimum extent necessary to keep them attached for one's own benefit.
To me, healthy interpersonal relationships don't result from purely selfish motivation. I am not a believer in Objectivism as a moral philosophy (perhaps you are?)
Even if we accept a selfish premise, I'm not convinced that fear of loss (the dark side of attachment) is a hedonistically efficient criteria for life choices.
Its not of that much importance what drives the motivation to please your partner, whether its selfish, hedonistic, or driven by some lofty atruism.
The end result is what is important. The end result being that a person is motivated to go above and beyond to make and keep their partner happy.
Interesting that this thread would be front and center when I looked this forum up for the first time in about a year. I have been mildly struggling with this concept in my current relationship. I think my dynamic also is influenced by my last long-term relationship. In my previous relationship I thought I found my soul-mate. She excited me and had this perfect personality for me where she was a not over the top, but had a little bit of a spontaneous wild side. I thought she was every bit into me as I was to her. I think that stems from my high self-esteem though rather than reality. Unfortunately she had many issues with PTSD from the trauma of childhood sexual abuse and after 20 years together she decided she needed to be on her own and could not have sexual intimacy in her life any longer. The first 7 years of our relationship were glorious, followed by 13 years of dishonesty and possible affairs on her part. I never caught her in anything more than inappropriate conversations, and we always moved past it, but it was a periodic struggle.
I met someone about 18 months ago that is the polar opposite of my ex-wife. She is one of the nicest, most caring people I have ever met. The small problem I have is that I am to her what my ex-wife was to me. I am a revelation after she was in a marriage for 20 years that lacked the intense passion that she feels towards me. I don't relish her feelings towards me at all. I wish she was more on my level as far as expressing feelings. But she isn't and I am learning to accept that. She lived a pretty boring suburban existence before meeting me. I have introduced her to a circle of people and a life that is very exciting for her. I seem to bring much more into the relationship in that regard. I am a foodie and music lover that has introduced her to food she had never experienced and pre pandemic we attended several concerts together. So I am this guy that has opened her eyes to a world she wanted but thought she wasn't supposed to have once she had kids. I do love her, but it is not the same passionate, "where have you been all my life" love that she has for me. My love is more of an appreciative love. I am attracted to her and our sex life is really good. But with me she is experiencing sex on a level that she didn't even know was possible. I am experiencing sex simply on par with what I had with my wife. So it is impossible for me to feel the same passion that she feels for me, because I have felt it before.
In my case I think it is possible for the love that is felt to be unequal or at least different. Especially at my age (53). I think this situation would bother me more if I was in my 20's or 30's, I would fear that I was settling. But now I look at life differently. She fits into my life perfectly and accepts all my flaws. I love many things about her. All my friends that have met her love her and tell me the same thing. . . "you better not **** this up". I recognize and appreciate how awesome she is. Do I wish I looked at her and got weak in the knees like she gets with me? Of course I do. But who knows if I will ever find that again?
This is something my grandmother encouraged when I was much younger. She’d drunkenly talk about these sort of things when I was a teenager, and I didn’t quite understand it at the time. My mother has said some similar things.
I have generally been in relationships where this was the case. I didn’t go into these relationships with that in mind, but the dynamic that came to be, certainly felt like that was the case. But again, how does one quantify “love” here?
Its not of that much importance what drives the motivation to please your partner, whether its selfish, hedonistic, or driven by some lofty atruism.
The end result is what is important. The end result being that a person is motivated to go above and beyond to make and keep their partner happy.
Then what is the purpose of advising to date someone who "loves" more (in an attachment sense) instead of simply advising to date someone who makes and keeps you happy? Why is measuring the cause easier than measuring the effect? Especially when the cause is someone else's psyche, hardly an easy thing to observe and measure.
Note also that fear of loss as the primary motivator may come with side effects of jealousy and insecurity.
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