What is love anyway? Unfortunately it tends to be largely sexual attraction when we talk about relationships. I prefer a definition of love that is essentially an outgoing regard for the well-being of another person. Sex is great, but sex alone is not a good basis for an ongoing relationship. I need two separate words to continue this ... lets call the unselfish type "love" and the sexual type "physical attraction". Somewhere in there also is "like", and it may be the most important one in a relationship.
You can love someone without knowing them at all. You simply care about their well-being. That's probably not what we are discussing, but Jesus thought well of it.
(From now on I'm going to refer to the other person as "she". I'm male. Adjust as fits you.)
So, you meet someone on the internet. You exchange emails. She seems nice. After a while you get on Skype and you see what she looks like. Yuck, she's not 21 and gorgeous as she said. Goodbye. Not because you insist on beauty, you're no Adonis yourself, but she misled you. She looks OK, continue. A healthy sexual relationship is important to you (you're going to give up all other women if you get married, so it had better be worth it). She joins you in on-line sex, another barrier down. You've already established some shared interests. You talk about cooking and bird watching. This is really going well.
So you decide to meet. Better for her if it's a public place. You meet and everything still feels good. You have real life sex. It's great! You take a vacation together and enjoy it. So lets get married! What can go wrong?
WAIT!!!!
I'll switch from being the eager young lover to the real me, old and grumpy, with several failed relationships behind me.
You never really know someone until you have lived together for a long time. You have to get past the stage when you are both on best behavior. Physical attraction fades and the masks come off. You may like what's under the mask. There, I finally got to the "like" thing. If you do then you are one of the fortunate few. Enjoy the happy life that stretches before you. But if you don't like her, no amount of love is going to make you happy. If it's not too late, run don't walk away from it.
There's an in between relationship that I think is worth trying. Living separately. It's the ideal combination of living alone (with nobody else to consider) and dating (with all the fun). I so wish I had done that.
A marriage is not more important than the people in it.
Children add a complication to the above. You may have to make the best of a bad relationship until they are grown. Evaluate the relationship carefully before embarking on a family. Children add stress to a relationship, they don't help it.
Beware of marrying someone with children at home. No matter how hard she tries the children will always be more important to her than you are. And the children will not accept you as a full-fledged parent. Oh, they will when it comes to treats, but not when it comes to discipline.
You can get too old to make yet another change.
Beware someone who has a fixed picture in her mind of how the world should be. If you are not a masochist, run don't walk ...
People don't change, not deep down. You won't change her, nor she you. If she doesn't like you now, she never will.
Keep your money separate.
Always have some part of your lives that you don't share.
When it gets really bad, alcohol helps.
Being single is actually not so bad ...
Gosh, I don’t even know where to start. I agree with so much of what you said.
I will start with my own story and then comment on what you said. Suffice to say my experience has been very different from yours. I was only married once, for 37 years, I have had no other serious relationships or sex with anyone else, although I dated a little in high school and in my twenties, before I married at age 32. We got married three weeks after we met had what we had was mostly an emotional connection, although admittedly there was also a sexual attraction. Since neither one of us had ever had sex with anyone and he was 10 years older than me, it was only natural for us to want sex, since we were ‘in love’ with each other.
The first year was rough but after that things were good for a long time. It was not so much that we were ‘in love’ as that faded, but we liked each other and that never changed. Sadly, I demanded more from him than he could provide, but I did not know that at the time, I just wanted what I wanted. It was not a lot, but he was not capable of doing what I wanted. In retrospect, I am very sorry I had those expectations, because it ultimately led to a loss of closeness and intimacy that and was never rekindled. Nevertheless, we stayed married and he was my best friend and there for emotional support through thick and thin, and it was mostly thick for those last 20 years.
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I agree with you that love in this culture is largely based upon sexual attraction and this is doomed to failure because it does not last forever. I believe that real love is as you said, essentially an outgoing regard for the well-being of another person, and sex without caring about the well-being of the other person is not a good basis for an ongoing relationship. I agree that ‘liking’ the person may be the most important one in a relationship. That includes accepting them for who they are, not for what they can do for you.
I have a counselor who thinks that a person has to know someone for three years before they get married. Well, if they hold my religious beliefs, that would mean they have to wait to have sex for three years. But that is not the biggest problem, the biggest problem is when we get older, we don’t have a lot of time left. Not only that, but you are not going to really know a person until you live with them, and living together before marriage is not something that is allowed in my religion. I guess one could get to know a person without living with them, as they could learn about their character, which is of utmost importance, but I don’t think it requires three years to know a person’s character.
I agree with the following that you said:
You can get too old to make yet another change.
Beware someone who has a fixed picture in her mind of how the world should be. If you are not a masochist, run don't walk ...
People don't change, not deep down. You won't change her, nor she you. If she doesn't like you now, she never will.
I am not sure I agree that all the money should be kept separate or that there should be parts of their lives married people don't share.
I do not drink alcohol so for me when it gets really bad, alcohol is off the table. A long walk would be better for me.
I don’t like being single so for me being single is so bad.
