[Searching4Answers]

I have not seen this website posted here before but if it has sorry for the repeat information.

http://www.angriesout.com/index.htm

There is a lot useful information for the LBS as well as the children that are suffering too. I really like the way it is presented - it is easy to understand and offers good solutions.

Hope it helps someone out there

[HeartTattoo]

http://markmanson.net/love#.hx0xsq:RPBS

Love is Not Enough--not for marriages & not for the MLCer & OP either

[kikki]

Great article HT.
This part especially stood out to me.

You can fall in love with a wide variety of people throughout the course of your life. You can fall in love with people who are good for you and people who are bad for you. You can fall in love in healthy ways and unhealthy ways. You can fall in love when you’re young and when you’re old. Love is not unique. Love is not special. Love is not scarce.

But your self-respect is. So is your dignity. So is your ability to trust. There can potentially be many loves throughout your life, but once you lose your self-respect, your dignity or your ability to trust, they are very hard to get back.

[Anjae]

Interesting article, HT.

But I think the article shows the usual confusion, it sort of equals falling in love with love. They are not one and the same thing. Falling in love is not enough, love , real one, may be enough.

Why? because real love includes "respect, humility and commitment". In love is more closer to passion. Not that a romantic relationship, a marriage, a marriage like relationship can exist without some sort of romance/romantic feelings and in loveness.

Otherwise it would be a friendship or the relationships we have with our relatives. Nothing wrong with those, but they are a different type of relationship. 

[kikki]

Anjae, I read it that the writer was commenting on agape love vs infatuation (in love).
Worded for an audience that is used to Hollywood versions of what love supposedly is.
Just my take.

[Anjae]

That was not my reading.

My reading was that two married man with children were being compared. Marriage cannot live on agape love.

One of the men, Trent Reznor, has real love for his wife and family, the other, John Lennon, does (did) not.

Descart falling in love, a necessary part of the whole process, if we are talking about marriage/marriage like relationship is a bit silly.

Also, didn't we all pretty much got very upset when our spouses told us that they still loved us but where no longer in love with us?

If being in love is so irrelevant, why did we all become so upset? After all, our spouses all said that they still love us.



Being in love has a component of infatuation. I don't think being in love exists without infatuation, smaller it may be.

For me these type of articles end up confusing things even more, some how leading people to think that there is something wrong with being in love or infatuation.

There isn't. It is true we may fall in love, be infatuated with several people thoughout our live. Most times it is just that, we never act on it, it washes away on itself.

Hollywood version is not that far from many people's marriages/relationships. We all know enough people whose marriage/relationship ended when the infatuation went away.

On the other hand, any one with half a neuron will know that the hollywood version does not match a real marriage.

The falling in love thing is nothing new. It was just that, in the past, people did not married for love. They married for money/status/to have children to preserve the family name-business/because it was the thing to do, etc.

So they were free to fall in love/be infatuated with whomever they wanted. That would not break the marriage. And they could jump from lover to lover.

[kikki]

Agape (/ˈæɡəpiː/[1] or /ˈæɡəpɪ/;[2] Classical Greek: ἀγάπη, agápē; Modern Greek: αγάπη IPA: [aˈɣapi]), which means love: esp. compassion, forgiveness, charity; the love of God for man and of man for God.

My understanding of agape is that that is exactly what marriage is all about.

Also, didn't we all pretty much got very upset when our spouses told us that they still loved us but where no longer in love with us?

If being in love is so irrelevant, why did we all become so upset? After all, our spouses all said that they still love us.

I didn't get that line from my MLCer until about 18mths after BD.  Since I had read it here, it came as a bit of a surprise after all of the antics, and I have to admit I laughed at that point at the reliability of the script.
(laughed out of shock I guess)

There was plenty for me to be upset about given the destruction he was about to wreck/wrecking on my and my children.

The way I understand it is that 'in love' is the same as infatuation.  And yes I agree Anjae, to reach agape love we first need to get through the infatuation. 
I think he's talking about when agape love never comes, and we mistake the drama and chaos for true love, it's time to review (eg our MLCers and the OP)

[Anjae]

I never got the I'm not in love with you. I got the reverse. I'm still has in love with you as ever, but I no longer love you. It was said only once and I told Mr J I did not believed him about not loving me.

He said I was right and said he would never say again he did not loved me. He never said it again.

Agape love is not married love. Agape is the love without any sexual attraction. Marriage requires the existence of Eros. Married love also needs Philia and Stroge.

Agape is the stage we need to reach when dealing with a spouse in MLC.
Check here the definitions of the (ancient) Greek types of love:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_words_for_love

[kikki]

Although eros is initially felt for a person, with contemplation it becomes an appreciation of the beauty within that person, or even becomes appreciation of beauty itself.

Agape is also used in ancient texts to denote feelings for one's children and the feelings for a spouse

From your link.

I think we both mean the same thing, no matter which way it gets categorized.   

[Anjae]

Well, when I learned the Greek types of love, Agape was for people that we did not have a sexual relationship with, since it does include Eros. Agape pretty much is the universal love, the love one has for all human beings.

So, yes, it can have the feelings, like the feelings for a child, but it is deprived of the carnal love.

Therefore, alone, it would not do for a marriage. For a marriage you pretty much need all four types. Agape alone will not do.

It could be put like, Agape exists, or can exist, in a marriage, but a marriage cannot live only with Agape love. So, marital love is composed of the four kinds of love, that together form true love.

Wiki is not so elaborated as University. And one has to remember that the Greeks would pretty much feel Agapé, and maybe only Agapé, for the spouse since the spouse was not someone they tended to be attracked to. Yes, there were children, but only because they were necessary.

RCR has a view more similar to yours in her article about Agapé. Mine is a little different, since for me Agapé, even if it could be applied to a spouse, only works in a marital relationship if used with the other three.

Otherwise it is the type of love that I feel for my family and that is not the same type of love I used to feel for Mr J.