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Love: Feeling or Choice?

A breakdown of love as a feeling and love as a choice.

By Mars SaintPublished 5 years ago 3 min read
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I don't believe that a romantic relationship that is intended to last a lifetime can depend on something as frivolous as feelings.

Feelings change rapidly. We all know this and we see it in every area of our lives. People get angry and fight with people they love, friendships die because feelings change, people leave relationships because they feel differently, people feel hurt, yet when it comes to love we put an enormous and unrealistic pressure on a feeling to be constant and expect it to last for the rest of our lives.

Every other feeling is temporary and changes with circumstances, why shouldn't love? People believe if they "fall out of love," then there's no point anymore but we know that every other emotion is fueled by actions, circumstances. We get sad, angry, hurt, even love people in the first place, and they are all fueled by actions and circumstances but love is supposed to be consistent, somehow.

If that were true, then why doesn't the love we have for people prevent us from getting angry at them? Imagine being angry all the time, how much damage would you do? Does that mean we never stop loving our exes if love never changes? Does it mean we never stop having a crush on someone? Why does one act of love at the beginning of the relationship not last the rest of your life/the relationship? Because those are unrealistic and they spell failure. We don't want anything to do with the idea that we enter into a relationship that we want to last forever on a single act of affection yet, we expect love to last forever.

Love must be cultivated every day to survive or like a flower, it will wither and die without water and sunlight. Love is powerful but it's not more powerful than any other feeling or our own innate ability to destroy and cause pain. With love comes hurt and you can't be hurt without love.

People fall in and out of love in relationships all the time. Read that again. It's actually totally normal. Your partner does something incredibly sweet for you that they know you will enjoy and without being asked to, what happens? You feel loved, appreciated, honored, and your love for them grows. Alternatively, if they were acting distant or neglectful without realizing it or intending to, you'd feel hurt and if the behavior went on long enough without being addressed, you'd probably begin to fall out of love with them, at least to some degree.

Relationships get boring when you've been with someone for a long time. If romantic relationships were based only on a feeling, then how would you keep the relationship progressing through those periods? Ask your friends who have been in lasting relationships for long periods and they'll tell you, it's not exciting after the first six months, a year, and if you want something that lasts forever, then be prepared for the relationship to get dull. That shouldn't change your commitment. It's a lot of pressure to expect your partner to be exciting, captivating, and goo goo eyed after a long period of being together. That doesn't mean the romance is dead. It means there's work to do either by communicating the concern to your partner and coming up with a solution or putting the work in yourself to liven it up.

Love is a verb and verbs require action. The action is a choice and is supported by actions and choices.

Consistency, effort, attention, those are all actions and the formula to a sustainable relationship.

We have choose to remain in the relationship. To choose to cultivate the feeling. To choose your partner every day no matter how you're feeling about them (assuming you aren't being abused or intentionally hurt or neglected).

The opposite of love isn't hate. It's indifference.

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About the Creator

Mars Saint

I'm a writer. It's how I express feelings I can't say. It's where I feel most at home. I'm an author and a graphic designer as well so snippets of my teasers and novels will make it on this site too.

www.facebook.com/authormarssaint

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