Do you believe in loving one person, forever?

[Flightattendant]

I hope this doesn't sound too stupid, but I'm really interested to know whether this has any substance or is just a big old myth.

Basically I've only really, really been in love properly once.

He wasn't a particularly perfect person and had various problems, still does as far as I know...we are not in touch.

He was my first sexual partner, and when he left, I grieved as though someone had died, it was so so bad.

I invested a lot in him because I believed we'd always be together.

I've not really ever got over him...I've fancied a few blokes since then and I've been out with a couple, even had another child (not planned exactly) but I feel differently about this man than to anyone else I have ever met, or been with.

It's as though I cannot ever stop loving him, faults and everything all taken into consideration, and he was pretty cruel to me. But I don't think I will ever stop feeling that deepest of connections with him.

It's a shame as he has moved on, well I think so, but I suspect he just couldn't deal with my demands (not to drink around ds, etc) as he is very screwed up really, though you might not guess it from the outside.

But despite telling myself over and over that I am OVER him and can find someone else, nobody ever seems to match up. I don't know why.

I'm probably deluded but feel rather stuck.

The big love of my life was a guy I went out with for a few months in my 20s. I adored him, but at that time I was ready to settle down and have dc and he was a struggling artist who was very screwed up by his childhood and all he wanted was to draw pictures and smoke weed all day every day! We just met at the wrong time in our lives and wanted different things and so we went our separate ways.
Fast forward 12 years, 2 kids and 2 partners later and I still feel the same about him. I haven't seen him for years but I know if I saw him tomorrow all those feelings would still be there. I heard from his sister that he feels the same way about me too, which is sad.
I have put all my feelings for him to the back of my mind and I love my DP to bits, but I can't help hoping thinking that one day we'll get together again.
Sorry I've gone on a bit there haven't I - just wanted to say that I understand what its like.

LITR, I can relate to that. That sounds like a kind of acceptance, also...thanks Daftpunk. I don't know if I will ever get there but still...

Bucharest, yes, well almost. I know it's soppy but tis a nice story...I lived alone and would hear this very noisy bike kicking over every evening, outside, It interrupted my radio four programme so I used to look out the window and glare. Then I felt guilty so one evening I said something, to check I ahdn't offended him. He replied, and we spent the next few hours chatting as he tried to fix his bike. He left it in my back garden for the night and I just was overwhelmed, from the moment he first spoke really...it went from there. Something had tripped a switch, I have never felt the same since.

Weird, really. Nobody else has ever had that effect on me.

Having been widowed I find this thread a bit

I've just remembered something else (good job I have to go to work in a minute or I'd be packing Him Indoors' bags )

In the bar where my boy worked, there was this mural thing, painted on the wall, some real people, some to make up numbers (bar had a number in its name) My boy is on the mural, with me next to him. Except it isn't me, because it was painted the year before I arrived there. It was just another of the made up people.

Might explain why he fancied me straightaway though.

Am liking the parallel universe.

That's very strange, Bucharest.

RestrainedRabbit I am very sorry if it makes you feel bad.

That wasn't my intention...I don't understand why I feel this way and needed some input. Would you like me to have it deleted...is it the bit about grief that upset you?

Sorry.

I am sure it is different to grief in that when someone dies, they have no choice...when someone leaves you they do it for their own reasons.

Truly sorry if my comparison earlier offended. I hadn't thought it through properly.

RestrainedRabbit;

I'm very sorry if talking about the stages of grief upset you....I really am.

But I know people in RL who have been through a situation like flights, and they have described it as a bereavement, when the relationship ended they felt completely heart broken.

I am still madly, painfully in love with the first boy I fell in love with, when I was 19. It was the all consuming, self-obsessed, unrequited passion that only first love can bring. It was never consummated, but it was intense, and complicated (on both sides, I believe).

The guy in question died when he was 21 in a freak accident. As a result all of those emotions have been stilled in time, marred with that tragedy, and were never allowed to run their course- I still feel, sometimes, that if he was to walk into the room now I would run away from everything I have because I honestly don't think I can ever feel that way about anyone else.

I realise this is not exactly what you were after, OP.

At the same time, however, I do believe that, with a lot of luck and an unbelievable amount of hard work, you can keep loving the same person forever- having said all I have said above, I really love my DH, and our love has grown, evolved, gotten stronger as it got harder to love each other over the years. I do sincerely hope that it stays this way, although i am under no illusions that temptations won't come in our way, or that it will always be rosey.

I have this idea that while falling in love is the easiest thing in the world (if it's really love), staying in love is the task of a lifetime and requires 100% commitment from both partners. But it can and does happen.

Not sure that answers your question either...

sorry you lost someone so special to you, TMM. I cannot understand how hard that must have been, I have never lost a partner in that way and no matter how painful, a relationship breakdown isn't the same as someone dying.

I have encountered grief and that's how I know it compares, to a degree...I shan't go into detail but the experience has been similar, for me. Daftpunk, I'm glad this isn't so unusual. Maybe it is a bit taboo to talk about...I don't know.

The thing is- he was not my partner, he was someone I loved, actually he was the first man I loved. I think, somehow, the intensity of first love and the intensity of the tragedy that happened molded this experience as some pinnacle of intensity never to be reached again.

sorry, i am babbling. getting very emotional thinking about it...

point is, though, i think you can love again, someone else, alongside this love that never ends...

Sorry
I like the idea of having other loves, alongside it.

Having trouble working out how I've managed to upset RR, I think if I had actually been widowed I might be offended too but I can't put my finger on it...I don't know how to discuss it some other way. Perhaps I should keep this all to myself. I hate the idea of my thread making someone feel angry/sad/whatever.

Losing someone and being left by someone/breaking up with someone are completely different animals imho.

If I lost my husband then I know I would love him forever and never love another man, ever.

If he betrayed me or left me then I would no longer love him, it's actually that simple for me - in fact I would actively hate him I'm sure.

Flight, My sister is going through exactly what you are going through. Her dh left her 4 years ago and she still hasn't got over him, infact I think she loves him more now....life is crazy sometimes isn't it...

I would never underestimate how you are feeling, knowing the person you love is out there but you can't have them is hard to deal with...

thanks Dafty. Sorry for your sister. That must be awful.

Mal...I've been utterly, utterly furious at him, but could never hate him. I've wanted to do things to hurt him back, but I never stopped loving him, I was just very angry.

RsetrainedRabbit, just wanted to say that I am also widowed and am now with my DP with whom I have a DC (will have another later in the year) - so you are not alone.

No one will ever be like my DH, I must admit, but I do really love my DP and am grateful for another chance at love. What really helps me is not to mourn the loss, so much as feel grateful DH was ever in my life at all. And I think that's the way to look at it for anyone who is missing someone, actually, whether they are still alive or not.

I think it was the comparison to grief that upset me, I have never known pain like that and ten years on I can still recall exactly how I felt and still have days of mourning. Lady Thompson hits the nail on the head, I have since remarried and have two DCs (another on the way ) and I now feel so honoured to have had DH1 in my life and all the richness of experiences he gave me. I have learnt my heart is big enough to love different people and of course relationships are not the same post-widowed as there is a part of you that dies too. But witnessing the fragility of life makes you look forward and seize all the experiences you can because staying stuck in the past is not a full way to live.

Flight - forgot to say I don't expect the post to be deleted, I have been on here a long time in various guises and accept that the range of opinions and experiences make MN what it is

No.There are lots of gorgeous blokes out there and sadly you don't stop meeting guys you are very compatible with once you are married.

Yes, RR, I think that is so true (both about a bit of you dying, but more positively, about wanting to seize experiences and having a fuller appreciation of life, in a way). I will miss DH forever but love doesn't die, of course...To those mourning the one that got away, though, I think I would find it hard to live knowing that someone Ioved more than my current partner was still out there.

Only read OP.

I can't believe in only loving one person as I love my husband but someone else has a place in my heart and there will always be what if's.

What I find interesting freaky is that I only properly fell in love properly once I thought OM was married.

Message deleted

I do believe in it. I've had a number of people come in and out of my life and who I've cared very much and perhaps loved in one form or another. However, only one who took my breath away when I first say them and still do does to this day. We're no longer together but she will always be my true love forever, regardless. I didn't believe in stuff like soul mates until I met her.

So you can love a number of people but you only have one true love, one who completes you. That's what made the break up so hard, knowing what I'd lost. The pain never fades

I did, but seeing as we are now divorcing and I know I don't love him anymore. I sure hope that this is not the only shance I will get at loving and being loved

This is something that I've been thinking about on and off throughout this last year or so, as my marriage slowly collapsed.

I used to think that my DW was my soul mate, but on reflection I think this was more to do with cultural expectations: after all isn't that what the romantic view of marriage tells us we should feel? That there's one person who is the "one". We're sold the idea that another person makes us whole in countless songs, plays, films, books, etc.

In reality, I think this model of love is almost entirely dependent upon our own needs and the stage that we've reached in life at the time we meet someone. Since these don't stay the same, there's no reason to think that the person who we regard as our soul mate at one time will continue to be so for the rest of our life.

I don't think I'm being overly cynical. I still believe in love, and I know that I'm essentially monogamous, it's just that I don't believe that there's only one person that trumps all others.