Using the word “love” in writing about relationships

Although I have no trouble with the concept of love, I seldom specifically rate it high on a list of necessary ingredients for a successful relationship because the word is frequently misused – sometimes meaning little more than a transient lust, such as that which creates a ‘love child’ which neither biological parent truly wants or loves.

To be sure, there are deep forms of love – including self-sacrifice for the welfare of another – that test the limits of language to adequately describe. Absent deeper love, relationships can be cold, lonely, and even deadly to the soul.

Yet, within literature and life, there is also a fickle quality to more shallow forms of love. Also, given the history of the world, the human species seems to have a great fondness for talking about love without consistently exhibiting its more desirable attributes!

There has also been the widespread acceptance of love-based marriage in the United States since the early twentieth century. The notion that marriage should last so long as the love lasts has proven to be devastating – particularly to children – because of its highly volatile instability.

While I frequently tell my wife that I love her (and she loves to hear it), I prefer to use the individual components of love – such as affection and devotion – to describe the necessary ingredients for lasting relationships.

Noone

Take the Taken In Hand Tour

Have you seen the following articles?
She wants to be taken in hand against her will?!
Melanie surrenders
What kind of site is this? D/s? TPE? CP? DD? ABCD?
Maybe these surrendered women are on to something
Out of control, insane, driven by our emotions? No way!
Empowering dominance
How my husband took my clothing choices in hand
Dominant to the last
Quiet authority
The face, the mask, and the dream

2004 Nov 22 - 11:52 | login or register to post comments | latest article | previous article | next article |

Love based marriage

Nowadays there isn't really any reason for people to get married other than love, is there? People don't need to get married for economic survival any more, most people are self-sufficient economically. I certainly wouldn't want to go back to the days of, say Jane Austen, when all those young women are waiting helplessly for a man to propose marriage, with no other recourse open to them. Nowadays a clever woman like Charlotte Lucas wouldn't have to marry Mr Collins, she'd have a career of her own.

Is there really any virtue in staying married to someone if you don't love them any more? Of course, some people stay together for the sake of the children, but are children really happy being raised by parents who can't stand the sight of each other? Besides, where do you stop?

I remember a joke someone told me years ago, this ancient couple in their nineties go to a solicitor and say they want a divorce "Why have you waited till now?" he says to them, "well, we were waiting for the children to die" they reply.

by Louise C on 2004 Nov 23 - 09:00 | login or register to post comments

Two Shall Become Any Number But One

Many years ago, when the being gay was very much a closed-door closet lifestyle, two celebrities married. He was gay. She was lesbian. The sole basis for their marriage was to have a *respectable* host and hostess present when each entertained members of their respective social circles.

About the same time, a young couple on a blind date decided, on a lark, to get married. Friends later concluded that the spontaneous couple had one of the better marriages among them.

People have and do get married for a host of reasons.

Getting married is very much like purchasing an automobile. While some drivers prefer a classic English sports car - designed by an engineer who never met a mechanic - others prefer more practical and less temperamental transportation.

Emerging much like an impractical but sexy looking sports car - marketed to self-absorbed narcissists - love-based marriages came about at a time of relative affluence amid emerging women's rights. Over time, the impracticality of the design has become all too self-evident, as the marriages have fallen apart.

Not even the *experts* - those mechanics of interpersonal relationships such as marriage counselors - can keep the things together! The social highway is littered with parts that have fallen off the garish parade love-based marriages.

In reality, love-based marriages have largely degenerated into a succession of one-night stands known as serial monogamy that has not been good for men, women, children, or society. Instead of two becoming one, through the calculus of love-based marriage, two have become two, three, four, five, six, seven...ad nauseam!

by Noone on 2004 Nov 23 - 14:36 | login or register to post comments

Love marriages are here to stay

I can't honestly see most people settling for less than love nowadays, I suppose a woman desperate for children might marry someone she didn't love in order to get them, but nowadays even that isn't really necessary, is it, I mean you can get yourself artifically inseminated can't you?

That more marriages break up nowadays is inevitable, with more freedom of choice, less pressure to conform, and divorce no longer a social disgrace like it once was. After all, all relationships come to an end sooner or later, even if only ended by death.

For instance, my oldest son and his fiancee recently broke up. I was very sad about this as I had got very fond of her, she'd lived with us for over a year and I'd come to think of her as a permanent part of the family. But they'd just drifted apart, love had faded away and that was that. Nothing is permanent, that's life.

I honestly can't see the concept of 'marry for life no matter what' catching on again, we've gone past all that. You can't squeeze the toothpaste back in the tube.

by Louise C on 2004 Nov 23 - 16:55 | login or register to post comments

That more marriages break up

That more marriages break up nowadays is inevitable, with more freedom of choice, less pressure to conform, and divorce no longer a social disgrace like it once was.

But why should a Taken In Hand relationship ever end, short of death? He's in a position to get everything he wants. And he can make sure she gets everything she wants, too. What more could they crave?

That's my outsider's notion. Tell me why it's hopelessly naive.

Theo
chas_dar@yahoo.co.uk

by Theo on 2004 Nov 24 - 10:31 | login or register to post comments

Everything they want?

I suppose it all depends what 'everything' is. I would certainly hope that a Taken In Hand relationship had a better chance of surviving perhaps than others, but even if you are in such a relationship I suppose things can happen. Someone asked me in another posting somewhere on here what I'd do if my husband went off with a younger woman, to which I could only reply that there wouldn't be a lot I could do. As I said, once a man starts lusting after younger flesh there's not a lot you can do. A Taken In Hand relationship might have a better chance of lasting than others, but there are no 100% guarantees in any relationship.

My husband always thought I was going to leave him sometime, and I'm not entirely sure he doesn't still think I might one day. He seems to have the rather touching belief that I could still attract men as easily as I did when I first knew him, which is many, many years ago. I'm not sure I would want him to be completely disabused of this notion, a tiny touch of uncertainty keeps a man interested, one doesn't want to be taken for granted after all.

It would be nice to think that a Taken In Hand relationship would always be forever, but forever is a long time,life's just one damn thing after another, and no relationship comes with a lifetime guarantee.

by Louise C on 2004 Nov 24 - 14:34 | login or register to post comments

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