...Girls...

[KwartzTheKran]

karakth: cant be \'in love\' forever, but its 8 years and counting which is enough to convince me at least theres something more.

[karakth]

Of course some infatuation lasts, but the peak of being infatuated is at the beginning of a relationship. Of course, a relationship without infatuation is just...boring.

And by the way, I do not speak from personal experience. I observe, listen, and evaluate.

[tygerwilde]

man, sounds like you haven\'t got a romantic bone in your body.

my grandparents(on my dads side) were in love with one another to their deaths. my grandfather died a long and painful death, and my grandmother was there, every day, holding his hand in his deathbed. when he finally went, though her health was perfect, she didn\'t last a week afterwords. she went quietly in her sleep one night. the county examiner said her pillow was wet with tears.


they were in love forever. still as infatuated as when they met. I can only hope that me and Dani will be that way in the end.

[dfryer]

I don\'t think karakth is saying that love should be devoid of romance, only that romance doesn\'t necessarily imply love.

The two go much better hand in hand.

[TheTaintedSoul]

Unfortunately relations tend to get worse in the long run. Human just isn\'t build to be completely monogumous (if that word is spelled incorrect dont lough). In fact i think staying with one person the rest for your life is very unnatural.

Fortunately there are exceptions who can somehow keep the romance alive in the relation.

[SaintNuclear]

Originally posted by TheTaintedSoul
Human just isn\'t build to be completely monogumous (if that word is spelled incorrect dont lough). In fact i think staying with one person the rest for your life is very unnatural.

True.

As dfryer said, love is a reaction to a natural drug.
When you get a boost of this drug you get euphoric, and feel \'inlove\'.
After a while your body is used to this and you\'re not euphoric anymore. To stay \'inlove\' you have to increase the dosage of the drug all the time (like junkies do).
That\'s why long-term relationships aren\'t meant to work. You just can\'t stay inlove with the person for a long time.

[TheRedMonk]

Who says that being inlove is better than just loving? Tyger told us about his grandparents who loved eachother until death separated them...a proof that a relationship really can work for a long time.

[SaintNuclear]

It\'s not that long-term relationships -can\'t- work. They can, but it\'s cheating.

[Xalthar]

well you don\'t have to be in love with a person to feel comforted by him/her.. I know many people who\'ve been with someone for year and years, even married a person they couldn\'t honestly say they were in love with...

People now adays are what a famous danish writer once called \"Tryghedsnarkomaner\" which means something along the lines of \"comfort-oholics\".. Something I totally agree with the writer on..

[karakth]

Comfort-oholics...More like pleasure-oholics. The modern philosophy is that if something stops pleasing you, you throw it away and get a new one instead of trying to fix it.

Example: A chair breaks. You replace it, not fix it.

Unfortunately this mentality has extended also into relationships. People, at my age, enter a relationship for pleasure, for the high they get. When a partner stops giving them that high, they move on. Some people never grow up, and keep constantly seeking the love high.

About the grandparents. They grew up with a philosophy \"If something is broken, fix it.\" They had to, because not everything was mass-produced back then. So when their marriage found snags and problems, they tried to fix them instead of replacing the marriage. This in turn brought them closer together. I do not believe that their relationship was the same as it had been when they had first met; It was probably more mature, more understanding, deeper, and more profound.

And I can be very romantic (it comes natural to me, seeing as what I learnt of relationships came mostly from watching shows like saved by the bell and listening to sappy love songs), but I will not give up on a relationship if the romance goes away.

[Xalthar]

Certain incidents in modern society might point towards your points karakth, although that\'s not how I see it going along here in my cozy part of the world

People stick together for the comfort, heck I even did a while back, untill I felt that the relationship was going absolutely nowhere.. I haven\'t been in it for the pleasure for quite some time.. nor have many of my long time friends.. but I guess that\'s different from place to place, if you live in a dump like me, modern mentality hasn\'t quite cought up with relationships around here yet..

[tygerwilde]

And how about me and Dani? We grew up in the pleasure generation. We have raging arguements all the time, we have since the beginning, yet instead of throwing in the towel, we go back and patch things up when the dust settles. My wife means more to me than my pride, my comfort, or even pleasure. If my children are my world, then my wife is the galaxy. she encompasses every thing that I do, and I don\'t see that changing any time soon.  yes, I am \"In Love\" with her. Not only do I care for her, but I know that I couldn\'t live without her. Not the way I do now. I would lose every ounce of passion that I have for life. all of the things that I actually enjoy doing right now would mean nothing to me, I would be cold inside.

if we grew up with the \"get a new one\" mentality, why would we work so hard on our relationship? why would I care as much as I do.

[karakth]

It depends on how you were brought up I suppose. And man, you are very lucky. I want to have all that someday (reason for this thread). I know that feeling, but only to my parents and brother, not a girlfriend.

Let me ask you something though: Is the infatuation you feel for your wife still as great as the few weeks after you started going out?

[TheTaintedSoul]

Originally posted by karakth
Let me ask you something though: Is the infatuation you feel for your wife still as great as the few weeks after you started going out?

Good question, id like to know that too.

Oh and i didn\'t mean the inlove feeling that would get worse, that in fact fades after about 3-4 years. If the relationship survives that, and the love you have changes then the relationship was serious.

But even relationships that survive get worse in the long run in general. It has even been proved. In fact the non pleasure generations also faced this problem.

With people who did remain together and kept the relationship well it was found that they kept the romance alive. And like the grandparents of Karakth fixed the problems.

[TheRedMonk]

From my own experience I know that a relationship cannot last if you expect it to be as fun all the time. I\'ve had several girlfriends but I\'ve never been with one for more than a month just because of this. I want it to be as fun after a month that it is during the first days and I dunno if thats really possible...what do you think?