Love?

Has something specific sparked this Ageisbutanumber or are you just pondering the meaning of love generally.
I think it takes many different forms, we all feel and show our love in different ways I think.

I think it's unreasonable to expect love to last forever, apart from mother love, of course, which is biological.

Love may be blind but marriage is a real eye opener.

Got to agree it’s very unrealistic for many why settle for 40+ years of ok ishness What if till death do us part means the death of love and not the death of our bodies
Now that’s made you think hasnt it? ?

Wow, it has that Bluebelle I’ve never thought about it like that!
We’ve been married for 45 years.
Compromise & communication are very important in my opinion.

I suppose AgeIsBut that in that time, we are not the same people we were all those years ago. We change - our ideas, our goals and added to that life around us changes. Nothing stays the same.
All you can ask really is ‘am I more happy than not?’
If you are more happy, it’s okay.
If you are less happy it’s time to think (and talk).
What do you feel?

Which comes to the question, what exactly is love? the excitement of being in love soon disappears.

We have been married over 50 years, we are comfortable and happy in each others company. Like most we have had our ups and downs and soldiered on. We have built a home, a friendship network and share and dovetail our interests. I am certainly not tempted to move out or move on But is that love? I really do not know. What is love?

Love it MOnica you sound like Prince Charles!

We have been married for 49 years and together for 53 years. I have no idea how either of us would cope without the other. If possible we spend 24 hours a day together and don’t ever like to be apart. We are happy. Feels like love to me.

Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Those that truly love, have roots that grow towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossom have fallen from their branches, they find that they are one tree and not two. Extract from Captain Corelli's Mandolin

This is how I feel about the man I love - who I also happened to be married to.

Oh that’s a lovely quotation ga
I did love that book.
I like the bit about when all the pretty blossoms have fallen from their branches ...

My late mother said dont marry someone you think you COULD live with marry someone you think you couldn't live without.That what I did and 44 years down the road I still feel the same about him and he about me .When /if he dies before me I jsut want to go with him.I cant even think about a life he's not part of .I would, if given the choice die first because life without him isn't worth living .

In a novel I read last year the wife at one point says to her husband ‘when one of us dies, I’m going to live in France’.!
?

Oh Paddyann that is so lovely . how very lucky you were to find the love of your life the first time around . I really envy you.

I’ve been married 3 times (it’s no secret)
Number 1 .... I was forced into . Had his baby aged 18 . It lasted months ( well weeks)
Number 2 ..... I was a lonely single parent and needed to feel loved . I was loved by him but he was not the love of my life . We had a lovely daughter but he died very young.
Number 3 .... the love of my life . We found each other in strange circumstances . Both lonely and both poorly . No children of our own but he has brought my 2 up and loved them as his own .

Urmston haha, that means living in France is the end of
Life Love and Happiness.

There are so many kinds of love, maternal, love for parents,
Friends, relatives, then passion for somebody ( blind passion in many cases) deep affection etc.
In a 40+ year marriage, by the end ( if not long before) love is more like deep affection,but nothing wrong with that at
all.In fact, that’s a sign of a very successful marriage.

Romance, on the other hand, or a crush or lust (!) is not love.

Well we all know what prince charles’ idea of love was don’t we ?

We have been married for nearly 51 years with all the ups and downs that marriage brings. We're not and never have been a lovey-dovey couple - our close relationship is built on mutual support during whatever challenges life throws at you. We are a team.

I posted on the 'Lent' thread about a heartbreaking crisis which is pushing us to the limits but deep down we both know that whatever happens we will prop eachother up, relying on the foundation of a long marriage to sustain us.

That's love.

I am so sorry merlotgran (just read your post elsewhere)

If I say I love you spontaneously, from my heart, without feeling it's expected or anything less than a pure reaction to a genuine feeling from inside, I believe that is love.

When you first marry, you're so besotted with each other and have such intense feelings that I think it's almost impossible for that level to be sustained for the rest of your lives together. But if those feelings can mellow into a steady, deep affection; caring about each other through the good times and the bad; and even when the bad times are bloody hard and difficult and you could throttle each other, you still care; if you can still make each other laugh, then, to me that's real love. I didn't manage it but I know many who have.

The first time I heard the extract from Captain Corelli's Mandolin that grannyactivist mentioned was at a niece's wedding. It prompted me to read the book.

It was so lovely there was much dabbing of eyes.

The happy couple who were childhood sweethearts then walked out to the theme from the Muppets Show.

But Princes Charles said it at the start of the relationship, which is a very different thing

I could not spend all day every day with my DH, or anybody else. I have a strong element of the loner in me that requires solitude and time to myself. DH is much the same, although he would never admit it.

I think if your relationship is close and has been effective for decades your lives are so entwined, you are quite unaware of it, until one goes and then you realise the loss.

* LEMON* not just deep affection in our case ,I still get butterflies when he walks in the room ,we still have a passionate relationship ..we dont argue ..ever.Are on the same wavelength about most things and couldn't imagine a life without each other .Its certainly a lot more than affection .When my cousin stayed with us acoupel of years ago he remarked that we were like newly weds and to be honest thats how we feel .

Well we all know what prince charles’ idea of love was don’t we ?
Yes, we do, because he never stopped loving his one true love and is now married to her.

Unfortunately he was bullied into marrying someone more 'suitable'.