We're all still learning, Osso. And will be until the day we die.
You're right about the reciprocity, of course. Absolutely. That's what makes love live and grow. It often seems like a dance. One leads for awhile, then the other.
A wonderful thing happens when the dance has lasted so long that neither becomes anxious when it's time to switch roles. When trust in the relationship has been established so firmly that you don't worry when the effort isn't returned, because you know that eventually it will.
An established loving relationship doesn't preclude thrills and chills--but neither does it require them.
Just a few of what love is to me....
Love is...
Picking up dirty clothes and wet towels off of the floor...every day...despite having asked the offender to put them in the hamper.
Sacrificing what you want sometimes to make the other person happy.
Picking up the slack in home areas you normally don't deal with when your partner is having a really tough week.
Letting go of unfounded insecurities about yourself and your relationship.
Watching the playoffs when you really want to watch Dirty Dancing (again, for the 150th time) or vice versa.
Learning from your mistakes and trying hard not to repeat them.
Fighting fair and compromising even when you don't want to.
Doing what is best for US not what is best for ME.
Rubbing the back of a sick partner even though you have to be up in 4 hours.
Being the designated driver sometimes.
Getting along with and being nice to his/her friends and their partners, even if you don't really like them.
Making sure your partner is taken care of, even if it drives you absolutely NUTS to have to remind them to take their daily vitamin or make a doctor/dentist appointment.
Love is real life...everyday, no matter how hard it gets or how much you want to kill the person you are with.
I very much agree with what Kicky and others have said about there probably being no advice we can give -- but should there be? I worry about the 13-year-old (assuming that is who you mean) because it's not just the run-of-the-mill problems, there are serious legal implications. I think that's where our advice can, should, and has been.
But there are probably lots of other misbegotten adventures that don't have a legal aspect that we can't head off -- and I don't think we should, necessarily. Like you, I was utterly, completely devastated by the breakup of my first serious relationship -- one thing I remember was thinking that we were so transcendant, so pure and perfect, and then he had to go and sully it with the inconceivable. (An affair, after being all outraged when a fellow band-mate had an affair, to the point of not speaking of the band-mate, because affairs were just so wrong.)
But everything that happened was integrated into who I became, and for the better. More realistic. Less starry-eyed. Lots of lessons learned about what makes a good relationship -- and what doesn't.
Many people warned me about that relationship -- we were too wrapped up in each other, we were each other's alpha and omega, we had unrealistic expectations, he was a musician fer chrissakes... ;-) And a lot of what they said turned out to be right. Still wouldn't have preferred that I listened to them and avoided the whole thing.
What mattered most was how the advice was given. I think that's what we can apply here -- accept that we probably won't get through to 'em all, and maybe even shouldn't, but wording it in such a way to get them thinking...
Yes, Sozobe, I agree with all you are saying.
I suppose that there are three levels or kinds of love:
I want her (lust/infatuation)
I want her/us to be happy (true/genuine love)
I love everyone (compassion)
You left one out, JL . . .
I love you man (drunkenness)
ossobuco wrote:
I could have died from pain when we broke up.
But instead a little bit of our nineteen year old selves, or 21 in my case, became part of who we are now.
You're a bit of a sweety really, aren't you. It made me feel all unmacho for a split second when I read it.
I think most of us have been there, in one way or another.
Oh well, back to the real world...... <removes steak pie from oven, adopts manly stance whilst wondering whether the crust should look that shade of black>
You're a sweetie, yourself, Ellpie.
Simply extract the crust with a set of tongs and place over garden weeds, perhaps even poison ivy. Tie down with hemp rope, using proper knots.
