Does Love Inevitably Fade?

[Freya]

Everyone knows about the honeymoon period I guess - the tingles and butterflies and can't stop thinking about the person - the want to talk to them all the time, the leap of excitement when they call or text or message. The intense 'nothing in the world I would rather do than be with this person' feeling.

I think - maybe I have something wrong with me. That feeling for me grows. For others it seems to fade. Is it me that is... not quite right here? Is it 'normally' inevitable that love fades? That after a year or two it is less? Genuine question - thoughts welcome.

Thank you.

 

[JmpMster]

I am going to go with a really bad analogy - but it is the best I can come up with in way of explanation. I do not believe love fades as a matter of course.Though certainly it is possible for people to grow apart that is not in any way inevitable. Now for really bad analogy -
If you buy a pair of really nice shoes you are excited about them - you want to show them off- not just wear them- show them off and have people notice. They are new and were expensive and they look nice - so you feel good about having them - That is the honey moon period.
The fact is , new shoes, even really good ones, often are not that comfortable at first. Those first times you wear them out to town in fact by the end of the evening you will wish you had not have. But over the course of time and months and wearing them they get far more comfortable in actuality. You want to wear them out to town not because they are shiny and new and to show others, but because they are comfortable and fit well, and they are part of you - you do not have to have people notice them anymore to want to wear them - you just do. You do not love them less, in fact you love them more because they not only are what they were before , they also now fit and are comfortable.
And just like shoes, adding a little polish every now and them keeps it feeling and looking like new.....

I prefer a pear of high quality comfortable shoes that fit and are comfortable any day to the shiny new but hard to walk in ones.

- End bad analogy.

 

[pickwithaustin]

Real love (and I avoid using the word "true") does not fade, but the manner in which we feel, share, and express it may seem different. Then too, it depends upon who we are talking about that we love. Does the love for our children ever fade or change? No. Love between a spouse may change in the way it appears because as time goes by, you become used to someone and as such, other things begin to encroach upon the "honeymoon" feeling. Responsibilities over time always grow. Thankfully, we grow with it as time goes by as well because I don't think life can be a honeymoon forever, in the classic sense. I've been married something like 35 years and love has not faded, but it may appear to have matured.

 

[Witty_Sarcasm]

I think it does fade over time, because it's more intense at the beginning. Of course I don't believe in love at all (for myself anyway) but I think that you grow accustomed to each other over a long period of time and things become less exciting.

 

[rtrt46546565]

I think that beginning intensity always fades but not the love...if it's real love.

 

[fromthatshow]

I think that beginning intensity always fades but not the love...if it's real love.

Agreed. And I think there is a difference between infatuation and love as well. I have had a lot of very intense, short, romantic relationships. I have used the word love where infatuated might have been more appropriate. For me, it's a codependence thing. Real love is something that, as Matt said, I think stays when intensity fades. I haven't made it past the intensity part yet without it failing at that point but I know it is possible.

 

[Terry]

Personally I think Shakespeare said it best:

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

 

[flowers]

NYJumpMaster, I think that was a perfect analogy. During a meditation many years ago i was shown something very similar. And yes, it was an old pair of shoes I was shown. And yes, it was to show me about the depth of fondness for those old shoes as an analogy for the love of an old and deep relationship.

Freya, I think that what you describe can be a good thing. That wonder for the relationship and the other person. The excitiment kept alive. As long as someones life away from the other person can be good also. The ideal is to feel complete and okay when not with the other person. And then to feel all the things you describe when with the other person. If you know what i mean.

 

[bhawk]

Freya, you know me personally so you probably know i still love my sons mother, always have done and always will. We were together for over three years and we have been separated for about three years now and i love her more every day still. I know she still loves me too, she has said so. Unfortunately i know we will never be together again, but it does go to show that love doesn't necessarily fade, with the right person it only goes from strength to strength.
I do remember after about two years in the relationship an old woman saw me saying goodbye to her as i was off to work and the old woman commented that we must have only just got together because it looked like we were in the "honeymoon" period. Also, and probably TMI, the sex life never diminished either!

 

[Cariad_Bach]

My parents have been married for 35+ years, and my mother says she still sometimes feels a bit lost when he is in work... She still gets excited when he is due home... She still feels tingles when she is going to see him and spend time with him.

He still tells her he loves her. He still buys her little gifts ' just because', he still wraps her us in cuddles and steals kisses in the kitchen.

Are you wrong? I don't think so. Do things change? For sure.
Will we all be as lucky as them? I doubt it.

....Hmmm, That ended up less comforting than it began... :-(

 

[rtrt46546565]

Are you wrong? I don't think so. Do things change? For sure.
Will we all be as lucky as them? I doubt it.

....Hmmm, That ended up less comforting than it began... :-(

This made me giggle. :-p