Is it possible...

[Vortex]

Is it possible to fall completely out of love all together?

Seriously now, I think it's a good enough question. Do you think it's possible to stop having the emotion love. Not like love for a friend, sibling or parent.

I mean losing the ability to fall head over heals in love with a special someone? Like becoming to jaded for it to happen?

Just a thought I'm having...

 

[Jeslek]

I don't think so. It really depends what kind of love you're talking about... Unconditional love such as I have with some friends? Or erotic and sexual love with a partner? Or what about natural love like a mother and child? I doubt you can completely fall out of love... maybe the sexual one, but I've always loved all my friends and never felt out of love.

 

[Shadowfax]

Do you think it's possible to stop having the emotion love.

yeah, definately. just add some fucked up experiences and you'll close yourself for that emotion.
it will most likely return in time i guess.

 

[Fire*Star]

Although I'm sure you go there times when you feel like you are emotionally null and void, normally after a bad break up or the death of a loved one, but to think that this would become permanent is some what short sighted. To love is to be human it's one of our highest (although treated as our lowest) emotions.

 

[BlurOfSerenity]

unless one is the cold, uncaring, apathetic type, i think that its pretty much impossible to not love. love manifests itself in many forms. admiration, friendship, adoration, infatuation, lust, etc... at the very least, i think it's safe to say that nearly everyone likes stuff or people. like is kinda like love...
am i making sense?

 

[dutchmaster]

from a physical standpoint it's possible. the feeling you get when you 'love' someone is caused by chemicals released in the bain, so for some reason, whether it's biological disfunction or a conscious decision due to a bad experience, if one lacks or represses this ability then I guess they cannot love - sad state to live in there's a lot of things that can contribute to falling out of love. if someone has numerous poor experiences embedded in their subconscious, and these are repeatedly triggered by situations in their relationships, then the brain isn't going to let him/her love this other person.

 

[AlladinSane]

I mean if you simply want to? No

 

[Scanty]

anything's possible...


Probably.

 

[Q]

I would say it's extremely unlikely.

 

[Squiggy]

Women fall out of love with me all the time....

 

[PostCode]

Once she cheats, there is no love. She's trash after that.

 

[75renegade]

Yeah Vort, I feel it changes like the wind.

Like many other dynamics of everyday life, if circumstnces prevail, and/or when we're jus' bein' fickle, 'bout how we approach any of our relationships, with those we love.

To me, that's the beauty of the contrast of my view of a "marriage" commitment or my view of friendship, at any other level besides, as compared to jus' floatin' along, waitin' for the next flow of emotional tide to carry us through to a more meaningful experience. (To me, we're all basically selfish at our core), So I don't wanna fool myself thinkin' another soul I love or encounter, in this life, is somehow made of "steel", incapable of lettin' me down or out right turnin' me "off".

The question I try to ask myself is, "am I still willing to love them an' look at their potential, after they've "failed to meet my own 'misplaced' expectations".

Lookin' back fer a moment, after 13+ yrs. of bein' apart of a marriage that ended still in failure, I can say that I fell in love with her one day, but there were many darker days when I was not in love with her at all, but what bonded me to her then, was a choice to stick by her, even when she failed to meet my expections, an' very much in spite of how I "felt".

IMO Emotions are extremely deceitful, especially in view of how quickly they change. I say, love is a choice we make, in spite of how we feel on a particular given day.

To give love to another, who is not particularly deservin', in our opinion, at the time, is a much more mature choice than to base our ability to love on whether we really feel like it at a particular moment. (do ya know what I'm tryin' to say)

Don't mistake me 'ere, I'm all for the emotion which causes us to wanna sell our soul to be with another, (it's awesome!). I'm jus' sayin' it won't hold two folks together when the "storms" of our lives together blow against us, so what is yer love based on?

 

[Q]

Women fall out of love with me all the time....

That just might be related to those "pets" you keep in the bathtub.

 

[Vortex]

To give love to another, who is not particularly deservin', in our opinion, at the time, is a much more mature choice than to base our ability to love on whether we really feel like it at a particular moment. (do ya know what I'm tryin' to say)

I get what you're saying, and I have to agree with you there, sort of like 'Love takes time' type of thing.
You need to take someone, even if they seem like they don't deserve it right then and there, and see where it goes from there. Um... atleast that's how I interpretted it.

 

[Ardsgaine]

I'm not sure I understood the question exactly. I've got two interpretations:

1) Is it possible to fall out of love with someone with whom you've been deeply in love?

Yes. Although I've found that some affection may still linger, the depth of feeling can go away. I have to add, though, that my experience of that is only with short term relationships. After sixteen years, I don't know if I could ever lose the love that I have for Jan.

2) Is it possible to lose the ability to fall in love with anyone?

I'm sure it is. I hope it never happens to me.

 

[freako104]

i dont think so. i still love my ex after 4 years of not being with her. same with kristi(girl in Salisbury) and Erin(girl in NY i mentioned) that a part of me still loves them although we arent toghter i still care for them that way. i never fell out of love totally

 

[Ardsgaine]

You need to take someone, even if they seem like they don't deserve it right then and there, and see where it goes from there.

Love is not simply that giddy emotion we get when we're forming a romantic attachment to someone. The butterflies in the stomach are going to go away as the relationship matures. The same excitement won't always be there. If you suppose that that's all there is to love, then you may come to believe that you're no longer in love with the person.

Then there are also going to be times when you're just plain aggravated with the other person, pissed off or even furious because of something that he's done. If you look for the 'feeling' of love in those moments, then you may think you've fallen out of love because it's not the emotion you're experiencing right then.

There has to be a commitment to loving the other person beyond that initial stage of excitement, and in spite of those occasional conflicts that inevitably arise. Loving them, not in the sense of feeling a particular emotion, but in the sense of taking actions that show how much you value them over every other person in the world. That's why you don't simply walk out the door when you're pissed off. You stay there and work through the conflict, try to understand the other person's point of view, and make it so that both people can feel good about being in the relationship.

I think the most important thing I could tell a new couple getting married is that love is not simply something you feel, it's something you do. If the couple thinks that once they've got the feeling they don't have to worry about it anymore, they're not going to make it. Keeping the feeling alive requires that they manifest it in their actions.

 

[PT]

It took me 10 years of a failing marriage to realize that you can indeed fall out of love with someone. I don't think that you ever lose the ability to love, just the willingness to give yourself completely.

My first marriage really taught me alot about love, as Ards said, it's not the giddy infatuation that lasts, it's the truly giving of yourself and recieving of them that really makes a relationship work, and I think that is what alot of people have a problem with. Trust is hard to come by these days and people are getting more and more unwilling to really trust someone without that person showing them they can be trusted. Get two people that are unwilling to make the first step, and you have a failed relationship.

 

[AlladinSane]

Ok, let me rephrase:
Can you cease to love someone? Yes
Can you instantly cease to love someone you were deeply in love? No
Can you loose the ability to love(romantic love)? Yes, for sure...

 

[freako104]

something that i thought was intresting was what my developmental psych teacher said about romantic love and that was that we need to lose a part of ourselves in our partner. i somewhat agree with that in that you will be giving a part of yourself to your significant other. your love is a part of yourself. that and in losing yourself to someone you gain a new part of yourself.