What is the meaning of love?

2023 Author: Katelyn Chandter | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-05-21 13:08

Oh, these philosophical questions. We are trying to understand why we came into the world, then we are looking for a reason for getting involved in another romantic relationship. You, too, have probably thought more than once about the purpose of this or that girl in your life. What is the meaning of love? Why are we so tempted to go in search of a partner, even if we have been burned more than once or twice?

On my path in life, I have met a variety of personalities, whose needs were purely opposite. This also applies to the romantic sphere. In fact, everyone has their own reason to build relationships with the opposite sex. Trying to understand other people's destinies, I realized that the meaning of love is a purely personal and even somewhat intimate definition. For everyone, it has a personal meaning.

I want to introduce you to the most common reasons for the formation of family and not only bonds. In the course of the story, my personal reflections on this topic will slip through. I'm sure you can choose exactly what resonates most strongly in your soul. And do not be upset if reality turns out to be far from pink fairy tales with ponies. The feeling of love is always associated with mental experiences. It doesn't have to live up to anyone's expectations.

Family, children, everyday life

For some people, love is something ghostly and ephemeral, not found in real life. Yes, she is beautifully sung in cartoons and told in romantic fairy tales with certainly a good ending. But many simply don't believe that it takes any kind of tender feelings from a partner to build a strong relationship. So, I have led you to the first and most common sense of love, which is inherent in almost every failed marriage.

If a person starts a family purely for procreation, it means that there is no smell of romance here. Such individuals do not need a special manifestation of feelings. But then, what is the point of love for them? The answer is dry, banal and simple. In children and everyday life.

Well, one person does not understand why he should exist without descendants, endless cleaning and mortgages. At the same time, the second perceives the meaning of love as having a housekeeper in an apartment and having sex on the machine, when the spouse does not have a headache (in such a family, migraine quickly takes on a chronic form as soon as the sun begins to decline).

Among my acquaintances, such relationships are not uncommon at all. I cannot say that I consider this connection to be healthy and complete. After all, denying the need for tender affection for each other, they are deprived of an important link in their family. An exclusively rational approach to relationships is not correct, even from the point of view of social psychology. Well, yes, children, well, gave birth. And then what?

If you think that the meaning of love lies solely in transferring your last name to a new person, then I advise you to dig a little deeper. After all, children can also be born from a woman who makes life brighter and brighter. Are feelings really a beautiful whim from children's fairy tales? I do not think so.

Soul mate nearby

This, in my opinion, is the most solid and healthy model of relationships between people. A stable relationship arises only in the absence of hidden complexes, originally from childhood, unclosed gestalts and mutually the same understanding of the meaning of love. There are several signs that harmony really reigns in a couple:

• Both of you acknowledge that it is perfectly normal and natural to have temporary conflicts in a relationship;
• love is not an obligation or a compulsion, it does not dictate rules, frameworks and restrictions;
• almost all disputes are resolved "with words through the mouth", and not by hushing up grievances and beating dishes in order to pull the blanket entirely to one side;
• both of you are comfortable showing feelings or not;
• a partner can calmly do without the other for a while, and this is not perceived as a tragedy or blood insult;
• touches give warmth and a feeling of peace, there is no desire to move away;
• your goals and views on further coexistence coincide at least 80%;
• there is no reason, desire and need to make excuses;
• there is no place for lies;
• you are not ashamed or afraid of confessing something to your second half, and she, in turn, does not try to hide something in return, fearing that she will be judged;
• intimacy is at a fairly high level in relationships, but the lack of desire to have sex here and now is never perceived with hostility;
• impossibility of reproductive pressure and violence (requirements to have children in case of refusal by the second partner);
• both of you understand what the meaning of love is, but at the same time do not elevate this feeling to a pedestal of honor in a relationship, remaining rational and pragmatic people.

It may seem that such a pair is capable of existing only in theory. It's just that in conditions of harsh reality, we often forget what exactly the love and family of a healthy person should be. Taking as the ultimate truth everyday relationships in which it is not customary to have any feelings for a partner other than “you should”, you can go side by side with the wrong person for life.

Best friends and high spirituality

This is a very strange type of love and relationship between the sexes. The name is not bad, since friendship is an indispensable component of a long-term romantic partnership. But in reality, things are a little different.

I will give a real example, because I personally know a guy and a girl, whose whole understanding of love was reduced exclusively to relationships on a superhigh spiritual level. To be honest, I was never able to comprehend their Zen, so I put this item in the section "unhealthy understanding of the meaning of love and family."

This is how this unit of society lived. Moreover, the experience turned out to be rather big - as much as 12 years. The girl perceived love exclusively as the absence of any framework, restrictions and obligations. Each of them had every right to have an affair on the side, but it should be pure sex and nothing else. Another important condition is complete honesty. Like, changed - tell me, and even in detail.

How do you like this version of love? It seems to be quite a modern relationship, where no one owes anything to anyone, but I feel in this everyone some kind of slight indifference to the partner as to the representative of the opposite sex. That is, everyone sees in the second half a good friend, an interesting interlocutor, a colleague in hobbies. But there is no desire to take care and caress a person. Besides, do friends practice free sex according to their mood? Well, such a thing, you know.

If you think that this couple still lives under the same roof, then you are wrong. The girl was indifferent to intimacy, preferring to devote time to self-discovery, cleansing the upper chakra, opening the third eye and other original practices.

But the guy suffered at one point. He started sleeping with the other, hiding it from the "beloved", which led to a scandal, mutual insults and parting. A friend sighed sadly, burying herself in my shoulder, from time to time angrily speaking out towards her former roommate. Like, how did he dare to sink so low that instead of thinking about the spiritual he began to indulge the desires of the flesh.

Note that we are not even talking about inner suffering about lost love and tenderness. Because in this couple, the meaning of relations and being together did not come from this at all.

Solving financial problems

But this topic has recently gained particular popularity. Ask some beauty stuffed with Botox and silicone, what is the meaning of love, in her opinion. If she does not twist her heart and answer directly, then it turns out that without material support, in general, there is nothing to talk about.

By the way, the younger the lady, the higher her requirements for a potential lover. For some reason, now love has begun to be firmly associated with the partner's ability to solve every material issue of the second half. Is it correct? Is there even a grain of common sense in such reasoning? I’ll answer now.

This opinion contains not only the banal self-interest of women who do not want to support themselves on their own. Here are some quite logical reasons why the material component should also be taken into account when forming a love relationship:

• The concept of "with a cute paradise and in a hut" is a blatant show of dust. Few people want to live in complete poverty when a hungry child is crying nearby. But big, bright and pure love, yeah. So it will not die for long. In a sincere embrace.
• The financial aspect should not be one-sided. That is, a man does not need to pull the yoke of the only breadwinner in the family. The meaning of love is not providing for the needs of a partner you depend on. But helping each other to form a financial cushion is just the absolute norm.
• The concept of "should" works both ways. Just learn the axiom that in true love everyone has their own rights and responsibilities. But they should not step on a person's throat. The meaning of strong and sincere feelings lies in the voluntary acceptance and understanding of all responsibility for both your well-being and your beloved character.
• Financial equality is the key to a healthy and calm psychological atmosphere in the family. In rare cases, a strong bias in this area is taken for granted. More often than not, someone will certainly express their phi in relation to a partner.
• My favorite. If it seems that the beloved will covet your capital, think about whether it is really worth it. Are you sure that anybody is ready to peck at such "untold riches", in spite of everything else? It is possible that your partner really has sincere feelings for you, but wants to see a person with good potential next to her. This is typical of girls who make their own way and strive for a better life. For a bad one, and in general, no effort is needed.

I do not support understanding the meaning of love solely as a solution to financial problems. And this applies to both sides. I have also seen a lot of handsome guys who do not have a penny in their souls, building relationships with wealthy women. But all the same, one should not put on pink glasses with thick glasses on the eyes and, apart from highly moral feelings, one should not see real needs either.

Getting rid of loneliness

Sometimes melancholy can literally devour a person from the inside. If you constantly feel the need for someone to be near, this may well be perceived as the true meaning of love itself. However, this is not quite true. In reality, tender emotions are replaced by the total pushing of the first person that comes across into the hole that has formed inside the boring spiritual emptiness. And here's what it threatens:

• If a couple is formed only so as not to be left alone in the future, such a union is not based on love, but, rather, on subconscious fear. Attachment to each other will be painful, and both partners will be like in a cage.
• When the meaning of love is seen exclusively in the constant presence of at least someone in the apartment (as long as not the oppressive silence of emptiness), there is a risk of falling for the trick of a person who will mercilessly use it. Manipulating fear is very simple. You can feel a panic attack after any quarrel, as your partner will most likely begin to sneakily threaten to break up.
• Relationships for the sake of presence most often lead to various psychoses and emotional problems. When you see the meaning of love only in the fact that no matter who was next to you, then you stop enjoying the relationship as a whole. Feelings may not arise at all. At the same time, a partner with such a strong affection on your part will constantly experience a deficit of that very love. And from constant panic attacks against the background of fear, the eyes may even begin to twitch.
• Sooner or later, someone will get bored with such a painful attachment. So this "love" does not pass the test for years. This is a pure axiom, which has proved itself more than once in practice. So it is better to accept this, realize and finish on your own until it hurts excruciatingly.

There is no need to get hung up on a certain person and form a whole personal world out of him. Can't understand what is the meaning of love? In ease and confidence in the future. Tantrums and constant fear are clearly not included here.

Because it is so accepted

This I call love out of habit. It looks a bit like the first type, but in reality it is much more entertaining. As a rule, it's all about the basic formation of a person's personality by the family and the external environment. If you are instilled from childhood with the idea that you definitely need to acquire a partner, because it is right (good, necessary), then we are not talking about sincere love. It is just so necessary, and that's it. Nobody asked your opinion.

Habitual love is all about the outer appearance of a strong and lasting relationship. That is, a family can exist for 20, 30 or more years, from the outside it will seem just perfect, but in fact the spouses have long gone to different rooms. And more often than not, they initially lived like that, because there was never any inner attraction. What for? But there is a couple - a social unit. This is how it should be, and everyone around is good.

Often, a husband and wife have romances on the side, since they still feel the need for love. If we are talking about middle-aged and older people, then they are characterized by platonic tenderness. Yes, sex also plays an important role.

For example, for men, it is often the equivalent of emotional attachment and sincere feelings, so to speak, physical proof of love. But more often than not, these people value communication, warmth and understanding. Just what I described in a truly healthy relationship in which everyone understands the meaning of it all.

By the way, couples formed out of habit rarely go to divorce. It is impossible, society will not understand. What is wrong should not be made public. Therefore, over and over again they put on a good face with a bad game, without stopping at the same time looking for warmth on the side.

If you are in a similar situation, then it is time to finally look at everything through the prism of pragmatic reality. The meaning of love lies, first of all, in a chemical attraction to a partner, full acceptance of him, a desire to take care and make life easier. If between you and your partner there is only a habit brought up by parents and society, then you are unlikely to get real satisfaction from such a relationship, whatever one may say.

Desire to own someone

Hi Othello. The last type of supposedly love relationship is dedicated specifically to you - a selfish and narcissistic jealous person. Doesn't sound very nice? So, you need to finally look the truth in the eye and realize that you don't understand at all what the meaning of love is. I will not be scattered in the foreplay for a long time, so I will immediately move on to the main signs of a relationship based on a sense of ownership towards a partner:

• you are sure that after declaring yourself a couple, everything should change dramatically;
• the partner cannot do something without the knowledge;
• “Beats means he loves”;
• constant moralizing and dissatisfaction with the second half are wrapped in a beautiful wrapper of "good";
• you insist on the concept of a traditional family hearth, where one person works and fully provides for each sneeze, and the second is firmly dependent on his “beloved”;
• you are afraid of losing your partner, so you often remind that no one else can love so much (these words are especially clear after major quarrels and possible assault).

Even if all the horrors voiced above are not about you, the perception of the meaning of love in having someone is not a normal and sincere feeling on which a family is built. Look at relationships differently. No one has the right to dispose of another person and limit his freedom of action. This is not love, but a toxic manifestation of your own selfishness.

So, my dear friend, I sincerely believe that in all these descriptions you saw yourself only from the good side. But flaws are not a disaster. First, everything can be adjusted. Second, many people learn to love and understand the true meaning of this extremely complex feeling throughout their lives. So seek, find yours and be happy. Good luck!