Something else occurred to me … being in a relationship, even with the love of your life, is WORK. Sometimes it’s very HARD work. But it can also be the most fulfilling work you’ve ever done, or will ever do.
You quoted me, though you didn’t put my name, so I’ll respond. Yes, I’m glad I got out of that relationship. There is a significant difference between co-dependence and inter-dependence - these days I certainly like doing everything with my SO, but I have no problem doing things without him.
I have even relaxed significantly on the topic of arranged marriage. Because it is true that you can grow together and people are very flexible. If you have two people who are willing to work with each other and compromise and still be happy about it, it can work.
We’ve been together twelve years and we started this relationship as a fling. And we’re very different people and have had a lot of work to do to make this relationship what it is. But the work has all been worth it.
It’s certainly not the case with everyone but I do see in some cases that people use this One True Love to engage in some fantasy, sometimes to the detriment of their current relationship. I can’t help but think if they put as much work into their current relationship as their dreaming, it might change things. Of course it has to be both sides of the couple working.
Oh, and one more thing. If something happened to my SO I’d be devastated and heartbroken - but not forever. Eventually I’d recover and eventually there’d be a new and different love in my life. And I hope the same for him.
It’s like two trees in a grove. You want to stand together, but it’s toxic to crowd out each other’s sunlight.
I’ve been in enough relationships where the woman held on so tight that seeing her stopped being a pleasure and turned into a chore.
When I was younger several times I fell desperately in love but for various reasons never made a life time committment to them.
I have met them since after many many years and quite honestly they didn’t appeal to me very much either physically or personalitywise.
People change,we ourselves change,peoples expectations and/ or needs and wants change over the years.
IMO "The one true love"idea is for people who either don’t change themselves or don’t mature.
I have a weird outlook on this.
I always said that the greatest hockey player of all time never put on a pair of skates. Consider all the people that have walked this earth since hockey has been played and think of all the people/kids who never got a chance to pursue ice hockey. Odds are, the kid with the most potential and talent to be the greatest hockey player ever has never laced up a pair of ice skates.
Marriage and relationships face similar odds. For you, chances are you’ve never met the most compatible person for you. Your paths have never crossed, and if they did, they may not have afforded you the opportunity to get to know each other. Somewhere out there sits the greatest match for you, but you will never know them.
So, you have to settle for the best match you will ever meet.
This is why dating websites are invaluable now. Casting a bigger net gives you better odds, and I read that the divorce rate has been declining in the past few years. Let’s be optimistic.
I don’t believe in the One True Love thing either.
Love of my life? Marrying him would have been an unmitigated disaster of epic proportions. That kind of blind love can make you stupid. And everything turned up to 11 all the time is exhausting.
It’s mainly out of convenience.
I dunno, that sounds like it to me.
Sweaty palms are inconvenient, anyway.
I’m mostly not the sweaty palms type. I thought I was with the one I would grow old with. Recently I found out she did not feel the same. Now I’m waiting for Amy Adams to knock on my door. Any day now.
My husband and I recently celebrated three years of marriage, marking our 7th year together as a couple.
I think one of the reasons my marriage works so well is that I’m madly in love with my husband, but it’s also a marriage of convenience. Convenient because he is a mild-mannered, extremely detail-oriented, perfectionist bean-counter who never loses his temper and seems impervious to mood swings, depression, or anxiety. To me he embodies the concept of ‘‘safety and stability.’’ Some people might find this boring, but I’m entertained enough by my own volatile nature… I don’t need anyone else adding to the household drama. He is my sanctuary of perfect calm.
While I’m anything but calm, I have a lot to bring to the table too. I am highly imaginative and resourceful. When he’s stuck in a mental rut, I can prod him into a spontaneous or creative endeavor. I am the dynamic force in our relationship. I am full of creative energy and ideas, and my silly nature pushes him out of the gravitas of his meticulous planning. I keep things interesting and constantly teach him new things that he somehow survived to 26 without learning (yesterday’s lesson was ‘‘chopping vegetables.’’ sigh)
In short, he’s the anchor, I’m the rudder, and both of us are smart enough to know when to let the other take the lead.
I’m sure he’s not the only one out there that I could have been happy with, but if your chosen partner doesn’t at least cast some doubt on the rational approach to relationships, then maybe it’s not the best fit. The older I get the more I get the sense that something good and meaningful is driving my life, and it usually has to do with how right we are for one another. Sometimes it’s stupid how well we get along, how easy it is to approach him with new ideas, how great we are as a team. It’s so easy to be with him it almost seems unfair. But we both work hard at keeping this connection alive, so maybe we deserve each other after all.
I kind of wish popular culture was a little more up front about the reality of true love. It’s not all butterflies and sweaty palms and thumping hearts. In my case it’s way better.
If your one true love exists, then that’s someone who has some interests in common with you, can have lots of shared jokes with you, has some of the same life goals, and generally fits with you. That means that the pool of potential soulmates is somewhat smaller than the entire world - unless you think that Cupid or some other God is flying around shooting arrows at random people.
I like this sentiment, and it reminds me of this video: If I Didn’t Have You. Some of my friends I’ve shown it to don’t agree with the premise or find it cold-hearted, but I disagree. I think a SO can be an amazing partner and the one person you truly love in your lifetime - without being your “one true love” in the literal sense of being the only possible one in the world.
Well, this is an interesting question.
I’m really not at all a fan of the “one true love” idea for the reasons others have posted. However, it occurs to me that I was lucky enough to be the sort of person who is attracted primarily to the way that a guy thinks. This means that I was always aware that there was a relatively large population of guys who satisfied my basic criterion of thinking in a particular rational and thoughtful way. The love of my life, whom I married and am even more madly in love with than I was when we got married, combined that with being a wonderful overall guy, getting along with me really well, having a sense of humor that as the years go by gets even more perfectly attuned to mine, etc. (I could go on and on, of course 
)
My sister, on the other hand, is attracted specifically and physically to a very small subset of men. She can’t tell, before meeting someone (say, from a physical description), whether he will be attractive to her. In her entire life (she’s 28) she’s met less than ten men who were physically attractive in That Way, and all but one of them were jerks and/or completely wrong for her. Happily, the last one, whom she married, was a guy whom she’s attracted to who is also a wonderful overall guy, treats her the way she wants to be treated (in itself I think this also downselects to a small subset of guys, but that’s another topic), and gets along with her really well.
My point is, my sister talks of her husband as “The One,” and much as I hate that term, I kind of understand where she’s coming from, as her sense of attractiveness downselected to a very small number. I could imagine her marrying someone who was nice enough but whom she wasn’t attracted to in That Way, because e.g. she felt like she was getting older and wanted a family or whatever, and always wishing she had held out for an attractive guy even if he was not quite as nice, or imagine her marrying one of the attractive jerks and regretting it afterwards when meeting an attractive Nice One.
So anyway, I’d be interested also in hearing more from people who didn’t marry the love of their lives – is the way you felt the way I imagine my sister might have felt in such a situation?
This is so on my mind these days, great topic… This is where I am at. I married a woman and we are now divorced. Together 6 years with kids. It was ok. Mediocre. Can’t believe I actually got out of it. I could have had a long mediocre fairly happy life- which is totally not good enough.
I have decided that I will NEVER get serious with a woman again who does not inspire me. I have met a few people in my life who inspire me, who make me feel joyous just to spend time with them. One was a girl…who perhaps I should have pursued harder back in HS and college…but oh well, she is off and married. One is my best friend…and a guy…so ya know not my type of marriage material. One is my first cousin…so ya know again…not marriage material.
Anyways, now that I am free of that mediocre marriage and that painfully ordinary role of family man in a “good” marriage…I will not ever again make the kind of sacrifices and commitment needed in a relationship-especially not a marriage unless the woman breaks my top 5 most awesome people I have ever known…and preferably my top 3 since I don’t really have a top 5.
Will I be able to stick with this commitment? ARRRGh. I don’t know. I would rather be alone than once again stuck in a jail cell of a mediocre life. There are different kinds of prisons in this world and perhaps the worst of all are those we create ourselves.
My hope and dream is to be unfuckingbelieveably happy and I aint interested in settling ever again.
Now I have realized that part 2 of that question is really relevant… What if I am not the love of their life? Hmm…I say no. Screw that. That won’t cut it. I’d rather be alone than somebody’s consolation prize.
Somehow, I don’t think any songs involving skidmark undies on the kitchen floor, toothpaste globs in the bowl of the sink, unshaved pits, teaser amounts of cereal left in the box and your ass ain’t what it use to be would be the fodder for the song market.
I agree 100%.
However, I say that knowing that I have the luxury of not being 50+ years old and worried about going to my grave as a lonely man.
I’m not currently married, though my current SO and I have hopes that we can remedy this in a few years. As for my view of what marriage can be, I think these posters came closest. My current SO is the best person for me as I am now. As we spend more years together, this congruity will, hopefully, only strengthen. I could see calling her the love of my life ten years from now. However:
Had I met certain other people at the right times*, I would probably be a somewhat different person now and would be very happy with them. My current SO is such a good match for me in part because of who we have made each other and, most importantly, because we like who the other person is making us.
There’s also this
I know a fair number of people who are wishing they’d waited for the choir of angels.
*Despite being almost puppy in love about my current SO, the rational part of my mind can actually think of specific people with whom I might have come to be equally happy, though I really would be a different person had I done so.
Agreed, and I think that this is why a lot of marriages fail. You meet the nice lady at work who laughs at your jokes and doesn’t bitch at you like your wife does.
Truth be known, she doesn’t have to put up with your bullshit, either, or else she would be even meaner that your wife ever thought of being.
You embody so much that I think is wrong with the world. I feel terrible for your children.
Could you elaborate your opinion?
I thought the majority consensus was that couples should not stay together “for the sake of the children.” Is that advice in dispute?