Quasi, I gotta agree with you - it never really goes away.
Case in point - my ex, who screwed around on me with one of her dope-smokin’ buddies. If she showed up on my doorstep with her brain on fire and asked me for help, I wouldn’t bother to piss in her ear. And yet I can think back to our early days together and there is a very fond memory of those.
Part of love while you’re in it has to do with actions and habits. Part of unloving someone is changing those actions and habits. Emotions and actions are strongly connected - you need to break as many of those connections as you can. This is my theory, anyway.
Love is a gift. And we have a lot of foolish notions about it.
It’s simply an emotion, and like all other emotions, a healthy person can choose to act upon it or to experience it without acting.
We prefer to have it reciprocated and it sometimes isn’t. Nonetheless we feel it. But it is ours and nobody else’s.
True love comes with no obligations for action.
Love is a bittersweet gift.
I was married. I loved the person. By the time the divorce and everything was over, I didn’t. What was love had turned into something akin to white-hot anger and contempt. That has not faded, but is really more of a residual response; if I ran into my ex-spouse, I would probably be civil. And I’ve certainly made far fewer displays of public bitching (note to ex-spouse-who-does-not-read-these-boards: my crazy-ass family? Really? Your extended family regularly pushes each other to screaming matches and tears, your uncle pulled a sword on his parole officer, and my family–who accepted you, by the way–is crazy-ass because my dad is kind of a pretentious jerk? Fuck you.)
This wasn’t something that I wanted to have happen. It just did. I don’t think I could decide to stop loving someone. It would just have to happen.
Not a month goes by that I don’t think back to my first great love, wonder what ever became of him, wonder what he’s doing now or if he’s even alive. He was a cool, sweet, bright, artistic 'bad boy ', of course, and it was probably for the best that he moved away. I wonder if this great love was great because it happened at an early impressionable age, and if it hangs on because I can look back to the cute young things we used to be.
I’ve got one of those. Down to the T. I had those nightmares, the ones where I’d run into him and he’d open his arms and I’d come back to him and we would be so very happy together, and everything would be perfect, at least a few times a year for…actually, about 15 years. I’d wake up from them hating myself.
I’m very glad they’ve stopped.
The pre- & post-divorce behavior of my ex-wife has pretty much beaten any positive feelings I have for her right out of my system.
I guess, to me, it’s certainly possible un-love somebody.
Lots of interesting responses, thanks.
Let me share something else pointless and mundane with you, okay?
A former lady love of mine in Germany once called me a “Kuschelbär” (I looked this up in a German-English dictionary and there really is no English translation except maybe “teddy-bear”, but that doesn’t come close either.), meaning that to her I am a person who loves and craves affection - gives it and takes it however the situation demands - and that means if I get negative vibes from a lady, then that aspect of me doesn’t appear, okay - I don’t force myself on anyone.
But what I mean, is that if I love you, then I am also loving, and no matter what may have transpired to end the relationship, that is how I will always feel about you. I gave you that part of me, you took it and we both enjoyed it.
That means if I see you on the sidewalk or in a cafe even with someone else, then that love is gonna “tug” at me, because I will (as Mickey Newbury once sang) “remember the good” and that, to me, means I still do love you. I told you that and for me it was the truth and once you say that to someone (IMO) you better damn well mean it, because to say it and not mean it, is cruel. It’s DAMN cruel and how could I live with myself if I told you that lie?
Before I re-married, I was in a relationship with someone who told me she loved me. Then she started getting “distant” and one day she told me “I don’t love you, Bill”. Not “anymore”. Just “I don’t…”
I chose not to believe her then, and I do not believe it now.
What I believe is what I was told and when you’re told something as strong as that, it tends to “stick”, and that is what happened with me, and I do not apologize for it. I gave her what I thought was respect, love and all the affection I could and I do not regret a single minute.
Yeah, I have what she called “puppy dog eyes”. Yeah, I was “Mr. Chivalry”. And yeah, I was VERY attentive and “tuned in” to her needs and her “not right now needs”.
Is it a “tragic flaw”?
Hell, I don’t know, but it’s me and that’s (as you kiddos say) “how I roll”.
I will end this with a challenge.
I challenge every one in this thread to tell me that when you said those 3 words, you didn’t mean them, and further, I want you to convince me that you don’t love this person now. I didn’t write “feel something” for them, I wrote “love”.
One more thing: I have a saying (which I believe I coined myself), and here it is: “If it doesn’t happen here (touches heart), then it doesn’t happen there”. (points to… well you know, right:))
Thanks.
Your Pal:)
Bill
I think you used a very telling word there: chose.
“Chose”, I chose to use “chose”. I meant “gerflumpt”.:)?
What does it matter which word I used?
Okay, I didn’t believe her. I had a choice to believe her or not, and so I chose NOT to. After 5 wonderful years with her, enjoying each other’s company, making special days “special”, I didn’t believe that she all of a sudden didn’t love me. I knew/know her too well to think differently, but I took the “high road” and made it be over for us.
Yeah it hurt and you know what else sandra?
I was and am very honest with D about this, and she, in turn, did the same for me.
It’s over, yes it is. But I gave love and I took love, and I can’t just erase that.
My interpretation of your use of that word was that you knew she was telling you what she believed to be true, but you didn’t want it to be true, so you chose to believe she was wrong.
I have a hard time believing that, if you truly loved, admired, respected this person, that you would believe that they don’t know their own mind best and aren’t capable of making their own decisions about their own feelings.
I don’t think she ‘all of a sudden’ didn’t love you. I think she realised over time that she didn’t love you and when she was sure that she didn’t love you, that’s when she told you. You say yourself that she started getting distant and then one day told you she didn’t love you anymore.
People fall in love and fall out of love. To believe one aspect of that and not the other is naive.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying you shouldn’t love her, or shouldn’t grieve for the relationship that has gone. But I get the sense you feel that if you love someone and they love you, then it must be permanent love for both parties. And I just don’t think that’s true.
I believe in the Bank of Love - when you meet someone and fall in love, you open an account together. It starts off full of love and affection and caring, but it has to be replenished a little bit all the time by words and actions. Doing things that harm each other is a withdrawal from the Bank account - doing things that strengthen your bond is a deposit in the account. You want to make sure that you keep your account in the black, because once the account runs out, you don’t have very much keeping you together any longer; you’re just roommates.
I’d agree with that - to an extent. It seems to be saying if you do the right things, make the right deposits, then the love will last. But I think there’s more to it than doing the right things.
It has to be a match between two mutually compatible people. Sometimes we might think we’re compatible but then as we get to know each other better, we realise we aren’t. That’s not a failing of either individual, simply an unfortunate circumstance.
Not always. It hurts worse knowing what she might have been…especially when you remember how wonderful she once was. 
Quasi, you great fool, she loves you and you love her. Stop trying to force her away.
I just don’t get it.
I mean, Quasi, you know that I like you as a person, but I just don’t get this whole thread.
Who cares about this old person in your life? You’re with D now, and you love D, right? So what does it matter whether or not this ex loved you ever or not?
If she did love you, what difference does it make?
This just seems like a strange thing to reminisce about.
It was just a question, y’all, and I’m known to ask questions like this.;):smack:
I wanted to wait till now to answer this, because the Quasimodem you knew 5 years ago, is different from the one you know now, (and not just because of the dementia/depression), and he’s not going to react by going into battle with, you, my friends. In short, I needed time to think and consider.
Here’s what I want to say, and this is also the way I feel: What is in your heart, is in your heart and I don’t think it’s possible to remove it or destroy it. Not for me, anway.
I care about your answers, pro and con, because this is the place I come to, to talk to my friends, and you let me know what you think.
Remember, please, that my questions may seem “out there” to you, but they don’t to me.
Thanks
Q
Yes, what it was should remain as a fresh and happy reflection of times gone by regardless of the frequency of the memory IMHO.
I have another e-mail address which begins “claudewc”, but no one ever “gets” it.
Thanks
Q
I’ve never been able to unlove someone. I’ve also found former girlfriends who still have strong feelings for me 30 years later. Sigh… Where’s a DeLorean when you need one.