why doesn't love last, when friendship does?

Great Debates
1

[caveat]
My fiorst OP in GD. I figured there is no definite answer to this, but there is bound to be some insight and maybe great thoughts. If more suitable in other forum - mod, feel free to move.
[/caveat]

So I’m 41 and single, since the last 18 months. At my age, the dating game is getting harder and harder. Mostly, because I get more and more picky. I have the experience to know what I like and dislike, and can’t be bothered, at my age to just fool around for some casual sex.

I’ve been dating for 25-27 years now, depending on how you count. Hopefully I’ve learnt something - but the cynic in me says: “Nothing lasts forever. Enjoy it while you can.” Indeed, my personal best is about a three year relationship.

Now, of course, I’m aware that some people make it work for a lifetime. Statistics in most of Europe and the US seems to point towards my cynical view.

At the same time - I have some really close friends. I can truly say that I love them. And they’ve been my closest friends for over 20 years. These are the people who truly know my darker sides, everything I’m embarrased of, my pains and longings and dreams and hopes. In many ways - being in a longer realationship is like having a best friend, and having sex with that person.

So why do realationships fall apart? Is it the sex? Why can’t we make it last, the way we make friendship last?

2

It’s the monogamy/exclusivity/jealousy thingie.

3

What Ahunter3 said is true.

I’m never jealous when my friends go out with other friends. I don’t feel that the relationship is threatened. Neither do have any fear that my best friend will “dump” me.

4

I can’t determine your gender, Gas (or is Gaspode a common Swedish name that announces its gender?). Though a good many disagree, I do think it matters.

Speaking of perceived statistical tendencies of large populations, not necessarily exhibited (even as a tendency) in some given individual or subset:

The human male nervous system has evolved such that “R” is strongly favored;

The female human nervous system has evolved such that “N” is strongly favored.

By “R” I mean–let’s call it the act of coital subjugation. It is not just “having sex” or “getting off”. At the other extreme, it is not necessarily violent or oppressive. But it is not an act of kindness. It is not “giving,” not nurturing, and involves mutuality of pleasure only by accident. It is all about the male being implacable in using the other person as the instrument of his sexual pleasure. Can you guess which 4-letter word beginning with R I have in mind?

By “N” I mean Nesting. Making a home, having children, bonding, binding, nurturing, caring, sacrificing.

(Don’t go away yet–I’m not saying I APPROVE of these predispositions.)

Civilization, society, culture–much of it involves how the tensions between these tendencies are to be resolved, in the interest of preserving the larger unit; that is, the tribe, the city, the state, etc.

Roughly put, we channel our tendencies into certain behavioral customs, and term the result “Love.”

But the male and the female interpret this merged resultant in their own characteristic ways. A man is “in love” when the very thought of his partner excites him (ie, sexually). A woman is in love when her life with her partner makes her feel peaceful and secure and “commited to” (feeling sexually desired is one form of that last).

Love doesn’t last for a man because the male nervous system is excited by sexual novelty in and of itself. He needs to move on. Nature is demanding that he spread his seed as widely as possible. Love is strangled by familiarity. Pretty soon you’re having sex with your mother.

Love doesn’t last for a woman because men who want to move on cease to be reassuring and start “acting out.” Love is starved to death.

Put two men together–a gay couple–and…it isn’t pretty.

Put two women together and you have superglue. But there is so much mutual need that it may squeeze out mutual want; to want requires a bit of freedom and space.

Yes, these are generalizations. Yes, they are offensive. I’m offended by them myself.

My question to you, Gaspode:

How much will you compromise, what will you sacrifice, for this “lasting love” you seek? How much intermittent discomfort is fair price for how much intermittent joy?

Truly, I wish you luck.

5

Unrealistic expectations and less willingness to put up with your partners baggage?

Do a search for Silent Bob’s big speech in Chasing Amy. Matter of fact, just rent the sucker.

6

Maybe because you’re separating the two. A lot of happily married couples started out as platonic friends, and I would daresay all happily married couples consider themselves to be each others’ best friends. Friendship and sex can coexist.

7

Friendships don’t necessarily last forever, either. I had one friend of long standing turn on me a couple of years ago, and I’m very seriousily thinking of ending another friendship of nearly 30 years duration.

8

Scott Dickerson, taking you at your word that you are generalizing and are aware of the likelihood of people to whom your statements do not apply, I’m going to skip over declarations and enunciations of my own inclinations and go on to ask you –

is it your intention to assert that the generalizations you are making are reflections of built-in biological inclinations, as opposed to cultural/societal ways of organizing sex, sexuality, and reproduction? (your references to the “male nervous system” seem to imply this)

If so, how do you defend arriving at this conclusion? Have you seriously considered and then rejected the cultural/societal hypothesis regarding these differences? If so, on what basis?

9

I believe this is true…based solely on native optimism and rare examples I’ve seen. I don’t think longevity/friendship and romantic love are mutually exclusive, just damned hard to pull off.

Lots of forces mitigate against it: fantasies, unrealistic cultural expectations, internal personal fractures and fissures. Maybe part of the problem is the unnatural (unrealistic?) weighting given romantic love and concept of “soul mates”. Two hearts meeting seem as often a triumph of friendship through romance as life grinds on.

I suspect the crux is one of those frustating, niggly definitional things. Pure “romance” is often taken as synonymous with infatuation: acute attraction, rooted in all kinds of unconscious sources. Friendship is a different kind of * knowing, aware* bond, simpatico blended with acceptance.

Possibly “Love”–capital L–is the elusive blending of friendship that bridges instinctive attraction/infatuation. Maybe it’s informed simpatico. But I suspect that most romances founder simply in the clear light of experience. Infatuation idolizes the unknown; pretty damned unlikely for anyone to sustain.

Actually knowing someone, and still finding them enticing, funny, endearing, is a real leap. And no gender or attraction is immune to the difficulties.

Veb
Who loves her dog

10

You don’t have to live with your friends on a permanent basis.

11

I think Raymond Chandler had it right in one of his novels (sorry, I can’t remember which one) when he had a character remark that marriage was wonderful for 1 in 50 couples; the rest had to work at it.

12

Lots of reasons, but this immediately springs to mind: you don’t live with and sleep with your friends, therefore there is whole lot less pressure on the relationship.

Almost all my friends have been in my life for 20 to 34 years. I am extremely close with them, they know everything about me, and our bonds are virtually unbreakable.

However, I couldn’t live with any of them foir more than a few months, tops, without wanting to kill them or them wanting to kill me. If I tried to live with and work with and have a sexual relationship with any one of them in the way I do my fiance, it would be over PDQ.

It takes a very very special connection to tolerate the amount of commitment and togetherness demanded by a romantic relationship, a great deal more than friendship.

13

We all have to work at it. Even those of us in stellar marriges/parterships. winks at Avalonian Friendship has to exist somewhere in the relationship for it to last. I think we let infatuation get in the way all too often. Without friendship, all you have is sex, and sex alone isn’t enough to sustain a relationship. I believe that successful marriages are the ones that have a degree of tolerance and respect embedded within a strong committment to communication. That might seem like a lot to work for, but if you believe that your partner is your friend, it doesn’t seem like such hard work. All this is assuming that love is a given, but that’s a very hard thing to define, so I’ll quit while I’m ahead.

14

Gaspode, I’m afraid I don’t agree with your premise. My best friend in the whole world is my Beloved - we’ve just celebrated 10 years of friendship together, and also of love. Yes, I have good friends that I’ve known longer, but the strongest friend I have is also my Beloved. The love wouldn’t exist without the friendship.

15

So what’s the question? Why doesn’t love last or why don’t relationships last? Two very different things especially if by love you mean romantic love or limerence.

Relationships where two people love each other for a lifetime happen all the time. What doesn’t last a lifetime is that giddy, light-as-air feeling you get when you first fall in love. This is probably a good thing since the feeling is so intense that if it lasted too long you would probably explode.

I believe that poets, novelists and screen writers have done us all a terrible injustice by making us believe in their happily-ever-after endings. The implication is always that the couples are just as in love with each other the day they die as they are at the end of the story.

What generally happens is that those intense in-love feelings mellow and turn into deep affection and friendship. Unfortunately too many people think that the in-love feeling is supposed to last forever, and when it doesn’t they think the relationship has failed.

16

Because friendship isn’t hormonally-based.

17

Love doesn’t last forever? Then what’s forever for?

18

I’d go with that.

My friendships ebb and flow, and if one is kind of stretched at the moment - we can spend away from each other. I can lean on other friendships and have other people fill in the gaps & vice versa.

I don’t think you can get away with that in most relationships.

19

OK - seems I need to makle some things clear:
I’m male. I enjoy nesting. The term couch potato was invented to describe me [hyperbole]. I’m not looking for love. I’m convinced that you can’t look for love - you stumble on it.

My last relationship was great. We were really best friends aand all that. I think it was the first time I was in a relationship with a [smarmy] soul-mate.
She dumped me.
But it’s not bitterness or resentment on my part. The summer of '01, it was, but it’s been 18 months people.

For me, it’s starts with infatuation/hornyness (horniness?). Moves to being in love, which, if I’m lucky, matures to pure love. At this point, it transforms to friendship + sex.

I remarked that some people make it last, but it seems that so many relationships don’t last, I’m wondering why.
And since friendships do last, the component that differs is sex. I’ve had female friends for much longer than any girl friend.

20

Another component that differs is spending most of your time together. I have had very close friendships that have run onto the rocks when we have decided to share an apartment.

Another is that friendships are usually not exclusive the way that love affairs are. A best friend is unlikely to restrict you from having other friendships.
The secret to everlasting love, if there is one, is to recognize that love changes over time and to give it room to evolve. You can’t expect love to be the same ten years into a relationship to be the same as it was at the beginning.

Maybe people are more accepting that friendships evolve than they are of love affairs ?