On Love

When my second marriage failed it was very painful for me, but even at the time, I wasn't sure why. Things had degraded to the point that I knew I would be better off without her. Better off financially, happier, less tension in the house, all around better. And she wasn't cheating on me or directly mistreating me, so there was no humiliation involved. And it was me that had drawn the line that ended things. So why did it hurt so bad?

It was because I loved her, and believed that she loved me in return. I really had internalized this and thought we would love each other forever. And the realization that she didn't, hurt like h#ll.

Rollo says women are incapable of loving us the way we love them.
http://therationalmale.com/2011/12/27/women-in-love/
Do you all buy this? And if so, where does that leave us in terms of LTR's?

MOTU said:

Rollo says women are incapable of loving us the way we love them.

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He actually says women are incapable of loving us in the way we IDEALIZE them loving us, which I agree with.

One important thing I think is almost never directly addressed in the manosphere is the value of chastity in a female. I think it just gets ignored, 1) because it makes men slightly uncomfortable to acknowledge that their wife/gf/lover has had numerous other men before them, and 2) it is such an exceedingly rare attribute that the merits of a chaste female are not even realized anymore, or just seen as a fairly tale.

That's not to say that a virgin isnt capable of cheating or hypergamy, but her bonding capacity is undiluted and pure. That also doesn't mean you can just live out your beta fantasies of baring all of your vulnerabilities to her and still be her alpha, but you have a HUGE advantage with regards to alpha-bonding in the relationship if you have been her only partner.

I think regarding love the thing we need to realize is men and women will love each other differently and this is just a fact of nature. Women's love is more fickle and subject to hypergamy, hormones, and her sexual past; whereas men's love tends to be more steady, reliable, and sacrificial, and yes romantic. There has to be a natural disparity of sorts for a man and woman to have sustained love, and by that I mean you need to have enough alpha traits or SMV (relatively speaking) to constantly remain a winning proposition for her. Equal to is lesser than in a woman's eyes, and we forget that.

MOTU said:

When my second marriage failed it was very painful for me, but even at the time, I wasn't sure why. Things had degraded to the point that I knew I would be better off without her. Better off financially, happier, less tension in the house, all around better. And she wasn't cheating on me or directly mistreating me, so there was no humiliation involved. And it was me that had drawn the line that ended things. So why did it hurt so bad?

It was because I loved her, and believed that she loved me in return. I really had internalized this and thought we would love each other forever. And the realization that she didn't, hurt like h#ll.

Rollo says women are incapable of loving us the way we love them.
http://therationalmale.com/2011/12/27/women-in-love/
Do you all buy this? And if so, where does that leave us in terms of LTR's?

Click to expand...

I think men and women both yearn to receive unconditional love. I think at their core both yearn for relationships where unconditional love is the basis. I think both desire to know and feel they are always loved, in every moment, regardless.

Very few men and women seem to consciously know and live the kind of love, that is unconditional, that is regardless. I think unconditionally loving relationships are even fewer.

Maybe it is primarily known (at least to start) for a parent to their child and the child to the parent.

Sadly, I believe most men and women never consciously evolve beyond living the illusion that conditional love, is love.

As a result, conditional love is given or taken away, with unspoken or even spoken expectations, and has sadly become what most refer to and know, as love. In my view, most relationships simply then are almost a barter, for what people call love.

I see an agreement (usually unspoken) of I'll love (and accept) you, if you love (and accept) me, on some level. It is a placeholder for the unconditional love they truly seek, maybe better than nothing, yet it never truly satisfies.

Do men and women love differently? I think they barter (not always consciously), conditional love, differently. What they wish to receive in return for what they give, "as love", has individual, cultural, as well as male/female influences. I think this kind of bartered love is what is mistakenly spoken of as love.

I believe unconditional love is what we all mostly deeply wish to experience and wish our lives were filled with.

I believe that love is very much subjective and in the "eyes of the beholder". Despite the very subjective usage of the word "love" across the board, a rather consistent definition would say that love is unconditional. Love in this context would have the person remaining loyal and committed to the other person/group of people "forever". Forever in this context, can only mean until the person in particular ceases to exist (dies).

In my opinion, no human being can achieve this concept of "love," I believe that humans can only love based on conditions.

If the conditions are there that produced the love that I have for her, as long as they don't change drastically to the point where I can no longer reasonably maintain that love, then there's a good chance we will remain in love. But if the conditions change to the point where I can no longer maintain that love reasonably, then the love will more than likely cease. You can replace the word "love" in this context with the word "committed".

Humans can only exist based on conditions, as a result, I'm not sure how anyone can ever truly be committed (love) to a person unconditionally when that would deem you "non-human". In this sense, I would agree with religious connotation that God or The Source or The Creator is love, as The Creator is non-human and as a result not limited to conditions that Humans are for existence. The Creator can love you unconditionally, because conditions don't dictate his survival. I on the other hand, can only love you to a certain POINT where it begins to thread on my ability to survive.

I believe that women fully understand this, that's why they "love you" for 5-10 years and wake up in year 11 with divorce papers citing irreconcilable differences. Either they PLANNED to divorce you anyway after a period of time, or conditions changed in relation to what made them love you to where those conditions are either no longer present or not in the format that the woman prefers.

Men usually, puffed up on society based programming, usually try to come into the "love" relationship with a White Knight stance. Basically, they are usually willing to go FURTHER, give up MORE and sacrifice MORE for the relationship to remain in place. The issue, however, is that even this can go only so far.

This is one of the reasons I have opted out of marriage. I fully realize that at ANY TIME the conditions could change unfavorably to the woman (which doesn't even have to be negative from a holistic point of view) to where she would want to OPT OUT of the marriage contract.

PairPlusRoyalFlush said:

the truth is that women with co-dependency, a psychological disorder, seem to be the only women that ever truly love the way men do in the sense of being a provider and protector with sacrificial love. of course these women overwhelmingly go for the most hardcore castaways haha

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That is an interesting comparison. Co-dependent women will usually give everything they are and everything they have (time, energy, money) to help their man and insure his happiness and success. Indeed men are like that with the women they love. That is a great observation.

Women love opportunistically, men love idealistically:

http://therationalmale.com/2013/10/08/love-story/

I think we would all be better served if we were not trained to feel and express love only in the context of particular relationships.

In my experience we are subtly trained to love and stop loving based on the beginning and ending of relationships.

Love is bigger than any box.

I just can't grasp it! I think that women throw the word love around as a way of making you feel like you have conquered them and have control (falsely of course).

They'll ask if you love them too, and once you respond with a yes it then becomes your job to show them "just how much".

They will ask for more time, more money, more respect, more help, and you will give all in the name of love.

And when it's all over and you gave the time, the money, the respect, and the help, what were you left with.

Three LTR's all with the same ending result, and by being in them I gained no more money, no more time, and no more respect.

Women seem to easily walk away while men seem to hold on tighter to an ideal that they did so much and loved so much that it couldn't have happened.

Is that really love?? It's like answering the question of licks to the center of a tootsie pop......The world may never know.

Dear Motu,
"Women love opportunistically, men love idealistically"...Rollo has something there...seems contra-intuitive though as we are logical,they are emotional.....Maybe the whole thing becomes easier if we eliminate the word love from our vocabularies...The Ancient Sanskrit language,from which came all European Languages had 96 words for love; The Ancient Persians had 80,The Greeks four words for love,it seems incongruous that we lump so many subtle sensibilities together under that word...For me the only aspect of "Love" I want from a Woman is the Greek "Eros"or Lust,after that is satisfied I just want to put my strides back on,and get the Hell out LOL.

I appreciate the discussion on this. I guess that love really isn't a state, it's an activity, right? So you don't "fall out of love", you just quit doing it.

I generally believe that it is unwise to expect someone to do something that is overall not in their best interest, or in women's case in particular, what they perceive to be in their best interest, with the notable exception of a very few real friends. Maybe the red pill is the process of applying this logic to the concept of "love".

So when considering whether "love can last forever" you have to apply Briffaults Law and ask "will it always be in her best interest to be with me, be faithful to me and respect me? And will she be able to understand that it is in her best interest?"

It's interesting how much I want to believe in idealistic love, even though the evidence is clear that it's not real.

Another problem is that women think love is a feeeeling, when in reality is a way of acting towards another. I dont walk around with the tingly feeeeelz all day for my gf but i do things for her I wouldnt for garden variety *****.

To me "love" is like having an investment in a mate. Both parties should have a vested interest in each other for it to work.

We all know that Disney fairytale bull**** is just that bull****.