When two people start off together, madly in love, and doing so much together. Planning a future for them both.
Years down the track they sometimes grow apart, wanting two different things. They separate and go on to live different lives.

What I am wanting to know is how do you keep that love alive?

How can you sustain a relationship for years to come?

Are we really that generation that throws things away so easily without fighting for it?

Just some thoughts that go on in my head.

You both can go in separate directions. But, you HAVE to keep something in common that you BOTH enjoy doing as a couple.


Depends what sex you are.

For a man the woman needs to remain sexy, act 'interested' in him, cook well, and at least accept watching porn.

For a woman the man needs to remain faithful, earn a decent living, stay fit, treat her nice, take care of the cars, keep the house in good working order.


Yes Absolutely! There's ALWAYS something better out there.


I think about food and sex. I'm hungry.

I had the thought the other day that
Marriage used to be about developing a family and community
now it is more about
developing our self
My guess is to keep the love alive two will have to develop a sense of family.

My question now is how far can love extend beyond family and into and even beyond community?

Just some thoughts shared outside my head :-)

mmm Even our thoughts are disposable. We wisely exchange them for better ones often although we can exchange them for lesser ones at times so maybe we need to encourage our own and others thoughts to grow to be better to insure healthy growth.

...ummm.lots and lots of sex...lol..

Thank you for your thoughts. They have given me more to think about.

Your thoughts are not surprising after all you are a male.

Thank you. I agree family is very important.
Is it enough to keep two together?
I never thought of it from this angle.
Thanks

Well well well why doesn't your thoughts surprise me?

I'm sure that thought only takes a small percentage of your brain.

Thanks for your insight

I myself never mastered it..but you both need to roll with the changes together...I always rock...and that's why I am alone

I think communication is the key. Remember what it was that you fell in love with someone. Talk about things that interest you both. Have a date night like when you first met. A relationship is something that requires constant work and upkeep. Just my 2 cents worth.

don't know yet,,,

I can say settling just to have 'love' or committing because of how that person makes you feel are probably big contributors to why so many relationships are thrown away, that and the total absence of stigma about divorcing

if you don't delight in seeing your partner become a better person, in inspiring your partner and bringing them joy,, if its all just about how much you enjoy what you get from them,,it will get old,

as a divorcee, even I realize that stigma did a lot to give people the conscience to 'try harder' and work things out

without the stigma, if we aren't feeling what we want or getting what we want , we can always just find something 'better'


I also think knowing that there would be stigma of divorce, may make people think much harder about marrying in the first place

I also really think committing to making that person a part of you, treating them no less special than you want to be treated,,,is a big part,,,but only if BOTH partners are doing this,,,,

Thanks for your insights
It has given me food for thought.

I have learnt what you did wrong from previous relationships you don't take them into a new one.

As I get older I seem to reflect a lot on things.
Maybe I think to much.

Yesh

I can only use my parents and my grandparents as examples. Here I haven't been this blessed. They were very much in love and yet I know both sets didn't jump... I see that now a lot with in weeks.. a couple is in love. Then in a couple of months they are engaged, married, or living together. I think now a days ppl don't take the time to really get to know one another, the other's values, dreams, family dynamics, all the positives along with the negatives etc...[/ b]





I know both couples I am using did a couple of things.
My grandparents would start their day remembering one thing from the past that attracted them to each other. They would start their days talking to each other. I know they would also find something new to love about the other each and everyday. I also know that they closed their day telling each other that they loved the other and thanking them for being in their life.

One thing my grandmother shared these things with me years ago and I didn't get it til I was an adult.
She told me to always remember when you love someone, you carry a piece of them in your heart and they carry a piece of you. Choose your words wisely in anger since if your words cut to the quick you are also hurting yourself.
Also you have to learn to love and value who you are... in that journey of finding out you will find out how very valuable others are.




I think in a lot of ways I do think we are.. A generation or two ppl didn't walk away.. They stayed and worked things out. They honoured their commitments not so much anymore.

I know for me, the times I have rushed things it didn't work out, the times I took the time to really learn that person and value them have worked the best whether romantic or not.

I think it is more about having the same level of commitment
than anything else when looking for longtime stability.

If both are 'til death do us part', no matter what types=longer,
if both are 'that sounds fun let's get married' types..the
piper will be paid eventually.

I saw a study on how to predict who would 'make' it.
Turns out, they were dead on in their conclusions..it takes
affection between the two, and pretty much anybody can see this
as it happens. Or does not happen.

I read an interview on this in a magazine, they'd interviewed couples that had been together for yonks.
It mostly came down to having similar norms & values and goals in life.
When you first get together, opposites often attract, but in the long run that could be tricky if goals, norms & values are too far apart.
Sure you shouldn't be clones of one another, there have to be some differences, so there's room for expansion, growth. That ain't there when you're clones and such relationship tend to die after a while, get too comfortable. And boring.

And one of the most important things apparently is to not take each other for granted. So basically you have to keep dating even decades down the line, by which they mean flirt, be playful, have fun.
That way you keep things alive and steer clear from ruts. Don't be too predictable. I remember way back when my hubby came home with roses each Friday. After a few months I found myself thinking "Dang, I'll have to clean them roses again in a min. Really don't feel like it."
It had become ritual, it wasn't special anymore.
But I think genuine appreciation is very important. Realize each day as you wake up how special it is that that other person is in your life, part of your life. And know it's not a given, no matter what vows you made. You don't own the other, you never will, so appreciate them for who they are and what they do, don't take them for granted.

Never ever make the relationship/partner the center of your universe. Keep doing your own things in life. Of course with a healthy balance of "we" time.

I think if you could succeed at these things, you'd come a long long way.

My thought is remembering the real, original reason to loving itself.
Sex grows stale as the relationship matures. Ive found that loving is not material, physical. ITS...internal, soul ,inquisitive . Love is a mutual bond...survivability bonded

You develop fetishes...and play them out

I have been working on this very question, for most of my life. It is one that goes to the heart of my primary educational discipline (History), as well as to the core of my personal raison d'etre.

What I have come to so far, is very subtle and very complicated, and very elegant, all at the same time. Ironically and amusingly at the same time, EVERYTHING that each person has said here so far, is a facet of what I have learned and envisioned.

INCLUDING the stuff that looks like absurd sexual joke posts.

Mostly, it is about each person's personal vision of life itself. How they see their existence unfolding, what makes them feel that they are "on the right track" in life. But that is complicated as well. As some have said, what the entire society each of us is a part of, plays a part both positively and negatively and even passively, in what vision we come to have about ourselves, and the value and direction of our lives.

It can be relatively little things, such as that if everyone around us respects us for "staying the course in hard times," it will make it easier to do so. If instead, the culture has shifted to calling us fools for "throwing good years after bad," it will become much harder for us to continue to hold to whatever principles we thought we had, that determination or loyalty or dedication were what we wanted ourselves to be all about.

When I was very young, I went through a short period within a horrible failure of a relationship, where I and the girl involved, worked out logically, that to stay together, we had to consciously make sure we both experienced the same basic things in life; that we avoid independent adventures, and work carefully to "stay on the same page," so that our desires and goals in life would remain compatible.

But that seemingly logical plan failed what I have come to think of as the "artificiality/reality principle." That is, that you can't build something REAL, from entirely faked elements.

And this is one of the greatest ironies of all, about the effort to make a relationship work. I learned the hard way, that it NEVER works to try to treat love and care for someone, as a project, or as a scientific process or endeavor. As soon as we choose that course, our mate ceases to be a live person, and becomes an experimental subject, or as bad, a sort of "reward" to ourselves. They cease in some inescapable way, to be a living entity with whom we are trying to live.

That means in one way, that most decisions to MAKE our relationships work, are likely to make things worse. I know it well myself, because of things like my own resentment of official gift-giving days. The fact that I am SUPPOSED to do something special for someone, be it my mate, my parent, or whomever, takes all the specialness and thoughtfulness out of ANYTHING I do.
Like the guy who brought roses home EVERY Friday. Sounds romantic at first, but when it's by rote, it loses all meaning, and as the lady who experienced it said, it turns his gift, into her chore.

A LOT of crafted "love work" is like that.

Does that mean no one should try at all, and as some I have known have done, abandon the idea of long term love altogether? I say absolutely not. Even though a huge segment of our society has convinced itself that love is a JOB that we need to do, just as they have declared patriotism and all sorts of other once idealized positives about humanity to be duties or required maintenance tasks, I rebel altogether against that.

Scientific method is a wonderful tool. But so is a hammer. Just because we have a hammer, doesn't mean it't the right tool to use for everything. I can say from direct experience, that it's a complete failure when window glass needs to be nudged into place.

So in short, I say, read EVERYTHING that EVERYONE said, and mix all of it up together in your mind. Include the being careful, the being thoughtful, the being outrageous, the being mindlessly sexual, and even the thinking of Big Thoughts about the Meaning Of Life. If you want a relationship to last, you will need ALL of that. Acceptance, not only of the other person's defects, but your own, and the entire worlds' as well. You will need to truly see HAVING and LIVING the relationship, as being WHAT YOU ARE DOING; and not fall into the modern trap of thinking that it is your RELATIONSHIP that should be serving to promote your life as being about something else.

Yes, it was easier to stay together in hard times, when divorce was frowned upon. But the frowning wasn't what ACTUALLY contributed the positive forces to any difficult peoples' lives, it was the reason BEHIND the frowning. And even that could be erroneous.

In religions, similarly, most thoughtful guides will tell you that praying or worshiping because you fear chastisement by the god or by the community, is NOT a sign of religious faith, or of what the religion was actually supposed to be about.

We should have the ability to divorce, not primarily so that people can give up erroneously, but so that they have the opportunity and freedom required, to learn the real reasons to positively choose NOT to give up.

..yes.. it does take just a small percentage.. it's all I can spare..lol.wink

To me its really simple just make sure its the right person and not just a infatuation.For myself I like to see how the person deals with things when they go wrong, are they problem solvers or focused on "winning the argument"and can they bounce back from the little bumps in the road that come along. Its easy but at the same time hard to.If a person has the qualities then its worth the effort and it boils down to working as a team,I have learned it is important to let them know that you admire them as a person, sounds corny but for me its true.