How "in love" should you be to continue a relationship?

[EnglishTeacher]

I think it is important that the relationship is free of pretense. It is very hard to admit what you don’t feel, and can be very hurtful. I don’t think you say during courtship, “You know, you could do a lot more for me, in the emotions department”, because that is unkind. If you are asked, though, you have to be able to admit: “Do you make my heart stop? No. Has anyone ever done that? Yes. Would I ever choose him or someone like that over you? Not in a million years. What you are doesn’t make my heart beat out of control, but it pleases me to my toes, you make me proud in any room, no matter how many other men are in it, and that is what I want. Nobody is ever going to make my heart beat fast enough to change that, because you are the real thing. No matter what, I’m in it with you all the way. If that is enough for you, that is what I have to give…which is every part of myself that is in my control to give you.”

If I could say that to him with honesty, I would totally stay in the relationship, but I don’t even think that I could say that much and mean it. I think that it boils down to the fact that I just don’t want to marry him. For his sake, I wish that I did, since we have been friends for so long and since I know that he loves me, but I just can’t do it.

 

[EnglishTeacher]

Thanks, everyone for the advice; I have read it all and thought about it a lot. Ultimately, I think that I just need someone more mature. He is a very good guy, but young for his age, and I can’t get past that, for whatever reason. As much as I like him and love him at least as a friend, I just have a nagging feeling that it wouldn’t work well long-term.

Dating is kind of a cruel thing. I’m not sure which is worse, being the one to break off a relationship or the one who gets broken up with.

 

[EasterJoy]

If I could say that to him with honesty, I would totally stay in the relationship, but I don’t even think that I could say that much and mean it. I think that it boils down to the fact that I just don’t want to marry him. For his sake, I wish that I did, since we have been friends for so long and since I know that he loves me, but I just can’t do it.

You sound as if you have come to a conclusion of the heart. You can’t get around it, can you?

In my experience, couples in this situation break up amicably and with the understanding that she knows that if she changes her mind, he might have moved on, and that this will be her loss. It is going to hurt him, you’re going to have to do the work of giving him the space in your social circle (rather than the other way around, if you’re nice about it), but my sense is that you would rather not risk the much greater harm you would do to him by waiting longer. He deserves to have a wife who has no reservations, you feel that by this time you ought to have an affection that comes in having no reservations such as you still have (for reasons you cannot fully explain), and so you think you need to break it off.

Sit down and have a talk. Break it off, and tell him you realize someone else might snatch him up if you change your mind, but that you want him to have someone who has no reservations. You may change your mind after you break up, you could find that you have much deeper feelings than you realized, but that chance to change your mind because you’ve come to value him in a deeper way could make your later relationship much happier, if you do marry in the end, anyway. He may say, “It’s now or never”, but doesn’t change anything, although it is his right to feel that way, too. Do not let him promise he’ll always be waiting for you, though. He should not do that. If you come back, it will be rebuilding time. There will be no picking up where you left off.

I would entirely avoid either “it’s not me, it’s you”, let alone give any reasons rooted in him concerning why the spark is not there. In fact, I’d say, “I’ve wracked my brains about it, and I’ve finally decided that I just have to go with the truth that I have a deep feeling that something necessary is missing, and I need to be honest about that and not keep obsessing about what that ‘something’ is.” Or whatever fits what your state of mind is. My point is to say nothing unkind and to not feel there is some value in making conjectures when you simply don’t know. Just be honest and kind, and then stop talking.

This will be very hard. I feel for you.

 

[TheRealJuliane]

If I could say that to him with honesty, I would totally stay in the relationship, but I don’t even think that I could say that much and mean it. I think that it boils down to the fact that I just don’t want to marry him. For his sake, I wish that I did, since we have been friends for so long and since I know that he loves me, but I just can’t do it.

I had to let a guy down in high school - he was in love with me, but I was not in love with him. I liked him OK, but going farther into dating wasn’t going anywhere for me and it would have just made things even harder, plus I didn’t want him to think I had used him for dinners out, etc. (He had his own car, a nice muscle car as I recall)

I broke his heart, unfortunately. I sure hope he found a really nice girl who loved him back as much as he deserved…

When the spark isn’t there, it just isn’t there. And yeah, dating is kinda cruel, which is one reason why if something happened to my husband I would either join a convent or become consecrated.

 

[dedo]

You need to be “in love” enough for you, and you may never deceive him, including by lies of omission. If you have lead him to believe that you are more “in love” with him than you are, that is a problem, even if everything else is fine with you. Besides that, you only need to ask yourself if you will bring each other closer to God or not…that is, whether you will each serve God best by having married each other.

Those are the only three things to concern yourself with.

This is from C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters, in which an experienced demon explains this topic to a younger tempter from Hell’s point of view:

*"…You complain that my last letter does not make it clear whether I regard being in love as a desirable state for a human or not. But really, Wormwood, that is the sort of question one expects them to ask! Leave them to discuss whether “Love”, or patriotism, or celibacy, or candles on altars, or teetotalism, or education, are “good” or “bad”. Can’t you see there’s no answer? Nothing matters at all except the tendency of a given state of mind, in given circumstances, to move a particular patient at particular moment nearer to the Enemy or nearer to us. Thus it would be quite a good thing to make the patient decide that “love” is “good” or “bad”. If he is an arrogant man with a contempt for the body really based on delicacy but mistaken by him for purity—and one who takes pleasure in flouting what most if his fellows approve—by all means let him decide against love. Instil into him an over-weening asceticism and then, when you have separated his sexuality from all that might humanise it, weigh in on him with it in some much more brutal and cynical form.

If, on the other hand, he is an emotional, gullible man, feed him on minor poets and fifth-rate novelists of the old school until you have made him believe that “Love” is both irresistible and somehow intrinsically meritorious. This belief is not much help, I grant you, in producing casual unchastity; but it is an incomparable recipe for prolonged, “noble”, romantic, tragic adulteries, ending, if all goes well, in murders and suicides. Failing that, it can be used to steer the patient into a useful marriage. For marriage, though the Enemy’s invention, has its uses. There must be several young women in your patient’s neighbourhood who would render the Christian life intensely difficult to him if only you could persuade him to marry one of them. Please send me a report on this when you next write. In the meantime, get it quite clear in your own mind that this state of falling in love is not, in itself, necessarily favourable either to us or to the other side. It is simply an occasion which we and the Enemy are both trying to exploit. Like most of the other things which humans are excited about, such as health and sickness, age and youth, or war and peace, it is, from the point of view of the spiritual life, mainly raw material,

Your affectionate uncle,

SCREWTAPE*"

This is pretty cool.

So the key in evaluating whether love is good or bad is not the feeling itself but how it moves us in terms of moving closer to God / virtue etc.

I think I am going to read more of CS Lewis.

We saw the play, but the book likely explains it better.

 

[Contra_Mundum_1]

As a man, I would find it disappointing if I found my wife thought of me as the OP thinks of the man she is dating. It would hurt me to find out within a marriage that my wife lacked that sort of spark and emotional connection. Is it possible to be married like that? Well, yes. Anything is possible. But is it ideal? Certainly not. It runs the risk of hurting the man later down the road if he expects a certain level of emotional connection or chemistry that is lacking. If that chemistry doesn’t develop within a reasonable period of time, then it would be merciful to gently and gracefully end the relationship, even if it kills the friendship.

I completely agree with this. Some kind of a spark is necessary. It is unfair and dishonest when people suggest that is irrelevant, given how much importance is placed on sexuality in a Christian marriage. If the thought of him touching you is unnatractive for example, and you have no desire for it, I think it is a problem. The sheer number of threads here where couples have problems rooted in this area is quite high. Don’t go there willingly, that is not what marriage should be like.

As for his immaturity, I see that as a less of a problem. People grow up. Men in their 20s still have a long way to go. (My husband is 5 years younger than me and he wasn’t exactly super mature in his late 20s. But he is now and there is no imbalance between us whatsoever.)

 

[Rose71]

I can really sympathise because I am in a similar situation right now!

My younger man proposed on New Years Eve and I knew what was coming and was so excited about it! I was absolutely euphoric…until he actually popped the question and I felt flat.

I can’t explain even now, how I went from feeling like the happiest woman alive to feeling “This has all been a mistake! Help!” He was devastated. I explained hwo I respected all his good qualities and that I loved him as a friend, but somehow, I just couldn’t make that leap.

We’ve agreed to postpone the engagament and had a lot of very deep talks. The very good thing is that we can talk and do talk. He’s come to see that while I would love everything to work out, it might not. He understandsthat if eventually, I feel I am really not happy and can’t see a future together for us, he must let me go with good grace and that this does not mean either of us have ‘failed’.

The problem with accepting advice about this sort of thing, is that everybody only has their own relationships and choices as a guide and if you feel inclined not to follow their counsel, you are in effect calling into question their own choices. Not only do you end up questiong your own relationships, but you feel guilty for questioning theirs too!

I am still in turmoil. I thought a couple of weeks ago that all was well. When I look at the ‘real’ him, he’s just a wonderful human being. The big one for me is that being with him feels like being wrapped in a big, warm, snuggly blanket and not infatuated. That feeling is alien to me. It didn’t used to be when I was part of a huge and close family. However, I lost most of them in the 80’s and early 90’s to accident or illness and then a large branch of the family fell off (literally) following a messy divorce and a fall out over a will. I spent years getting very bitter and very critical and cynical of other people’s relationships…“She’s just with him for the money…she’s no right to be so smug - she needs a man because she’s too dim to make a living to support herself wheras I have a choice!” (nice!!)

I’m still trying to figure out whether my unkind thoughts are coming back to haunt me now and I am over-scrutinising the relationship instead of accepting that I am capable of giving and receiving love…or whether what we had for a while was beautiful and taught us both a lot but it’s time to let go and move on.

I love having somebody to share my life with. On the flip side, comments about my single status and people offering pearls of wisdom like “you’ll find it hard at your age to be in a relationship” cut like a knife because I take them to heart and hear them as “You’ve no chance! You’re just not relationship material”…which translates quite easily when you’re down as “you’re not quite an adult human being”

He and I have talked about all these things and we know we will always appreciate our time together and our lives will never be the same again. Will it work?

Silly question! We’ve stopped thinking along those lines. We have realised we have a choice. We can make it a positive experience or a negative one and we choose positive

We have identified 2 possible outcomes:

1. We agree to end the relationship and remain friends who are there to support one another. We have learned what it is to share one’s life and to identify mroe clearly what qualities we are seeking in a partner. We have not failed one another. We have helped one another make a good choice. We’ve both got confidence now to say, “I am attractive. I am worthwhile!”
2. We end up married and keep on working towards a happy and fulfilling life together.

I may be confused right now, but I have no regrets.

 

[Joy2day]

Hi, this is a good question you pose and I am a little confused as to why you think you should continue the relationship as you clearly are not in love with the guy. You both deserve better than this. My grandmother gave good advice; I think they did in those days, cause they knew they had to stay together for life, so they had better make the right choice. She said ‘it shouldn’t be a question of whether you can live with the man, rather it should be a question of whether you can live without him… and to marry someone you should feel very strongly that you can’t live without him’. So that’s a pretty strong feeling and not one that will come along every day and certainly I believe that it is that sort of feeling that will help people last a lifetime together. Anything less and you’re playing with fire. I’ll pray for you and good luck, and of course always remember that money will only make you comfortable in your misery.