True Love
Love is not all; it is not meat nor drink nor slumber nor a roof against the rain, nor yet a floating spar to men that sink, and rise and sink, and rise and sink again… With the divorce rate in Singapore hitting the roof last year, there will invariably be concerns over the changing mindset of our generation over the notion of love. Sumiko Tan delved into the realm of statistics and hormones to come up with an introspective article which will surely give everyone a little something to ponder:
Excerpts
The thing about love I’ve found (yes, even though I’ve not been married) is that familiarity does breed contempt or at least boredom, and you’ve really got to work to keep the feeling going.
Little things about your partner that were sweet in the beginning inevitably start to sour once you’ve past the love-sick stage.
Yes, it was cute how he was as exuberant as a puppy when you first met, but, goodness, isn’t he turning out to be loud and boorish now? And while her whining was endearing in the beginning, after years of it you just wish she’d shut up a bit.
Little annoyances can accumulate to make you explode. Lucky are the couples who can accept the irritating traits of their partners (no one is perfect after all, and neither are you) and continue loving them.
But for some, love has a use-by date, even if it was ‘true love’.
Just as friendship between platonic friends can outlive itself, so, too, can long-term romantic love.
I used to think that no matter how much a person disappoints you, it can be overcome if you just focus on the love and relationship.
But I’ve found that love can and does die, although die may be too melodramatic a word. It’s more a case of love fading, like the ink from the pages of an old diary, or the image in an aged photo.
It disappears for a variety of reasons.
The cause can be sensational such as when a partner does something that hurts and deceives you.
More often though, the reasons are prosaic, like over-familiarity, boredom and benign neglect. And with the first-stage lust long gone, the love is quickly spent and you just aren’t into each other anymore.
It’s very sad, and the greater tragedy if it is only one half of the couple who has lost the feeling.
Still, to have loved and lost - lost in the sense of losing that love you once held so dear in your heart, and lost as in losing your loved one to someone or something else - must surely be better than to have never loved at all…
By Sumiko Tan, Nov 18, 2007
Copy from Jace ‘n’ Place
