Can you really find "the one"?

[mhowe]

I don't understand where your hostility is coming from.

 

I never married because I never found that true and abiding love....My parents were married for almost 60 years. Death came to separate them.

Their role model scultped my vision of what true love was.

 

How dare you tell me that because I never married, yet had several relationships, that I had not found love.

 

I don't believe in a letting societal norms nor religious norms define my live. I am neither bitter nor sad, nor negative.

 

Please reread my post. Your hostility toward something is clouding your comprehension.

[gdgfx]

Being compatible is a factor. But you can't go from compatible plus working at the relationship = love.

 

Love is, at its core, about the mystery of the connection. And may also be why it is so elusive.

 

Someone can check all the boxes....and yet...."meh".

 

I have a friend G....whom I love as a great friend (he is male). He is handsome, athletic, successful. I enjoy his company.

And yet --- I have zero desire for him.

 

But your experiences don't make for evidential bottom line factual statements on life. This is your life, it panned out this way for you due to any sort of course or reason. It does mean that everyone else's life will take the same path and by saying it will is only bleeding negativity and potentially poisoning the minds of those that want to love by feeling it isn't possible. And you go and ask anyone today "Does love really exist?" especially the younger generation, and I'll promise you, more than 50% will say no but won't be able to tell you why. Why's that? It's what they were taught to believe or what they fell for and believed in the first place. I was told not to believe in love, that life is going to be this unwinding of misery and divorce, separation, solicitor fees and the reality of it is, if you want to go down that path then you'll go down it.

 

I'm lucky to have an entire family that has NEVER separated. My uncle separated with my aunty only down to the fact that she died at an early age due to lung cancer. My grandparents? God bless them, still together and will be until they perish into the skies above, my parents? Still together and always will be.

 

You are a victim of your own experiences, and it does not mean anyone else will be.

[gdgfx]

I don't understand where your hostility is coming from.

 

I never married because I never found that true and abiding love....My parents were married for almost 60 years. Death came to separate them.

Their role model scultped my vision of what true love was.

 

How dare you tell me that because I never married, yet had several relationships, that I had not found love.

 

I don't believe in a letting societal norms nor religious norms define my live. I am neither bitter nor sad, nor negative.

 

Please reread my post. Your hostility toward something is clouding your comprehension.

 

I'am far from hostile, you are trying to lay the bad experiences onto me and anyone else that is going to read your comments. What you are saying are opinions. Opinions based on your life experience, that does not mean that you have a right to disenfranchise anyone else who's going through life and wants to be with someone forever.

 

It's the basic negativity vs. positivity argument.

[mhowe]

Dude --- take a chill pill.

 

Of course my experience has shaped my belief. This is a public forum --- I have never said I was an expert. My life has been formed by....my experience.

It should be accepted as a given that my posts reflect my opinion --- and if they upset you so much, feel free to block them.

 

I don't know who told you to not believe in love --- and am sorry someone said that to you.

 

I am not a victim of my own experience. My grandparents (both sets), my parents and all of my aunts/uncles --- married and stayed married until death.

And because I never married --- doesn't make me a victim either.

 

It makes me single (as far as the gov't is concerned).

 

Whatever ever love experience you have had that has made you this angry, I hope you find a better experience down your path.

 

Love is wonderful, magical and really --- the best thing ever. I hope you find it one day.

[IAmFCA]

Empirical evidence that young people don't believe in love? Do you have a citation?

 

I wholly disagree with you.

 

Because you cite your own family as if it increases your credibility: my parents were married 54 years before cancer took my mom, and my dad has lunch with her still, in his sweet way. Was that love? of course it was. Is their experience, or the experience of MHowe's parents, or yours, the only definition? Of course not.

 

Did I find a lifetime of marriage at a young age? Nope, sure didn't. So what? I have been in love, felt love, and will feel love again. My children's peers believe in love, my friends believe in love.

 

If you choose to say that one's experiences belong to oneself and are not universal, then perhaps you need to remembe this holds true for yourself. If you feel love does not exist, you will not find it.

 

And I take strong exception to your closing sentence "You are a victim of..." as if MHowe described something adverse in her life that would cause victimhood. She didn't, nor did I. I am ridiculously childlike in my appreciation for my past my present and my future. To live this life is a beautiful, extraordinary gift that comes wrapped in many colors.

 

You do not need to believe what you were taught about life being loveless. How awful. Your own writing makes this argument, in fact.

 

Consider the Law of Attraction. We each make the path that stretches before us.

[mhowe]

I'am far from hostile, you are trying to lay the bad experiences onto me and anyone else that is going to read your comments. What you are saying are opinions. Opinions based on your life experience, that does not mean that you have a right to disenfranchise anyone else who's going through life and wants to be with someone forever.

 

It's the basic negativity vs. positivity argument.

 

What "bad experiences" aer you talking about?

 

How am I disenfranchising anyone?

 

If you want to be with someone forever, have at it. Just make sure they share your views.

[gdgfx]

This is a forum that is designed and created for relationship intervention, to get people to be positive! To see life in a better light, to see their true potential and shine as a person, an asset, a being and be successful in their relationships. This is a place to try and help people! Not to have them sat there in a rocking chair like a depressed old man who's been alone all his life and has nothing but poisonous beliefs and view on life. You should want people to be happy, to succeed and try your best to support them in making a relationship work.

 

By saying, you will love and you won't just love one person, you'll love more than one and then you'll give yourself to more than one person sexually and then leave them, get married to someone else and have kids and divorce them and the cycle goes on from there... what sort of example is that to any of the youth present on this forum? To anyone who is still not yet giving up, who wants the whole happily ever after life? It doesn't do anyone any favours, as much as you are the person you are and don't change that, you should directly attempt to inflict your past experiences onto anyone else, especially not on a forum that encourages positive mental health and wellbeing, success, happiness and long relationships.

 

Or maybe it's just me, maybe I'm crazy for not giving up and having the ability to stand up for myself and anyone else that finds being told that life is miserable and polygamous is insulting and offensive. And that life is nothing more than divorce settlements after divorce settlements, if we all thought like that, we'd all be in mental health institutions. I think you need to remember that your representing what a forum stands for by being a member, I'm a mental health worker and have been for a number of years by trade here in the UK and I don't for a second condone the offloading of past experiences onto anyone but themselves, to breed positivity and come to a conclusion that benefits the person involved. That being said, love is an amazing ability that we all share and we all can cherish and keep for the rest of our lives if we know how to utilize it correctly.

 

If I have offended you then I apologise, I just don't agree with your offloading of opinions based on nothing but what you have been through, potentially onto people who don't ever want to go through the same experiences.

 

Don't be scared to be positive and want nothing but the best for yourself. I feel this forum is based entirely on men and women that have had experiences in their life, have been married, have had kids and have been divorced. You have to remember that there are also a population on here that HAVEN'T and a population on here that NEVER WILL go through what you have been through. I mean no harm in what I say. And I never said that love wasn't present, but it obviously wasn't strong enough and wasn't substantial enough for a relationship to work because there were underlined factors that came into play, does that mean that love was obsolete, probably. And so, does that mean that it was true love then? Probably not..

 

And thats what we are talking about, true love!

[t1lersm0m1]

Isn't this whole board about giving advice based on life experience? Isn't that why we are all here, either to offer or to seek advice? Isn't that what the OP has done, and what mhowe has done?

[gdgfx]

There is a lot of negativity on this board and if you can try and tell me that life is about being in multiple failing relationships and marriages that end in divorce, is that a healthy outlook on life? It's not at all. And what's wrong with me promoting positive mental health by attacking anything that is negative and unjustified? If you said that life is about finding that one person and loving them and being with them until the lights go out then I wouldn't of said anything.

 

Granted, this forum is equally about life experience but if the life experience is based on opinions based on negativity then what structure of positive mediation does this place hold if all that people believe is that life is this one vicious cycle of hurt and anger and bitterness? And you can't tell me having multiple failed relationships is going to make you happy and being divorced with kids is going to make you happy, because it won't!

 

And so, where is the balance between opinion and positivity. When is it right to throw what you believe out of the window when you know it's nothing more than something that doesn't do any justice to way you think. If you go around believing you will have failed relationships then you WILL! But if you believe the opposite then remain strong and prosper in all that makes you strong and happy. And that does not include statements like "Multiple relationships, multiple marriages, divorce, sadness etc." and that in a nutshell is what I'am responding too.

 

It's negativity, Unjust negativity that does not help anyone, and I'm pretty sure that's why we are here, right? To help people?

[mhowe]

Again, your perception is distorted.

 

That sentence read "You may marry....

 

This is not a forum designed/created for intervention and to get people to be positive. It is a forum to let people know they are not "alone" in their search.

This isn't a "mental health" forum either.

 

Again --- I don't see how what I am saying is getting so convoluted in your perception.

 

If you wish to love once, marry until death --- do so. Your experience and choices are entirely up to you.

 

I am not representing what this forum by being a member. I am representing my opinion on a public opinion forum.

 

Please look up "opinion" in the dictionary. And please read the rules/policies of the forum.

[IAmFCA]

GDGFX,

 

Your post illustrates that you interpret other people's life experiences according to your own values and viewpoint. The person who is actually living that life may have a different view than yours, and a different experience than yours.

 

It is legitimate to interpret your own experiences through your own values and worldview. It is not legitimate to interpret my experiences, or anyone else's, through your values and world view.

 

I do not share your values nor your view of the world, and therefore, I make different decisions. When I offer someone advice, I try to offer it in a way that is consistent with THEIR values. For example, ENA posters often ask the advisee, "What are your goals with this relationship?" It is important to meet people where they are, and help them find their strength according to their own paradigms and values.

 

We do not force values upon others. That is not what ENA is for.

 

And, for the record, I am happy with my decisions. Had I been forced to make decisions that made you happy, I would have been unhappy indeed.

[mhowe]

And you can't tell me having multiple failed relationships is going to make you happy and being divorced with kids is going to make you happy, because it won't!

 

Just because a relationship ends doesn't mean it failed.

 

And I am happy as a clam!

Not divorced, not a single parent.....and not single.

 

I am 54 years old and have a life many would envy. And have never been happier.

I am in a commited relationship with a wonderful man --- and we plan on being together for the rest of our lives.

 

If you don't wish to read posts written by me, then block them.

 

However, for the life of me, I cannot see what has upset you so.

[Batya33]

I don't see where marital status has anything to do with whether the person has found real love (and I am especially thinking about those couples who are not or have not been permitted to marry). Marriage is a great way of expressing romantic love. It also can be a great way of expressing a financial arrangement or the bringing together of two families as in an arranged marriage. Deciding, privately, to be each other's life partners also is in the category of expressing long lasting romantic love.

 

My husband and I would never want each other to discount the other loves in our lives - that he loves others as well simply is part of who he is and it's a great part. Same for me. We would not have been happy together long term without getting married and that's just about us, not about anyone else.

[IAmFCA]

Sometimes on ENA we encounter someone whose view of the world is such that everyone else is expected to fit within it. I am not sure why this is.

 

One of the wonders of the world is its diversity. Diversity of looks, thoughts, perspectives, experiences.

 

The arts explore this concept, commonly by showing us people with material wealth who are unhappy and people with very little who are happy. How we experience our circumstances is up us and is not dictated by external events. Not by the circumstances themselves, nor by others' view of those circumstances.

 

When my mother died, my then three-year old daughter raised her hands in jubilation. It was clear to my daughter that her grandmother just went to heaven, and in the simple faith she held at that time, it was time to celebrate.

 

Is that not beautiful? Does it not show us how diverse our reactions can be to any circumstance?

 

So, I say to you, gdgfx, consider that others may be experiencing their own lives in a way that is wholly counter to your assumptions.

 

I am: a divorced single mother of two. I consider myself single, for now. I am over the moon happy, and nobody, nobody, nobody will ever take that away from me. My girls are happy too, by the way, and thankfully free of the judgment that your posts possess. When I lose my father to time, and I will, for he is 90, I will be deeply deeply sad. Inside, in my deepest self, I will remain happy. There is so much for which to be grateful.

 

I wish you peace, though I do not see how you can find it when you are so busy erroneously presuming unhappiness in the lives chosen by others.

[Clinton]

I'm with Mhowe. I'm 54, I've been in several relationships that didn't work out but that I value good, bad and all, I'm extremely happy in my present relationship.

 

There is no one and only

It's a myth. Based on more factors than I can think of, relationships succeed or fail

And just because they fail, doesn't make them any less worthwhile, or the love you felt for the person any less genuine.

 

Good on your family for never having a divorce. Does that make you some how better than those that do? I'd bet it just means that some in your family stay together even if they are miserable.

 

Get off your high horse and take a deep breath of reality. You remind me of a zealot, and that's not a good thing.

[gdgfx]

Ha I find this place vastly amusing, down to the simple fact that 'apparently' we are all here to help one another, to help people out of trouble, to make them feel happier again and yet, allowing members of this forum to potentially poison the beliefs of those that visit is absolutely disgusting. I'd never take advice from anyone who told me that life is nothing but divorce and I'm afraid, that's something you said mhowe. I think this is entirely down to the BAD experiences you've all experienced and why you are so bitter and defensive against my opinion because it almost seems like you are begging for someone else to share the same values.

 

If you don't have anything constructive and positive to say then don't say anything at all. And if you want to talk about how life sucks and how damaged you are as a person then go seek professional help and stopping using your online profile as some disguise for being someone who has more knowledge than opinion, because it's clearly the latter. I work with patients that share the same traits you have shared with me mhowe, it's really easy to identify you are a very fragile person and therefore want to output your defensive mechanisms onto everyone else in order to feel like you have an opinion.

 

I hope your relationship remains successful and I hope you use some of the positivity I have given today to see that life is what YOU make it, and if you around thinking that life is about what you currently believe in, then you aren't really living life. In fact I'd recommend you to read a book that I had to read through my studies. It's called the dummies guide to CBT and outlines many different structures and ideas and research driven ways to improve your life and stop being so negative and so overcome with defeatism and sadness, and focus on the fact that, life is special, love is special and love is very real.

 

And that maintaining a healthy state of mind is the best route to success in any relationship albeit with yourself or with a loved one.

Thanks for taking the time to discuss this in-depth with me, if you require to talk to me further, don't hesitate to send me a personal message and I'll gladly go over the bits of this conversation that I feel rang alarm bells for me, and hopefully we can eliminate any aspects and beliefs you have that life is nothing more than multiple relationships, maybe I can help

[mhowe]

It isn't something I said, nor is it something I believe it.

 

The sentence that has you so twisted began with "you MAY marry, have children === divorce". The word "may" construes the situation described as hypothetical.

 

Here: "You may find your true love in the first person you date --- and grow old together". This is another hypothetical....and is also something I don't believe in.

 

I don't see any of the other responders in this post being jaded or bitter. None of them are saying their life sucks, or believe that life has damaged them.

 

You, on the other hand, seem very negative. Did you have a bad experience with love?

Has someone stepped on your heart and you haven't fully healed?

 

You are not in a postion to tell others what they can post. You can block their posts so you don't see them.

 

And you have not dispensed an ounce of "positivity" today.

 

None

[t1lersm0m1]

gdgfx, your posts are extremely unwarranted. I don't have to defend mhowe, she can defend herself, but I'm personally insulted at the way you are twisting her words. She never said that everyone would go through several relationships including divorce, she was giving an example of what some "might" experience.

[gdgfx]

And for anyone else that has issues with the beliefs and mindset I have, I strongly urge you to contact me personally and we can discuss in length the approach to life I follow and why, although at times has been really hard, has made me happy, drug free and successful in my job. Along with helping so many different people out with different situations ranging from divorce to suicide and anything inbetween. I'm by no means the strongest person you'll meet neither am I a person who has 'seen the most' or 'been through the most' but as a person based on memories, experiences, cultural and spiritual belonging and a huge follower of meditation and a mind to body connection as well as promoting world peace and doing a lot of charity work as well as being quite a lot of stuff in my life..

 

I'm still here, I'm still alive and kicking and very much with my feet on the ground, with a very good track record for successful intervention with clients, I believe my approach is justified but if you really like you disgaree then please get in contact, I'd love to hear your views and your life stories and rest assured, I'm a decent guy and we'd no doubt get on really well if we met personally in a 'real life' situation.

 

That's all I have to say, I will not be deterred from what I believe in. I will not be deterred based on a peer structure based on this forum where a majority of people believe in a certain belief, I belong to a very recognisable and trusted support unit here in the UK and I have studied and wish to study further on mental health and the way the mind works and wherever this takes me, know this, I will continue to be enlightened by all your opinions but negativity is something that I take with a pinch of salt, and group opinions are nothing but that, a group of people with an opinion. I have read all your opinions and can see why some of you have the opinion you do, but I will not side with anyone who believes that multiple marriages gives them the right to tell me that going through that in life is what gives you the right to have the attitude you do, you should be telling everyone different but it's the typical "Hey Ive got some advice - dont get married" schpeel that always makes me laugh and I just see weakness, I really do.

 

Like I said, drop me a message, be good to chat, we are all in this together helping people out and I hope I have helped people out in the short time I have been a member here, and I will continue doing so whenever I see the responsibility to do so.

 

Have a good evening guys

[t1lersm0m1]

You really like twisting people's words to suit your needs. I woudn't reach out to you privately if my life depended on it.

[Clinton]

I'd seriously suggest you seek counseling for your obvious anger issues. That can't be healthy in any of your personal relationships. Best of luck and I hope you get better.

[gdgfx]

You really like twisting people's words to suit your needs. I woudn't reach out to you privately if my life depended on it.

 

Thanks for your comment, in relation to your comment, I feel you have issues with perhaps the way you perceive yourself. You can't openly accept you have to have some self-esteem and some gusto about yourself to get by in this world and if that means being a little arrogant at times then you have to do that, and maybe a little ignorant, but it's like they say, ignorance is bliss, right? I don't feel that your opinion actually is directed at me but more at the fact I'm actually in a better place mentally and emotionally and that I'am in control of my opinions and my beliefs and that I have every conceivable way possible to thwart anyone that comes out with the petty depressing "Hey dont get married" speech, I guess your one of those guys and so, I hope you find the courage to accept your past and become a person not based on your torment and sadness but based on the the lessons you have learned.

 

I'd seriously suggest you seek counseling for your obvious anger issues. That can't be healthy in any of your personal relationships. Best of luck and I hope you get better.

 

What am I getting better for? Are you trying to bully me Clinton? I feel you obviously have leadership issues and are intimidating by the way I present and word myself, I feel you could probably relieve these by practising trust issues with your friends and maybe your family, or perhaps seek counselling because bullying someone and trying to inflict your hurt onto someone, being me, is nothing short cowardly and very weak minded and just shows you, my friend, have the issues. After all, I never bullied you, you bullied me. But I'll ride it off, I have nothing to prove. Please save your bullying, if you want to assert some sort of force I recommend taking up BJJ (Brazilian Jui-Jitsui) it's very effective and focuses primarily on kicking and ground attacks and can be very good in a situation where you feel like you maybe under attack, like now for example, by me. Thanks for your comment.

[Cheetarah]

Did you just psychoanalyze mhowe, an internet stranger, on a forum?

 

I hope you are not a mental health worker. The idea of someone footing that kind of word twisting, gas lighting business treating genuinely fragile and vulnerable folks scares me to no end.

[Blue Spiral]

Allow me to indulge my inner romantic:

 

"The One" is sort of like a quantum superposition, existing in multiple places at the same time. As paradoxical as it sounds, everyone has multiple Ones, and how "One-y" they are is based on us, not them. The One I had at 19 was perfect for that version of me, and if that version of me had continued along a certain path, it probably would have worked out. But I followed a different path, and found another potential One, instead. Don't think about it in terms of destiny, think about it in terms of potentiality. I'm probably a "latent" One for a decent number of women. If they follow a certain path, and I do as well, we'll meet, and our mutual Oneness will kick in. If not, it'll remain strictly latent. They call it "romantic chemistry" for a reason. Every person is a collection of traits, wants, and needs, and we intermingle and react with other people's traits, wants, and needs. Sometimes, extremely strong reactions are produced.

 

In short, it's extremely rare for the universe to make just one of anything. Our species' reproduction is largely idiot-proof; it isn't based on "okay, everybody find the only person you're compatible with!" Everyone reading this is The One for multiple people, in the sense that they're uniquely compatible with multiple people. It's a paradox, but it's real.

[smittybette9]

Mhowe and t1lersm0m1, I wanted to reach out to you guys and I don't know how to do so without posting on a forum. Is there a way to private message you?