There is nothing more beautiful than to love and know that it is mutual. Many couples are happily married and enjoy their feeling. However, why do some people have the question: "What is more important - to love or to be loved?" Why should a person make such a choice? Is it possible to be happy in a situation like this?
What does it mean to love?
Love is the highest feeling inherent in a person and expressed in deep affection and sympathy for someone. In philosophy, it is seen as a subjective relationship to the object of adoration.
It is important to understand what the word "love" means, and also to be able to distinguish it from falling in love. The latter, as a rule, is accompanied by a storm of emotions and passions, but is not long-term. Only if the relationship becomes serious and tested by time can one speak of love.
Each person has his own view of the world, special values and ideals. Accordingly, the answer to the question “what does it mean to love and how should it manifest itself” is also individual for everyone. uniform norms andThere are no criteria for this feeling. What is completely unacceptable in a relationship for one person is the norm for another.
Love and happiness
Every person has their own idea of happiness. Someone believes that it is a huge amount of money, for someone it is an interesting job, someone sees it as an opportunity to travel. However, most people associate happiness with love. Only she gives us extraordinary, unlike anything emotions that we so want to experience again and again.
When going through a breakup or divorce, people are so overwhelmed that sometimes they don't want to go on living. It seems to them that happiness has left their home forever. Someone tries to quickly forget and fall in love again, while some never manage to recover after separation.
The desire to be loved
Every person has a natural desire to be loved. From birth, a child needs maternal affection and care. Then, growing up, young people seek to find their soul mate. There is no girl who would never dream of being loved and happy.
Everyone likes signs of attention, compliments, gifts, care from the opposite sex. Even if a person does not experience reciprocal feelings, it is quite pleasant to realize that someone loves you. It increases self-esteem, warms pride. Knowing that someone in this world loves you and needs you is wonderful.
The human need to love
No less important is the need of a person to experience the brightest feelings towards someone. In youth, boys and girls are open to love and are just waiting for someone to bring it down on. That is why it is so easy for young people to find their ideal and dissolve in it.
There is nothing more beautiful than the feeling of falling in love. At the same time, time seems to stop, and life takes on a new meaning. Lovers look forward to each new meeting with each other, and thoughts constantly take them to the object of adoration. Even if feelings are unrequited, they bring not only suffering. If a person is able to fall in love at least once in his life, he knows what real happiness is.
Reasons why people refuse to love
The need to both love and be loved is inherent in man by nature. What causes some people to fail to find mutual feelings? Why do they wonder which is more important, to love or to be loved?
As a rule, failures and problems with previous partners can lead to the fact that a person wants to close himself off from love forever. Some people completely refuse any relationship, temporarily or permanently doom themselves to loneliness. Others decide that it is still necessary to have a family, but at the same time they are afraid to love someone again and do not want to. In this situation, they come to the fact that they need to look for a partner who would love them. At the same time, they themselves do not want to experience any feelings, they want to beindifferent.
Another reason to allow yourself to be loved is calculation. Very often, girls marry a we althy man, not experiencing any feelings for him, and sometimes even hating him. In some situations, hopelessness pushes such an act. For example, a woman left with a small child in her arms without a livelihood is forced to take advantage of the patronage of a rich gentleman, if possible. By the way, there are also men who do not mind living at the expense of a lady. The prospect of a secure and carefree life for such people is put above feelings.
To love without reciprocity
Sometimes a person decides that the main thing for him is to love himself, no matter what. The coldness and indifference of the partner are not taken into account. Such a person experiences such strong feelings that he cannot imagine his life without an object of adoration and is ready to be with him on any terms.
It is not uncommon to encounter a situation where a wife is madly in love with her husband. She closes her eyes to his betrayals, tries to please him in everything, takes care of her appearance, cooks well, but she cannot get reciprocity from her husband. As a rule, such a woman understands that all her actions will not lead to anything, but she still does not decide on a divorce. She cannot imagine herself without her husband, she believes that it is better to live like this than to break off relations forever.
In marriages where a man is much older than his wife, reciprocity of feelings is also very often absent. An elderly man understands that a young girl does not love him and lives with him because of the money, but agrees to such a relationship. There are several reasons for this. Firstly, he is pleased to appear with such a companion in public. The envy of friends and acquaintances warms his male pride. Secondly, he is well aware that he will not succeed in finding the same young girl who would sincerely love him, and therefore initially does not count on reciprocal feelings.
Self-esteem and love
It's no secret that self-esteem and love are closely related. They have a huge influence on each other and are constantly in close dependence.
When a person hears from someone the phrase: "I love you", regardless of whether he experiences reciprocity or not, his self-esteem immediately rises. If you are constantly the object of attention of the opposite sex, you feel confident in yourself and feel attractive and desirable. In turn, this attracts even more admiring glances from others.
Relationship failures can have a negative impact on self-esteem. It is aggravated at times if the partner kept repeating every day that you will never find anyone better than him, constantly pointed out your shortcomings and criticized all your actions. All this leads to the fact that self-esteem drops so much that you completely cease to consider yourself worthy of being with your loved one and building a normal relationship.
One thing to remember is that in order for someone to love you, you must first haveself-respect and not lose your dignity. Relationships in which you are humiliated and offended should be terminated as soon as possible. With adequate self-esteem, you will definitely meet someone with whom you will be happy. And you will certainly learn how to be the most loved.
If only one loves…
It would seem that there should be fewer problems in a union in which one loves, and the second only allows himself to be loved, than in an ordinary couple. The one who experiences this feeling himself enjoys intimacy with a partner, rejoices in every moment spent together. The one who allows himself to be loved is not jealous, does not worry, does not require undue attention, does not roll up scandals, if, for example, the spouse did not pick up the phone or was late at work. However, in such an alliance there are more problems than usual. And it's hard for both partners to be happy.
Without feeling any feelings for a spouse and living side by side with him every day, a person begins to get angry and break down because of every little thing. He is annoyed by absolutely everything that the partner does or says, even if he tries to please everything. A person strives to spend as much time as possible outside the home, to ignore a spouse, to look for an outlet on the side.
The one who sincerely loves a partner cannot be happy when faced with constant indifference from his side. Even if at first a person agrees to any conditions, later he will more and more lack reciprocal feelings. He increasingly begins to think about what is more important - to love or to be loved. It is likely that someday his patiencethe end will come, and he will decide to build a relationship based on reciprocity.
Can you live without love?
Sometimes, having experienced a terrible disappointment on the love front, people decide for themselves that there will be no more relationships in their lives. They don't think it's more important to love or be loved, they just put an end to their personal lives.
Most often, such people go headlong into work, devote themselves to children, try to find some kind of hobby. They reject all sorts of attentions, refuse dates and behave coldly with persons of the opposite sex. As a rule, women do not let men near them at all. Representatives of the stronger sex behave differently. Men decide for themselves that they will never say the phrase "I love you." They most often allow easy, non-committal relationships, but immediately stop them as soon as they feel pressure from the partner.
Can you live without love? Probably yes, and many succeed. The only question is whether these people are happy…
