There is nothing more beautiful than loving and knowing that it is mutual. Many couples live happily married and enjoy their feelings. 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 such a situation?
What does it mean to love?
Love is the highest feeling inherent in man and expressed in deep affection and sympathy for someone. In philosophy, it is considered as a subjective attitude to the subject 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 it is not long-term. Only if the relationship becomes serious and time-tested, you can talk about 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 it should be manifested” is also individual for everyone. There are no uniform norms and criteria for this feeling. What is completely unacceptable in a relationship for one person is the norm for another.
Love and happiness
Each person has their own ideas about happiness. Someone believes that it consists in a huge amount of money, for some it is an interesting job, someone sees it as an opportunity to travel. However, most people associate happiness with love. Only she gives us unusual, unlike anything emotions that she so wants to experience again and again.
Experiencing separation or divorce, people are so shocked that sometimes they do not want to continue living. It seems to them that happiness has forever left their home. Someone is trying to quickly forget and fall in love again, while some still fail to recover after separation.
Desire to be loved
In every person, the desire to be loved is inherent in nature. 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 feel reciprocal feelings, it’s quite nice to realize that someone loves you. This increases self-esteem, warms self-esteem. To know that someone in this world loves you and needs you is wonderful.
Man need to love
No less important is the need of a person to experience the brightest feelings in relation to someone. In youth, boys and girls are open to love and just waiting for someone to whom it can bring down. 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, it seems to stop, and life takes on a new meaning. Lovers look forward to each new meeting with each other, and thoughts constantly carry them to the object of adoration. Even if feelings are unrequited, they bring not only suffering. If a person is able to love at least once in his life, he knows what real happiness is.
Reasons that people refuse to love
The need to both love and be loved is inherent in man by nature. What leads to the fact that some people are not able to find mutual feelings? Why do they wonder what 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 forever from love. Some people completely abandon 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 and do not want to fall in love again. In this situation, they come to the point that you need to look for a partner who would love them. Moreover, they themselves do not want to experience any feelings, they want to be indifferent.
Another reason that you can allow yourself to love is the calculation. Very often, girls marry a wealthy man, not feeling 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 protection of a rich gentleman, if there is such an opportunity. There are, incidentally, men who do not mind living at the expense of a lady. The prospect of a secure and carefree life for such people is placed above the senses.
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 is 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 conditions.
Often you can encounter a situation where a wife is madly in love with her husband. She turns a blind eye to his betrayals, tries to please him in everything, looks after her appearance, perfectly cooks, but she cannot achieve 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 to divorce. She cannot imagine herself without a husband; she believes that it is better to live like this than to break off a relationship forever.
In marriages where the man is much older than his wife, reciprocity of feelings is also very often absent. An elderly person understands that a young girl does not love him and lives with him because of 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 understands perfectly well 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 exert a huge influence on each other and are constantly in close dependence.
When a person hears a phrase from someone: “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 people of the opposite sex, you feel self-confidence and feel attractive and desirable. In turn, this attracts the enthusiastic glances of those around you even more.
Failures in relationships can have a negative effect on self-esteem. It is aggravated at times if the partner kept saying that you would never find anyone better than him, constantly pointing out your shortcomings and criticizing all your actions. All this leads to the fact that self-esteem is lowered so that you completely cease to consider yourself worthy to be with your loved one and build a normal relationship.
One thing to remember is that for someone to love you, you must first have respect for yourself and not lose your dignity. Relations in which you are humiliated and offended, it is better to terminate as soon as possible. Having adequate self-esteem, you will surely meet someone with whom you will be happy. And you will certainly learn how to be the most beloved.
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. Anyone who experiences this feeling himself, enjoys intimacy with a partner, enjoys every moment spent together. He who allows himself to love is not jealous, does not worry, does not require excessive attention, does not scandalize, if, for example, the spouse did not pick up the phone or was late at work. However, in such a union, problems are more than usual. And it’s hard to be happy for both partners.
Without experiencing any feelings for her husband and living with him side by side every day, a person begins to get angry and frustrated 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 seeks to spend as much time as possible outside the house, ignore his spouse, and look for an outlet on the side.
The one who sincerely loves a partner cannot be happy, faced with constant indifference on his part. Even if at first a person agrees to any conditions, subsequently he will be more and more lacking in response feelings. He increasingly begins to think about what is more important - to love or be loved. It is likely that someday his patience will end, and he will decide to build a relationship based on reciprocity.
Is it possible to live without love?
Sometimes, having experienced terrible disappointment on the love front, people decide for themselves that there will no longer be any relationship in their life. They do not think it is more important to love or be loved, but simply put an end to their personal lives.
Most often, such people go headlong to work, devote themselves to children, try to find some kind of hobby. They reject all signs of attention, refuse to meet, and are cold with people of the opposite sex. As a rule, women do not admit men to themselves at all. Representatives of the stronger sex behave somewhat differently. Men decide for themselves that they will never say the phrase "I love you." Most often they allow an easy, non-binding relationship, but then stop them as soon as they feel the pressure from the partner.
Is it possible to live without love? Perhaps, yes, and many succeed. The only question is whether these people are happy ...