On love and possession

[electric_sheep]

I've found love has visited me in two different guises throughout my life. It's first visit (when I was 18), and it's most recent, was dramatic and very much in keeping with poetic notions of love. It was agonizing, hopeless, completely mad, greedy, and marked by intense feelings of possession. It was as if we wanted to completely imbibe every particle of each others bodies. There was this tremendous feeling of being spiritually and physically complete. I lost myself completely.

 

Love's other visits have been more practical (and more subdued). One might even say they have been "healthy". I've maintained my own independence, been more or less sensible about the relationship, and was far less possessive and jealous. I've seen others advocate this manifestation of love for it's sobering and emotionally healthy qualities.

 

I can't help but wonder about these "healthy" and "unhealthy" types of love, and there connection with possessiveness and (in)dependence. Am I less possessive and jealous in the second case simply because I don't feel as madly, clumsily, and deeply in love ? My independence giving me strength. That's sort of what it feels like to me ... the knowledge that I will untimately be okay without the other person naturally makes me less possessive ... and makes things less intense. When Buddhists stop clinging to the things in this world, does there enjoyment of them deminish ? Have you ever seen an estatically happy Buddhist ?

 

It almost seems like this second kind of love is sort of like light beer ? Less calories and better for you, but undeniably lacking in taste compared to the original ?

 

Am I naive and greedy to seek this mad variety of love ? Can it last ? It never has before. I don't want to be a Buddha when it comes to love. I want to cling. I want to be consummed. I want to be possessive.

 

Thoughts ?

[Outcast]

It's like saying you want to remain insane or permanently drunk. The kind of 'mad' etc. love you describe may be 'poetic' but, as you yourself have remarked, isn't healthy. And can't last.

 

I think it's more likely that your 'more practical' loves were not the deep kind of real love. IMHO if you can contemplate the loss of a loved one with aplomb, you're probably not in love.

[Walk]

I tend to view the first one you were talking about (madly crazy in love) with the honeymoon stage. Where all the chemicals in your body freak out and over take your brain. In my opinion it's not sustainable. Kind of like any drug... a first it only takes a little to get that high, then you need a little more to get that same high, and then more, and more... until you're nearly killing yourself with the amount and you still can't get that same high... But you want it so bad you'll do anything to get it. Until you crash and burn.

 

The second kind (from my experience again), I see more like hmm.... I guess kind of like eating healthy. You feel better about yourself, you have more energy, you enjoy life a little more, things look a little brighter, a little easier, and overall life is more enjoyable. It's a little more work on your part. You can't binge on potato chips which would be like arguing over petty stuff, or or eat mcd's every day (refuse to listen to your partner). There's work in maintaining your relationship, but it helps to make your life better overall. You don't get the same adrenaline rush, or crazy highs and manic lows, but theres something incredibly rewarding and fulfilling in having that loving relationship that still allows you freedom within it.