His Point of View

Love does not endure without maintenance or nurturing.  The act of loving someone, especially one who is not a member of one’s family requires effort.  Even loving family members who continually hurt themselves, other family members, or us requires effort, but that’s a different story all together.  Over the years I have had conversations with many people who claim that once they love someone, they will forever.  Many of these people claim that it is not possible to stop loving a person once you have loved them.  I disagree whole heartedly.

If you want to stop loving someone the first step is to decide that you want to stop maintaining love for that person. Once you decide that you want to stop, the method by which you end the love becomes clearer.  The words that we verbalize have a huge impact on our reality.  If we continue to say to others that we love someone, each time you say you love that person you allow that feeling of love to live and possibly grow.  Naturally, the second step is to stop saying that you love that person, and eventually get to the point where you can say that you don’t love that person.  Once you can say that you no longer love that person simply saying that will help you move closer toward making it a reality.

It seems to me that many people who claim to have eternal love for all of their past lovers think that loving someone forever somehow makes them a better person.   When I say that I do not love my past mates forever they give me a look that implies that I am a bad person.  I do not think that claiming to love people forever means that you have a bigger heart or that you are a kinder person, I think many of these people are either not willing to let go of the past, or they still seek friendship/approval from their past loves.   Not loving someone (romantically) does not make you a bad person.  As I recently told someone, once I reach the point of not loving someone I don’t treat them poorly, I simply treat them like every other person in the world that I am not currently in a relationship with or relatively closely related to genetically.

Think about all of the work it takes to keep a relationship running relatively smoothly.  Think of all of the sacrifice and discomfort we go through to maintain love, to be there for those we love, to help those we love.  Think of all the marriages and relationships that crashed and burned after many years of simply neglecting to nurture the love that once existed.  People gradually fall out of love with each other after many years together because they fail to do the things that are required to allow their love to flourish.  If people can find themselves without love simply because they neglected it, it must be possible to stop loving a person who we are no longer in a relationship with.

There is no way that love can live within us if we are not doing certain things that feed it and allow it to maintain an some level of existence.  If one wants to fall out of love, we must stop holding on to the memories good & bad(we will never forget what has happened, but we also have to understand how the lens with which we view the events of the past determine how we feel about those events…take off the lenses of love, and look at these events with the lenses of simply historical facts ), we must not attempt to do things to keep them in our lives artificially, we must not try to have control or influence in their lives. It takes time but the love fades, but only if you let it.

The way I see it, once we are no longer a couple I have no reason to want to love that person…we owe each other nothing and I need no friendship or approval from that person.  I do not harbor ill feelings toward my ex-mates I am neutral for the most part.  Of course the circumstances of the breakup tend to affect the last memories of the person, but overall I am neutral toward the women of my past.

What do you think? Once in love can it ever end?