Does sex not get boring for you?

[Telecaster68]

I agree with you feelings and actions are different. I've found actions to be the more useful indicator of long term underlying feelings though. 

[ryn2]

2 hours ago, Telecaster68 said:

I agree with you feelings and actions are different. I've found actions to be the more useful indicator of long term underlying feelings though. 

...whereas I’ve not found that to be the case at all.  That in itself might explain some of our different preferences around physical intimacy.

[Telecaster68]

How does that work though? 

 

If someone was regularly hitting their partner, and generally being controlling etc, but said they loved them, you'd accept they loved them? 

 

The nearest I can get is that the abuser thinks they love their partner. But 'love' that includes that kind of behaviour makes the weird meaningless, to me. So they can't possibly love them. 

[ryn2]

19 minutes ago, Telecaster68 said:

How does that work though? 

 

If someone was regularly hitting their partner, and generally being controlling etc, but said they loved them, you'd accept they loved them? 

 

The nearest I can get is that the abuser thinks they love their partner. But 'love' that includes that kind of behaviour makes the weird meaningless, to me. So they can't possibly love them. 

To me this is kind of two different things.

 

What I meant in my reply was that I’ve personally found what people do is no more truthful (and sometimes less so) than what they say.

 

For the above example, though, I don’t think someone’s partner abuse speaks (either way) to whether or not they love their partner.  It may well say they have anger management issues, mental health challenges, etc., but it isn’t tied to whether or not they experience love for their partner.

 

What it *is* tied to is whether or not the relationship is healthy, especially for the partner.  To me it’s not a case of “I should leave... my partner obviously doesn’t love me because they hit me”; it’s more like “I should leave because my partner hits me (whether they love me or not).”

 

If the situation is not tolerable - because the partner is cheating, abusive, addicted, whatever; everyone’s criteria vary - that may well say the partner’s love is irrelevent... but it doesn’t say that love is/isn’t happening.

 

Feelings are internal.  The most we can say is “I wouldn’t treat someone I loved that way,” and we may (or may not) be right about that.

[Telecaster68]

I guess it comes to the same thing - there's too much dissonance between 'loving someone' and 'hitting someone' for me to believe they're consistent. I can objectively verify the hitting, so the loving part must be the one that isn't the case. Or at least, their understanding of love is antithetical to mine and beyond negotiating a compromise. 

[ryn2]

Yeah, I’m not advocating that “because my partner loves me” should be an excuse for putting up with anything you find unacceptable... just saying that - to me - the issue is one of (in)tolerable treatment and not one of feelings.  The partner feels what the partner feels (which may be exactly the same sort of love you feel, or something very different), whereas you do what works best for you in terms of the relationship.

 

What I meant in my initial response, though, was that I’ve not found how people act to be an effective “sanity check” on (what they’re feeling but, more important,) whether or not they’re being truthful.  Some people are very skilled at deceiving others (or, even more commonly and problematically, themselves) and that’s very hard to detect in naturally emotional settings.  The usual signs someone is lying are a lot harder to pick out from a background of excitement, fear, sexual arousal, and the like than they are in a calm, quiet setting.  If someone doesn’t even realize they’re lying, that’s especially challenging.