Love = dread.

Who cares if "love" exists, and what that is.

It's not for us.

Is this just a beta idea?
Yes

The relationship sounds like it's over and was harmful. You have residual feelings sure but you didn't pass up a good opportunity since she was insecure and dragging you down. Do better.

Don't look for love sickness. Look for respect. The question is does this woman add more to my life or take more away. Is she respectful and kind?

Sounds like she fucked up. Good luck.

I think I'm falling in love right now. It's going to be so sad if this girl fucks it up by crossing a boundary. So far she's been great though.

I think falling in love is sexual infatuation. It's the honeymoon phase people talk about. It can last a few months at the beginning or long for some people.

Being in love is when you put someone's happiness first, even if it means you have to sacrifice with zero gain. Not to be confused with empathy which is when you feel sorry for them thus sacrifice for them.

Being in love is stupid and be careful with that. Falling in love is fun but keep your goals and priorities in order or you'll end up worse on the other end.

Sounds like she fucked up. Good luck.

I think I'm falling in love right now. It's going to be so sad if this girl fucks it up by crossing a boundary. So far she's been great though.

I think falling in love is sexual infatuation. It's the honeymoon phase people talk about. It can last a few months at the beginning or long for some people.

Being in love is when you put someone's happiness first, even if it means you have to sacrifice with zero gain. Not to be confused with empathy which is when you feel sorry for them thus sacrifice for them.

Being in love is stupid and be careful with that. I do it a little bit with a few friends, family, and women... as long as it doesn't cross my boundaries. Falling in love is fun but keep your goals and priorities in order or you'll end up worse on the other end.

Love is magical word we added to the feelings of pleasure we get from being with a specific other person. It is the same pleasure as you get from a hot cup of coffee on a lazy Sunday morning, though a tad more intense.

Where you draw the line between "I really like spending time with this person" and "I love this person" is up to you, but it's really not something you need to concern yourself with too much.

It is your brain that is feeling these things and it has very little to do with the other person. Stop being a naive little boy who believes in fairytales of yesteryear. Just experience - do you enjoy the other persons company? Keep at it. Does she drain your energy? Move along.

Love, as you describe it, does not exist. You're seeking something (this love) that is external to you. Don't go back to the relationship.

Work on yourself and do things just for you for now to learn more about yourself and the world. Keep reading and it'll all fall into place for you.

Don Draper had it right in Mad Men. True love is an idea that ad men made up to sell nylons.

Here is how I see it.

Love in a relationship is a choice individuals make to work on a relationship. Love is not an emotion you feel towards someone. Love is not trust and commitment. Love is effort and work, which is why many in out community like to say it's detrimental or that it doesn't exist.

Love isn't always fun and it isn't always in our best interests. Our emotions can change and we no longer feel a "spark" or some bullshit emotion towards someone, so we can choose to love them and continue on with things, against the tide of emotion... Or we can follow the current and leave. It's a simple choice.

Relationships go up and down over the years. Women are emotional creatures so it's intensely difficult for them to love, because when it starts to take too much work.. They cop out.

As men, if we want to love, we need to be vigilant and constantly working towards our relationships to maintain attraction and respect.

Yo man, my situation mirrors yours very closely.

Here is my recent post if you want to read it.

What you said here: "I've been with my LTR for a year now. Our relationship has been shaky due to the fact that she is insecure and needs lots of reinforcement. This results in her getting upset with me for ridiculous things, which in turn has caused my attraction in her to fade."

I can completely identify with this. The girl in question would blow up at me over small things. Anytime I mention another girl at all, or especially the fact that I USED TO enjoy something about another girl, she will feel crushed and get super upset and uncommunicative. If my sleep patterns don't align with hers (she has to be up for work kind of early and I don't), she will get mopey and depressive that I'm not up to talk to her all through her work hours.

She frequently asks "You love me?" and "You mine?"

All of this stuff, all this codependent behavior, will over time start to wear on the mind and emotions of men who dislike being controlled and desire to be who they are without being molded to fit into a role (loving boyfriend in this case).

When your girlfriend is chronically insecure, what this does is summon up your "nurturing reserves" to placate her and make her feel good. Alpha dudes aren't super nurturing by default. So asking us to be nurturing all the time exhausts us.

Before me, my girl dated a lesbian, which makes sense. Girls, even lesbian girls, are naturally much more nurturing than are guys. Even though their sex life was bad (from what she told me), this previous girl was able to constantly placate my girl's insecurity and nurture her.

My point though, is that what's happening is that your and my girl are asking us to give, give, give that nurturing energy and become mad/upset at us when our supply of it exhausts itself (because we are naturally in short supply of it by virtue of not being touchy-feely beta men).

Does love exist? That's a tricky question everyone has to wrestle with. For my part, I aknowledge that I DO love this girl and probably always will, but that staying with her is emotionally and psychologically unhealthy. It's a kind of brutal codependence rife with peaks and valleys that will slowly whittle away your personhood, your unique individuality, as you are sculpted to fit the mold of the role your girl needs (gentle reassurer).

I can occupy that role from TIME TO TIME, but not all the time, so something has to give. Either you make peace with the fact that you will have to struggle to change a core component of yourself (low nurturing reserve) to placate your girl's insecurity, or she makes a commitment to be less insecure and take ownership over her emotions, OR you leave. There aren't any other pathways I can see.

Asking an alpha guy to be super nurturing is like asking an introvert to do a public speaking tour 365 days a year. You are asking someone to rebel against their very nature, which will of course result in unhappiness. That's what your and my girl are doing, but they don't realize it. They just think "Why is he SUCH an uncaring asshole?" They don't realize that we are being driven into the ground by our inability to meet their inexhaustible desire for sweet tenderness.

So again, can you and do you love her? Maybe. In my case, I acknowledge that I do. But I acknowledge that if I stay there, as things stand, then I assure my slow self-destruction, a piecemeal culling of my natural personality into a cookie-cutter reassuring beta-man.

It's hard, very hard. My girl sent me multiple messages last night telling me how angry she is with me. She is pissed. She feels like she was foolish to try again with me (we first broke up in 2012).

I explained everything to her that I explained to you above, and she said she rationally understands where I'm coming from, but she's still pissed. She keeps accusing me of "bailing."

She's right that I bailed, but if I didn't, I would continue to enter into conflict points centered around her neediness and my inability to placate it to her satisfaction. In the end, her neediness is the problem, not my inability to supply an endless deluge of nurturing energy to her. She is the one making the peculiar and unhealthy demand. She is the one who needs to read-self help (which I sent to her... I sent her the PDF of Psycho Cybernetics).

At some point you have to acknowledge the fact that you entered into an unhealthy transaction with someone you possibly love and care about. Sort of like giving a drug to someone who keeps asking you for it. When you're out of drugs, the person gets mad/upset.

But the problem in the first place is not your lack of drugs, but this person's unquenchable addiction to the drugs.

Don't second guess yourself. This girl may be quality, but if you are fighting all the time an LTR is not worth it. As the "love chemicals" wear off in your brain you will no doubt be tempted to fall back. Don't do it.

To answer the second part of your question, that's what love is, chemicals in your brain. You won't ever find that "one, true love" either, that's beta bucks thinking; accept it.

But that doesn't mean don't continue to strive for the best and highest quality women. Your problem of always trying to do better is a good problem, and despite the horror stories from r/relationships and TRP, there are a lot of high quality women out there that make great domestic partners. Find the best one possible and treat her well, hell you can even enjoy the love chemicals while they are strong, but always remember AWALT and never lose focus that your happiness comes first.

I feel you, I've been in the exact same situation (only 4 years of LTR) and I sacrificed a LOT (that's how men love, right?).

You can only be sure if the decision was right, if you meet someone better. If your gut is telling you something is wrong, you just know it's not worth the while.

However, another factor is the easy by which you can get a new girl. If you're good at game/approach/.., then I'd say next and meet someone better. That'll be the best way to get over someone.

If you suck at meeting new girls or you just don't encounter them, I don't know what to do. What's best, live alone (work on yourself, can you be alone?), or be in a non-perfect relationship?

Also, have you really lost attraction? If so, right choice. That shit's important.

Good luck, I'm with you.

hoping there is someone out there who consumes my thoughts more than those of myself.

Trust me. That shit sounds romantic, but its fucking horrible. Its a distraction and it holds you back. And when shit hits the fan, you'll feel like you would have been better off if you were shot dead. And yes. Its beta. But whatever...

Since then, I have hit the gym, kept myself busy, and felt overall good. But I still can't help but think I just passed up on something too good.

With so many women out there, life is too short to wait around indefinitely for something good to "possibly" show up. You've already given her a year. How much longer do you expect to wait?

she began acting like we were together but didn't hold back while telling me about her plans to get a boob job and how she had other men (people I'm friends with) awaiting her return to the market.

She was attempting dread game. She miscalculated. Regardless of this, you should next her.

I'm looking for some kind of acknowledgement that good relationships are hard to come by

The honeymoon phase is easy shit. Things usually begin to go down here after a few months of a new relationship. Yes. Good relationships are very hard to come by. Without any details, I can't really say who is the problem. But regardless, if you've been with her for a year and longer and you're unhappy and want to end it, go for it. Why remain unhappy? Its not your responsibility to take on all her pain.

Does love is exist? What is love? Does it matter? Is it worth the bullshit that comes with it?

I would prefer to never fall in love again. Ever. That shit is far more trouble than its worth.

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