Why is it that young love is so different for older people?
Perhaps due to the fact our hearts were mangled by loss, grief, and crushed to dust?
Speak to a person in the beginning stages of young love, it is such a serious emotion.
Just unsure why after a person gets older (like myself) that the love emotion fades, drastically.
Speaking of love for a partner, boyfriend or husband.
Older women like myself, we seem to not carry this same need for acceptance or love from our partners in order to feel secure.
I would feel fine without the justification of my husband, at this age.
However, as a teen or during my twenties such a lack of attention from a boyfriend or spouse would have driven me nuts.
Older women we just simply are secure and seem to not need the validation from our lovers/spouse to feel good about ourselves. Unsure why this is, but it is nonetheless.
See young men and women have much grief over a break-up. I remember the horrible breakups (boyfriends) of my youth and it was terribly emotional.
Women of my age and older, we have confidence and are secure in ourselves without the need of constant reassurance that we are pretty, loved and wanted by our lovers or spouse.
Would have been nice to have the same knowledge of the strange emotion of love during my first true love, as I do now being older.
First true love of life seems to be the “one true love.” This person is typically the one who breaks our hearts in our teens or twenties.
People of a certain age tend to not allow the love goggles to blind them in regards to dating or marriage, as young men and women do in the teens and twenties.
The first love of ones life, is never forgotten, but does often time cause scarring from a broken heart.
John
/ September 22, 2012No, the first love surely is not forgotten. A certain woman comes to mind reading this. I wonder what ever happened to Joan… What a mistake I made.
lizeccentric7
/ September 22, 2012First loves and young love for a partner/spouse/lover/dating are really the strongest emotion I can remember of my life.
Older love for a partner is so much a lesser emotion, this might sound a bit odd, but being an older women think of things much differently than the constant roller coaster of emotions during my first love.
Different kind of love maybe….
Glad the post brought back memories of your first love John, they are a special kind of love.
KungFuGirl
/ September 22, 2012Perhaps it’s that we all experience love differently.
When we’re young – teenagers – and experimenting with relationships, any rejection is not just a rejection of feeling, it’s a rejection of our entire being.
My first “steady” relationship was horrible when it ended, but I can’t say it was about love. Without the blinders of youth (and a tad more experience) I shudder to think what would have happened to me if I’d wound up married to that guy. He was a few years older and almost sadistically controlling. If I saw him today, I’d want to punch him for the way he treated me.
Maybe because that was my first, and I saw quickly that what I thought was love, was not – it made me a bit cynical about other “love connections”.
I had two other relationships that mattered. One was a guy that I dated as I ended senior year in high school, for about 6months. That guy I did truly care about, and felt he cared about me. Even after we broke up, we stayed in touch for a long time, and he came to my wedding.
The other relationship was when I dated my future husband. We went out for awhile, broke up for awhile … and then got back together, for good. THAT relationship, when we broke up, I felt like someone had gouged a hole in the center of my being. It took me months to recover from the break up – dropped out of school for awhile, had difficulties at work, a whole bunch of stuff. It felt like dying without the comfort of not feeling pain. And I can honestly say that I love my husband just as fiercely now, more than 20 years later, as I did when we broke up for that year.
jfox1221
/ September 22, 2012I don’t think you can downplay the raw emotion that is love at any age. The difference on how we deal with break ups and loss soley depends on the maturity level of the individual. Life must go on.
lizeccentric7
/ September 24, 2012@JFox1221 – agree, maturity is the determining factor. Many woman often go crazy and start calling a guy 100 times a day, the guy never responds, to me that would be way to much work.
lizeccentric7
/ September 23, 2012@Kingfugirl – sorry that you and what sounds like the person you want to be with are now separated. I can relate as the person whom I love deeply “emotionally separated” from me about a year ago.
He really just left me emotionally, and though deeply sad, and do wish he would come back to me emotionally, know exactly what you mean by the lack of concentration, problems etc. it felt to me like he has passed away instead of separation.
Although, still don’t think my heart as ever been broken more by my first true love, and like you am thankful we never married or had children.
Teenage and twenties relationships are so gut wrenching and just with the mixture of hormones and emotions from the younger years, was plain confusing and complicated, wonder if the teen break ups are so hard due to hormones.
Thank you for your background, I learn so much more about readers here each day.
Sorry that you and the one you love are not together, as I am in the same boat right now.
a beautiful mess
/ September 22, 2012I personally feel that the intensity of love and the equivalent intensity of love lost has very little to do with maturity.
I’ve never known how to love lukewarm. My Passion and emotions know only two ways of being: on, or off. There has never been a relationship in my life that did not turn my world upside down, both good and bad. In every connection, I found a part of myself I had never known before. And each time, I lost a part of myself too.
There’s a massive distinction between the need for validation from a mate and the value they hold in our world. While I recognize the tendency of younger individuals not understanding the difference, I always have. I may have desired that validation in my earlier romances but my love was not dependent on it, nor was the relationship based on it. As a grown woman, I enjoy the freedom that confidence and self-awareness allows within the context of my marriage, but my enlightened sense of self would do me no favors if my marriage came crashing down. I love my husband much like I love my esophagus. Take it away, and I’m not sure I would know how to function. It’s not a lack of maturity; it is an inability to be lukewarm in love.
Just my two cents. But then again, everyone is incredibly different and experiences everything incredibly differently. There may be no right and no wrong, merely differences.
lizeccentric7
/ September 25, 2012@Brandy – such articulated words! I feel the same way without my husband here, almost like half of me is gone. I could certainly see your being very passionate about love from your posts and comments here on eccentric.
You seem like a passionate individual who knows what she wants Brandy, that is not always easy to find, so hopefully your husband knows what a gem he has found in you.
a beautiful mess
/ September 25, 2012The cool thing is what a gem I found in my husband.
…That freaking whackjob basketcase is a roaring bull with fierce anxiety and fiercer control issues; pisses me off and pushes my buttons and GOOD GOD he drives me crazy.
But he puts up with me. And that is magic. And God knew what He was doing when He made us for each other. I bet the same can be said for you and Mr. _______as well. There’s a divine force at the center of it all.
lizeccentric7
/ September 26, 2012Wow Brandy, your comment made me laugh by “pisses me off.” Sounds like you two keep each other’s lives far from boring.
Question Brandy: Do you try to talk philosophy with your husband? If so, how does that go?
I know how deeply you think in philosophy and wondering if there is another person in the world who could go toe to toe with you in a philosophy debate, I surely could not.
Smiling thinking of you trying to discuss deep philosophy with your vast knowledge of words (that are from deep in the dictionary) with your husband, wondering if he likes or dislikes it.
Well, asking due to fact that my husband grows bored when I discuss deep thought of philosophy, politics, etc.
My husband doesn’t say much, when I start babbling and over thinking (which is a lot) I just see the fact he is getting bored, it’s funny how my husband never says anything about how “Liz thinks and talks way too much.”
I appreciate my husband never complaining about my talking & over-thinking.
a beautiful mess
/ September 26, 2012Oh honey, I know all too well what it feels like to have a gazillion ideas and thoughts and feelings that collectively put your man in a grouchy, dismissive frame of mind. Sucks.
Yeah, my husband thinks I’m the most annoying person on the planet. He sees life in black & white; my existence is rainbow imagination contrasted against his stark & dreary practicality. It’s mind numbing. For him, and for me.
His approach to life: Are the bills paid? Did the paperwork get faxed? What else needs done?
My approach to life: Who cares! Let’s go for a walk.
He hates walks as much as he hates discussing the meaning of life. It’s like asking a brick wall to sing you a song; inviting my husband to listen to anything rolling around in my brain, or to entertain my spontaneous urges to dance or talk about the universe or lay outside on a blanket and stare at the night sky, it would be a preposterous request. I might as well ask him to go to work naked. Seriously. It’s that awkward for him.
I wrestled with the why’s and how’s of this, beseeching God for some sort of explanation as to why He didn’t make the man I was destined to marry a bit more like me. Or vice versa.
In time, I’ve discovered the question is most aptly suited as the answer. If we married someone who shared our strengths, we might never be given such meaningful opportunities to grow individually. Do I wish my husband had even a REMOTE sense of philosophical understanding of the nature of things? No doubt. Does my husband wish I could just shut the hell up for five minutes and let him watch his boring ass TV show without interruption? Umyeah. But the idiosynchracies are often the very thing we look back on and smile about. The stuff that drives us crazy is often the part that means the most. Never a dull moment.
And a sidenote… I do believe our marriages (yours and mine) would make wonderful reality sitcom programs. I’m sure the public would find great comic relief in the insanity of it all.
lizeccentric7
/ September 26, 2012@ brandy – Are you and I married to the same man? Sounds like it. I wish for once, I could put on a song, and he and I could just slow dance together. Wish as you said, he would hike with me or walk, he refuses..Ugh! Think he married the TV or something.
Would be pretty cool, if I could do my boring ass discussions and not notice him drifting off thinking of something, have no idea where his mind goes, with my long hypothesis on everything ….I think he must go into the land of Spongebob Squarepants “under the sea.”
Your above comment makes me laugh, as my husband sounds almost exactly the same.
For example:
Liz says: Screw the bills…let’s go on vacation to the beach
(he quickly gives a reality check)
Husband responds: “We have too much going on, you know we can’t take a vacation.”
I then proceed to get aggravated, and almost find a very cheap, two day vacation on priceline, and almost take the greyhound bus to the beach, just to prove I can do what he said we cannot do together.
I am the fun one, he is the gravity that pulls me back to the reality. He is my “dream-killer.” I am his “dream maker.” (ha ha sexual connotation there)
Surely, guess he is the Yin to my Yang, and without his gravitational pull, life seems wierd.
Find it hysterically funny how much alike you and I are Brandy.
I wonder if our husbands could make a list about what gets on their nerves the most, what would it be?
Mine would say, “her long talking spells about really nothing.” He would also state, “I put up with her massive talking, because she is the best sex of my life.”
(laughing)
Wonder what a man will put up with for great sex?
Make for a most interesting research project, may have to put that one of my to do list….
a beautiful mess
/ September 26, 2012Identical story here.
Although I don’t wonder what he’d say. He wouldn’t need a list, either. As far as what drives him crazy about me? Everything.
He interrupts me three seconds into any given sentence to say the exact sane thing every time: “who the hell cares? I sure as hell don’t. Why do you always do this, knowing I don’t give a damn, you still come up to me to talk about some stupid shit that I couldn’t care less about, knowing it irritates the hell out of me. Why??”
And my response, which is always the same: “It’s WHO I AM, dickhead.”
We actually have a somewhat perverted tendency of talking shit to each other in attempt to keep our constant irritations with each other sexy somehow. And all of our friends laugh until they can’t breathe, just being around us for five minutes. It’s not a show; it’s who we are. You’d think we are 95 years old the way we talk to each other… But I think that’s what he loves most about me. I take it with as much grace as the giant-sized balls I have when I dish it out. He’s never met a woman who can cut him down to size and mean it, while cooking him his favorite food and recording his favorite show and keeping the kids out of his hair. Our hateful come-ons are pretty much the only way we’ve learned how to cope with the reality of how little we have in common, and yet how deeply we love each other. It’s a sexiest tension, and for people who don’t know us we might seem mentally unstable but it works.
lizeccentric7
/ September 26, 2012Sounds funny Brandy, and sounds like a healthy way that the two of you sort of vent on eachother…So awesome you stated the word d*ckhead, as this is a common phrase normally, in my household. I use the phrase often, although he doesn’t find it the least bit funny. Seems like my better half is trying to fit me into a square, like trying to fit a triangle into a square, and it isn’t working. Him not coming home = “Be x,y,z and I will come back home. Well, Liz isn’t “down with that” I am who I am which is the following:
Loud
Bitchy
Opinionated
Perverted
Outgoing
Tell you what I think even if it hurts feelings
Do what I want, when I want (we only live once)
Embarassing – I embarass whomever in public, as I don’t really give a shit what others think (he freaking hates this about me)
Now, he used to say that I make his life “exciting.” Now, he says being older, that he doesn’t need the same excitement….So, the puzzle is renewed.
Liz – about to say “F-U bye to husband, and go on about my merry old self.”
Cannot fit squiggle lines into a triangle – won’t work. Realization starting that, I cannot do it, I am me, and noone can change me that is unusual…people either love or hate me, and I am sick of trying to fit into his triangle.
Becoming too much of what I call “work.”
I refuse to do the “work” unless he moves back in, so like back in the country western films we are standing across from eachother, guns drawn, both of us at a stand still….neither one willing to make the first move.
I refuse to fit into the square not knowing if or when he is coming back home….refuse.
No chess moves being made, as Sprinklin Thoughts would say..
Rubic’s Cube seems dauntingly unsolvable…..
Life goes on, doesn’t stop because someone gives you an unsolvable puzzle, no doubt.
Thanks for making me laugh today Brandy!
(smiling)
Liz
Rebecca Hardesty
/ September 23, 2012At the risk of sounded cliche, I wonder if you ever get totally over your first love. I don’t mean carrying around unresolved feelings forever. Rather, I wonder if that feeling of nostalgia, wistful sadness and faint happiness ever completely go away. It is odd to think of there being a time before any heartbreak. Maybe our first loves were so special because we had not yet experienced the devastation of heartbreak.
I feel as you do, Liz: love feels different as we get older. Maybe it is because we have experienced heartbreak, or maybe it is because we get support from ourselves and from a larger network and no longer rely on one person to be our sole source of justification. The ways of the heart are mysterious indeed.
lizeccentric7
/ September 24, 2012@Rebecca – yes, the first love is the “big one.” Seems to be the person who teaches us exactly what we do not want in a relationship.
Glad I am not the only person who feels this way.
I also believe that brain developement, biology, hormones play a major role.
Read that a teen’s brain or was it chemicals in the brain are not the same as a person that is 30+.
Perhaps it is this:
Hormones + brain still developing + inexperience = intense roller coaster rides of deep emotions and emotional devestation at even the thought of the relationship ending (as a teen).
Rebecca Hardesty
/ September 25, 2012True. I once read that it takes until about 22 for the frontal lobes to fully develop. They are responsible for decision making and impulse control… things that seem lacking in young love.
lizeccentric7
/ September 26, 2012@Rebecca – yes, believe I studied the information in a high school biology or health class about how hormones, chemicals in the brain, generics, heredity, environmental influences and even diet can make a teen feel string, over whelming and uncontrollable emotions
Watched on Dr.Phil the many shows where the teens are suffering agony after the break up and then literally stalk the other person by constant pursuing.
Know this sounds odd, but if my husband ever divorces me, I would be sad and grieving the loss, but nowhere near the teen love magnitude, and just never marry again, date and work a lot (fall in love with career) as was my life when single.
Sounds sad (above) but the corporate world can be exciting vs. housewife land.
Rebecca Hardesty
/ September 27, 2012Studying biology seems like ages ago! I am glad you remember it more than I do!
It seems that as we get older, the more likely we are to exchange the craziness of young love for something more enduring and stable. I don’ think there is anything weird at all about what you are saying. It is entirely possible and fulfilling to embark on a lifelong happy and “loving” relationship with a career. I can’t see you just lying down, giving up and never loving again. Also, I can’t see you ever on Dr. Phil for being an obsessed stalker! 
lizeccentric7
/ September 27, 2012@Rebecca – your comment made me laugh. I am going to try a different tactic with my husband (top secret) to see if something else might help him to just simply “get it.”
Maybe Dr.Phil could explain this to my husband, and tell me what the hell my husband thinks and wants.
On a scale of 1-10, my husband talks about a 1. He is the quietest person I ever met. Hard to communicate when the other person never speaks.
Like I have mentioned before, he must hear the Klegon language from Star Trek when I speak.
(laughing)
SomewhereAmazing
/ September 23, 2012Completely off topic…but you make it sound like you’re about to collect your free old age bus pass!
lizeccentric7
/ September 24, 2012@Somewhere Amazing – The topic actually came to me due to knowing a very young person that is in “first love” right now, and noted how they think about the other person 24/7 and seemingly nothing else.
I noticed how different the love is compared to people 30+, for example constant texting, thinking, calling and needing/wanting to be with the other person constantly.
This brought back memories of my first love, and how the feelings were enormously intense, and the horrible break up as a teen.
Teen break ups can be gut wrenching, well remember mine was, and have seen teens I know go through it, noticed even on Facebook seems like they go into a deep depression state, can tell from teen posts on FB.
Zishaan 'ZuZu' Shafi
/ September 23, 2012With age comes wisdom and a greater sense of proportion and perspective. When youre young and full of hormones, LOVE means so much, but as you get older priorities change and I think you see LOVE is more realistic manner. Not that its joy and excitement diminishes, its just different.
lizeccentric7
/ September 24, 2012So true, it is just different….even hard to put into words, the differences exactly. Hard to describe the differences, think only way would be this:
Intensity of young love is most of the time higher, than people who are older (my experiences).
Zishaan 'ZuZu' Shafi
/ September 26, 2012I agree with that. It is all more intense, dramatic and important when you are younger. As you get older you’re too tired for all that passion lol. Give me a cup of tea and a good book over it anyway. haha.
lizeccentric7
/ September 26, 2012So true! We are just plain too tired, and would rather have a nice hot bath, some chamomile tea, and blog or read a book!
Think maybe it’s we have so much more responsiblities too that the “love” drama just seems to take up too much space in the day or something. Like right now, my husband and I are seperated, but I haven’t even thought about it today (odd I know) but as I am older and have other things on my mind, and do not feel it necessary for me to “chase” someone around begging them for love (that’s just ludicrous to me). I would never do it, and never intend to, if I had to live life single, would be able to without suffering intense grief as a teen would suffer from such a fast seperation.
Perhaps it’s because I spent so many years single in my adult life, which does help one to feel “able” to live adult life, single but also be happy.
There are advantages to single life as an adult:
Doing whatever I wish, whenever I wish, and not having to worry what the other person thinks
Not worrying “does he love me” that just plain gets on my nerves (no time for such crap)
Not having to try to meet another’s expectations that are often simply not “doable” in my mind
Can work (hopefully get job soon) late without question and dive into career
Branch out and meet new friends and people, without question (as most of my friends are always men)
Friends that are men, never mind my snappy advice or snappy tone of voice (woman are often offended by this)
Well, having male friends doesn’t exactly work well while married (seems to cause insecurity) which I find aggravating
I should do a post:
Single life vs. Married life
(seriously)
Thank you for your comments lately, you offer a nice perspective on life.
Zishaan 'ZuZu' Shafi
/ October 5, 2012I’m sorry for my late reply to this comment, I replied via the WordPress app on my phone but it didnt go through (same with many other comments I posted on other blogs, how frustrating).
Basically I was saying that your comment was as if you were reading my mind and life story lol… in terms of being content and enjoying the single mature persons life… open to the chance of love, but not to love drama.
We are >HERE< on this! Such a pleasure to be commenting and visiting your Blog.
lizeccentric7
/ October 9, 2012Well, guess the upside is having time alone, but then the downside is way too much time alone…so it’s like a catch 22, as they say.
The WP app, yes I have posted many comments on other blogs, that have not shown up…have no clue why that is happening, so using computer for commenting from now on, because the phone seemed to be wasting so much of my time by not posting the comments on other people’s blogs.
Glad you are visiting eccentric and sharing.
Alone time is great, but too much is not, that’s how I feel.
Guess depends on my mood that day…think to myself, do I want quiet time or not?
SprinklinThoughts
/ September 23, 2012Thought I can not criticize what another feels or thinks they feel, the more I read (anything) on/about “Love” the more I wonder just how many people really know what (true or real) love is – or have experienced it…
…just a wondering thought
lizeccentric7
/ September 24, 2012@Sprinklin Thoughts – so true, think many people have not experienced true love, hope they do get to though, it is what I call a “hard core” emotion.
nurulthecook
/ September 30, 2012Very true!! Love is so different now than it was 20 odd years ago. I’m also much more secure about myself nowadays when it comes to women. Liked or not liked, loved or not loved – it just doesn’t have that suicidal effect it did in those days. I guess I had to go through those hardcore feelings many times to be able to deal with it a lot better now.
lizeccentric7
/ October 9, 2012Your comment explains it all!
Think with age comes the wisdom that in order to love one must be secure in one’s self first (not that I always am) but that is the goal.
Younger people do need quite a bit more of reassurance when in the first love stage or in the teen years. Rejection during teens is just horrible.
Especially, with teens putting horrible things on Facebook nowadays about the relationship or ending the relationship on Facebook, think I would have been devastated by that type of embarassment in my teen years on a public forum like Facebook.
nurulthecook
/ October 13, 2012Never thought of the additional facebook relationship disaster effect….! How awful!!
lizeccentric7
/ October 15, 2012Oh yes, Facebook has caused so many break ups and divorces and embarrassment after the fact. FB really limits privacy, I have heard there are photos of me on FB, that were taken without my knowledge! BS!
Facebook is not one of my favorite things, it ruins jobs even lives sometimes.
nurulthecook
/ October 19, 2012Since my blog-FB is almost non-exixtent for me! A BIG waste of time!!
lizeccentric7
/ October 27, 2012@nurethecook – Well, Facebook is nice if you have a page just for the blog because sometimes bloggers will private message to ask technical questions or talk about a post.
I am in a WordPress group from Canada on the “Liz Fruitberry” Facebook page.
That’s kind of nice.
If WordPress had private messaging there would be no need for the Facebook plug-in on the Gravatar or even a Facebook account. (For me)
@WP admin – WordPress, please add private messaging!
nurulthecook
/ October 27, 2012That’s very true!!
lizeccentric7
/ October 27, 2012No one ever forgets the first love. Deep love and most of the time heart shattering.
nurulthecook
/ October 27, 2012Will never forget any of the women I’ve loved or stop loving them. After splitting up though the love changes. The first big love will still remain special though. And yes-absolutely heart shattering in the end!
lizeccentric7
/ October 28, 2012I believe the old saying, “there is a thin line between love and hate.”
nurulthecook
/ October 29, 2012Yep!! It’s very very thin!!!!
lizeccentric7
/ November 1, 2012@nurthecook – congrats on your new love I read about on your post.
nurulthecook
/ November 2, 2012Thank You!!