Is it weird to tell my boyfriend who I've been dating for a year and some months that I want to be with him forever or...

I'm sorry, user.

I'm sorry that happaned to you.
I've been thinking about this for a while because I take what I say seriously and this kind of thing is very vulnerable to say to me.

Im 23 now and yeah im at the point where i do want a family because mines seperated and im lonely as hell at the end of the day. I am literally dying from sickness and alcoholism and she knows. Which hurts the most after all the things we said we'd built. If you don't mean it don't tell him.

This.
Nobody takes these shitty words seriosly

Why did the bitch leave you?

Went through a rough patch last year after she moved in to live with me. Lots of arguing but always made up before bed cus thats what "married couples do". We both started working alot and i kept that same married couple thing stuck in my head so I'd always wait for her after work. To the point were i put her first. During that time she would rather spend time with friends going out which was fine but sometimes lied about it. Eventually one morning we had another argument and just left and didnt look back. Shit hurts i wish her the best even after she says shes better off without me. I just wish i could get over drinking all the time so i wouldn't go back to trying to contact her and stopping my healing

i dunno. if you aren't planning on proposing to him and he hasn't shown signs of that yet, saying you want to be with him forever doesn't sound like a good idea or necessary in any capacity. just go with the flow.

I got married young (21) after being with her for about 2 years and got divorced at 26. At the time I thought that is how relationships were supposed to go ... like you declare the desire to do a forever thing and then you go and try and do a forever thing. It came with a lot of baggage to be honest ... a lot of expectation, guilt, we were quite cruel to each other ... you wouldn't act like xyz if you really wanted to be with me forever etc etc. I had the typical idolised interpretation of relationships. We were different. We weren't like other people. We were stronger than anything.

Anyway. My point is future relationships have been stable, but built upon the principle of constant fair assessment and willingness to walk away because I know now that forever isn't forever, that history, past etc should only be brought up for positive reasons and rationalisations not negative ones like ... I've invested so much time in you, you can't treat me like this... and that walking away doesn't kill you. Are we having a great time? If we aren't is it because of us reasons or other reasons? Are we working together and towards what we both need? Are our goals aligned?

So no ... it isn't weird to declare that you'd like to be with somebody forever. But it is weird to expect that to mean something greater than your actions or to want it to obligate somebody in some way.

Look at what engagement represents. Quite often it is built upon insecurity. I want public confirmation that you won't leave me. It is all meaningless. The insecurity should be dealt with really. Get engaged if you feel it'll truly make you happy, but if it is to mask an insecurity or fear? It is unlikely to bring happiness and later? If forever isn't forever? (Statistically it isn't) avoid that ... buh buh buh I gave him everything ... buh buh I did everything ... I'm so hurt that perfect isn't a thing despite requesting and being told I'd get perfect ... muh childish naivety was supposed to be golden ...

Why are you humblebragging?

>I had the typical idolised interpretation of relationships.

Typical assumption that cynicism is realism. Couples can get married and stay together forever and be happy that whole time; my parents' 46th anniversary is tomorrow, and they've always enjoyed being together. Just because you and your ex weren't good enough of people to succeed in that doesn't mean that long-term monogamy is a meme.

If you've been dating that long, it's normal to say those kinds of things. They're the feelings you're feeling at that moment and aren't some permanent statement of course.

There is no such thing as "love" my non-cynical friend, just tolerance of living together
Being in love lasts 3 years
You should understand that

Maybe what I mean is I had a simplistic interpretation of what it actually meant and how you make a lifelong relationship work. You declare commitment ... job done. It really isn't like that.

Your parents got together at least 46 years ago. Things were different then. Relationships last still today, I imagine that marriages starting out today are going to be more stable than ones started 5, 10 or 20 years ago simply because less people are getting married out of course and those that do tend to be older.

I don't believe long term monogomy is a meme at all. I do believe that it is equally possible in the absence of marriage though. I also believe that if the wisdom required to make it work isn't present then a marriage isn't going to automatically make it work.

Or maybe that was just my experience. My point is to OP. It is crazy to assume that you'll be with anybody forever. Marriage or not. The attitude of 'forever' really needs to be understood as a series of choices made constantly where you decide in the present to stay together again and again rather than one choice you made back in the day and followed a normative action like marriage.

If you make the choice to stay together enough then eventually you'll stay together forever. But that is better for me than saying "whelp, you SAID you were down forever like 30 years ago, so better suck it up or else you are clearly a liar".

So how come my parents still enjoy fucking, say and do romantic things, and say they wouldn't want to live for very long without the other?

Maybe I'm a tad dumb but could you explain what you mean by this? That just because you feel like you want someone forever doesn't mean that it's a promise? Is that it?

Habit

I think user is saying that such declarations aren't fully binding, and that you can change your mind later down the road (though I personally still look down on people who 'fall out of love' and abandon their partner; call me judgmental if you want). I don't think he's saying that it's okay to say those things if you don't mean them even in the moment, or say them while knowing that you have no intention of following up on them. Jow Forums might be callous and shitty and somewhat sociopathic, but I don't think even these people would go so far as to say that it's okay to knowingly lie.

This is all reasonable. Sorry for the misunderstanding, I just don't expect much from Jow Forums because this board has never given me much reason to have faith in it or the people who populate it.

You must know that love is a chemical reaction designed to get us to have sex then bond us to ensure the raising of children through the crucial first few years. After that it becomes ... different. The nature of love changes. It becomes more about time invested and future payoffs. Shared experience. Shared commitments. Shared goals. Some people panic when that intense feeling fades, like there is something wrong with them or the relationship, or maybe they want to experience it again and aren't at a point in life where they are ready or willing to transition into replacement 'adult' goals and fulfilments.

Like when I was young and every experience was for the first time everything felt dramatic, profound and massive and important because for me it was ... it was quite easy to have an altered sense of reality. Dopamine is one hell of a drug.

It doesn't make those experiences any less wonderful, significant or valuable, but I can say that my naivety was a significant blind spot in my decision making. It isn't possible to feel that feel with that same intensity again.

You aren't going to feel those feelings with the same intensity again. You'll not be able to replicate them. The more you seek them out and experience them the more routine and mundane they'll become. Eventually you realise that the real value in getting your shit together.

You have to redefine love and justify it as something else. We love each other because we care for one another. Familiarity. Look forward to seeing each other succeed and be happy.

I agree with both of you in a way. Yes people can be married for life and still treat each other like they first did and yes in othet terms love is just a chemical.
1. People have to have the same bond for one other. Basically perfect all the time.

2. Id guess once the love chemical is gone shit isnt forever which leads to the bond thing again

Mark 10:2-16 ESV
And Pharisees came up and in order to test him asked, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?" [3] He answered them, "What did Moses command you?" [4] They said, "Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce and to send her away." [5] And Jesus said to them, "Because of your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment. [6] But from the beginning of creation, 'God made them male and female.' [7] 'Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, [8] and the two shall become one flesh.' So they are no longer two but one flesh. [9] What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate." [10] And in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter. [11] And he said to them, "Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her, [12] and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery." [13] And they were bringing children to him that he might touch them, and the disciples rebuked them. [14] But when Jesus saw it, he was indignant and said to them, "Let the children come to me; do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. [15] Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it." [16] And he took them in his arms and blessed them, laying his hands on them.

I think it's undeniable that the intensity of limerence eventually fades. I just disagree with the common wisdom that the feeling fades so completely and so absolutely that your wife/husband eventually just becomes a friend that you live with. Diminishing returns only diminish up to a certain point. Vestiges of sexual and romantic feelings can always remain.

Evolutionarily 3 years is enough to give birth to offsprings, but feelings eventually fade so that we could find new mates and give birth to more offsprings

As I said there is no romantic love, only crush

And I said that that's too absolutist. My brother and his wife have been married since 2006, and you'd be delusional to think that they aren't still in love with each other - yes, romantically. I agree that limerence pretty much always fades over time, but saying that it's impossible for couples to still have romantic love for each other is way, WAY too fucking extreme in the opposite direction, and patently and observably false.

A friend that you live with? Kind of but not quite? Memory is a weird thing. Like you forget stuff, but you remember it if you tell the story. If the story brings on a feeling then you reinforce the memory with a feeling, but it is just the memory of the story now not the original experience.

So good relationships will have a lot of shared experiences which are re experienced as a kind of shared culture. Dates are important. Recollection is important. Building positive memories through a shared life story to keep you connected.

You do become friends who live together, but you share a deeper bond because you usually have sex, have common goals, celebrate each others successes and celebrate past events.

The feeling can fade so much that they just become friends you live with. But that is doing it wrong.

Sounds like we're more or less in agreement then.

*romantic love for each other after three years

If you've seriously never seen a couple that has some passion remaining at year four or year five, I don't know what to tell you. It's true that couples that have been together for decades likely aren't too fiery, but saying that three years is the absolute maximum, and that anything beyond that point is a loveless affair devoid of passion, is seriously lowballing it.

just drink his cum. not even a joke
wank him off then clean him with your tongue
don't forget to make him promise to never tell anyone you did that.
he wont' be able to forget it.
this kind of display demonstrates what you want to say far more convincingly than some empty words.

It is completely normal to express love and the intention of marriage to your partner once you're in your twenties and have been together for a year.

this

That is the dream
Make sure to tell him during sex

No, it's very common.