Is love a choice?

Can you CHOOSE to love someone?

If you can, it's probably not romantic or sexual love, but something more like family love or friendship.

Can you choose WHO to love?

Same as above. I think you can choose to love someone because you know it's the right thing to do. Sometimes it's because you know the person has many good qualities, and they deserve to be treated in a loving manner.

That said, I think this is not true sexual or romantic love - because I don't think those kinds of love can ever be forced or planned. I have tried more than once to force myself to love a man because he was decent and good and he loved me. But the minute I feel like I'm forcing myself, it's no longer voluntary - I'm so aware of trying to force myself to be a good person that that deletes some of the joy from the whole thing.

It's the difference between feeling virtuous because you did housework, and feeling happy because you slacked around all day reading and walking on the beach. Both feelings are good, but only the second feeling is fun.

If you love someone, can you choose to stop?

For me, the first step is letting go. I realize I'm hurting so much because of this love, that it's ruining my life; and I start to see how ridiculous this is - love should help you feel happier, not make you feel more anxious, less confident, etc.

Once I'm able to let go of the situation, I am able to step back from the person, and in time, the love changes into more of a friendship.

If you don't love someone anymore, can you choose to love them again?

This is another thing I've tried and not done so well at. As others have said, romantic love is perishable. If things between me and a romantic partner are too unequal or painful, at some point I will start to think, "This is more trouble than it's worth; it's costing me too much."

It takes me a little while to recover, but generally, once I'm there, I can love the person again - as a friend. Trying to feel the really good kind of love again is like trying to unspread butter.

I can relate to a lot of what you wrote. I was married 23 years, honestly I was happy for most of them because I was naive and believed his BS. So here I am post SM, post divorce - I do still love him but not in a romantic or sexual way. I recall the muddled emotional existence too - one day I wanted a divorce, one day stay and cheat, next day we got along pretty good just no sex. I made the best choice for me in my situation but it's a tough choice and then life goes on!

Yes. My feelings bounce all over the place, usually on a daily basis, if not hourly. Stay, leave, cheat. I cycle through all those thoughts. Right now we're getting along. Just no sex or affection of any kind. I find these are the times when my resolve to move on is the weakest. It's a lot easier to be pissed off and have one foot out the door when I can't stand to be in the same room with her. 

Thanks for the answers, everyone. It's always so helpful to hear other people's point of view.

I have to say, that my own questions have me stumped. I've been trying to contribute my own answer and it's hard for me to put my thoughts into words. I've been thinking this over for the last few days and I think I finally have my own answers.

When I first posed this question, my knee jerk reaction was that love was not a choice. Not in the least. I was kind of stuck in the mind set of the FEELING of love though. I don't think we can simply choose our feelings, so I felt as though it was clearly not a choice. But love is so complicated and it is more than just feelings. So, I thought about things long and hard and decided to kind of separate love into two distinct categories, one being loving feelings and one being loving actions. That helped me kind of sort this out for me. So, with that in mind, here are my answers.


Can you CHOOSE to love someone?

For me, there are so many different ways to define love. One way that I see love is as something you can freely give to someone by choice. This sort of definition of love for me is like how people say that love is a verb. In this definition, it's not a feeling, but an action. I think we can all choose actions. Feelings, on the other hand, are almost impossible to choose. We can choose to adjust our perceptions and hopefully that will adjust our feelings but I don't believe that many people can simply choose emotions. I think choosing loving actions can increase the odds that the genuine loving feelings can grow between a couple. I think that the flow of loving actions needs to go in both directions though for these loving feelings to grow. It takes two to grow the feeling of love over the long haul. Giving love without receiving love will not likely build up loving feelings. It will eventually do the opposite. So, for me, I don't believe one can choose the feeling of love, however, one can choose actions of love in the hope that the actions are reciprocated and the feelings of love then follow.

I will even go so far as to say that actions of love can build feelings of love even when there is no initial spark. I imagine that if I were placed on a deserted island for life with a random female and she didn't quite do much for me in terms of chemistry, that I could find a way to build loving feelings toward her. I have a high need for love in my life, so I would have motivation to figure out how to build up genuine feelings of love for this other person that I was randomly matched up with. I imagine many people would do the same thing. If you have a high need for love and your options are limited, I think one can choose to at least TRY to build up loving feelings by engaging in loving actions. I bet it happens somewhat often with people in arranged marriages. I would bet that there are a fair number of instances where an arranged couple almost learned to love each other over time because they chose to build the love up through their actions. I think love can be built up without the need for fireworks or instant chemistry. I'm not saying it would be easy but I think it's possible. It would have to take two very patient people that are very good at giving and receiving and being open minded, but I think the feelings of love can be created where it seemed they would not have a snowball's chance in hell. I'm sure this theory has it's limits though. If you put me on a deserted island with someone that I found repulsive in every way, then I'm not sure I'd even have the ability to try.

So, my short version of my answer to this one is this; loving feelings can be created between 2 people (within reason) when they both make conscious choices to consistently make loving actions.


Can you choose WHO to love?

Building off of my last answer, I think that one can technically choose who to love (again, within reason). A conscious choice can be made in regards to who they decide to invest their loving actions toward. I think we all have limits as to how many loving actions we are willing to invest though. If our loving actions are not producing enough loving feelings, we may choose to invest our actions to someone else. If we feel like we are putting forth a ton of effort and getting nowhere, then we may start to decide to take actions towards a path that takes us away from the one we were initially invested in. That much is true, whether you have been married for 30 years or are a single teenager pursuing a certain someone at your school. The difference is, the kids in high school tend to have the feelings first and then the actions result from the feelings whereas the married couple may need to choose the actions to build / maintain the feelings. In either scenario though, if your actions are not being reciprocated, your loving feelings will eventually die. Plain and simple. We can only handle so much "one sided" love. At some point the only choice that needs to be made is to choose to accept that the love has died and is not coming back.

Shifting gears though...what about this little thought process? Let's say I were single and I were put on a deserted island with 2 females. After a month, I would have to pick one of the females to send away to their own deserted island and then spend the rest of my life on my deserted island with the other woman. Let's say they both seemed to genuinely have an interest in me and I liked one way better than the other, I would likely "choose" to put my attention toward the one that I had more of a natural attraction to. Is that so much a "choice" though? Isn't that more of a compatibility thing that is beyond my control? What if I liked them both for different reasons? Then I suppose I would maybe have to make a conscious choice. Still, if we go back to loving feelings, can I choose which one I end up having stronger loving feelings for? On the other hand, what if my feelings conflict with my choices? What if one woman is very experienced in the ways of surviving on a deserted island but I find her somewhat unattractive on a personal and physical level? What if the other woman is kind of clueless about how to survive on the island but she strikes me as "soul mate" material? I can choose the practical woman and I can choose to try to build up love and chemistry with her, but can I choose to NOT love the other woman? Can I stop myself? What if we hit it off and it gains the momentum of a freight train? When push comes to shove, would I choose to honor my heart or would I take the practical path? Regardless of the conscious choice I'd make, would my feelings change? If I sent my soul mate away after the month long trial period, would my feelings towards my soul mate be any less magical? Can my choices have a true influence on what my heart wants?

I could go on and on but I guess I have my answer to this one as well. Just like the last question. I feel as though we can make conscious choices in regards to our actions. Our genuine feelings may conflict with those actions though. I think we have limited control over our feelings for others. We can try our hardest to make our hearts adhere to what our heads decide what is best for us, but in the end I think our hearts are extremely hard to reason with. So, for me, I'd say we can TRY to choose who to love. We can ATTEMPT to choose actions that will create loving feelings for those that we CHOOSE to love. In the grand scheme of things though, I feel as though we have limited power in our ability to truly make these decisions. I think the heart wants what it wants and it works in mysterious ways that are somewhat out of our control.


If you love someone, can you choose to stop?

I think I touched on this in my last answer. I think different people probably have different ways that the feelings of love effect them. For me, it hits me pretty hard and sticks around long after the fact. So, for me personally, I don't think that I can choose to stop having loving feelings for someone. Once again, I can choose to stop investing my loving actions towards someone. My feelings though? They will not be stopped. I have been hurt by some people in the past pretty bad. I'm sure we all have. It's tough to be rejected by someone that you love. Even in those instances, I couldn't stop loving them. Not right away at least. It takes a long time for me to unravel those feelings, painfully, one strand at a time.

I had an experience recently where I had to choose to distance myself from someone that I love deeply. It was a mutual decision but it wasn't a decision based on the desire for either of us to part ways. It was a practical decision. It was, perhaps, the "right" decision ... for now. Still, ever since we said good bye, not a day has passed that I don't think of her. I'm quite certain that I will have love for her buried deep down inside until my last days. That love may appear to fade as time flows. I don't think it truly will fade though. It'll just somehow become less painful to have to deal with the fact that we had to part ways. I've grown to accept it. It doesn't mean that I have chosen to stop loving her. I don't think I have a choice in the matter. My feelings aren't going to change. They may have somehow gone to rest for now. I know that if we are able to reunite in the future that our feelings will reawaken from their deep sleep. They're still there. They are just kind of tucked away and sometimes make an impromptu appearance to remind me of their presence. I've tried rationalizing things to just make the pain more manageable. I've told myself things about how it wouldn't be a fairy tale. I've tried to convince myself of certain problems we'd have if we were able to actually be together. None of that matters though. My head can't shake the feeling that my heart knows to be true. There's no choice in the matter. The feelings are there. They aren't going anyway. I can't kill them with logic or send them away with rationale. I can't choose to smother those flames. Even if I tried, I'd fail.

On the other hand, as I mentioned in one of the other answers above, I can choose to stop loving someone that no longer reciprocates my loving actions. Although, as I think about it, is that a choice? Are loving feelings simply a living / breathing entity within us? Does love either grow or diminish based on how the relationship unfolds? We can choose to take actions that increase the odds that the flames will grow rather than die out, but at some point, do the flames die due to neglect regardless of conscious choice? I think they do. I can see why I have such a hard time answering all of this. It's all very conflicting to me.

To add even more complexity to it, I feel as though the flame between my wife and I has died. Still, there IS love there. It's not the kind of love that carries a flame though. It's like the love you get from the warm embrace of a close relative or friend. It feels comfortable and familiar and safe, but it's lacking in something that seems so critical between a couple that claims to be "in love". So, what do I even call that? It has value. It's not something that should just be thrown away, but at what point do I say that I need more than this familiar and comfortable yet somewhat unsatisfying feeling of love? Maybe that's a different deep thought for a different day? lol Still, this familiar and comfortable yet unsatisfying feeling of love is still love. So, I do still love my wife. I'm not sure that I can choose to stop loving her in this familiar and comfortable way. Even if we end up not making it, I believe I will always love her in this type of way. I can't imagine that I'd ever choose to not love her in this way anymore, no matter what happens. To me, that's the kind of love that is much harder to smother. It's like a warm baked potato. There are no flames to smother. Oddly enough, it doesn't burn hot, but it seems to have a lot of hidden energy. It may slowly cool over time, but even when you think it's gone cold on the outside, there's still a core inside that has more warmth than you realize. It's like the love I have for my siblings. Some of my siblings drive me nuts. Some of them I don't particularly even like some days. Still, I love them no matter what. I always will. I can't think of any reason to choose not to love them anymore. They would have to do something absolutely horrific for me to make the decision to stop loving them. So, I don't know. For me, I'd say "no" to this. I don't believe that I can simply choose to stop loving someone.


If you don't love someone anymore, can you choose to love them again?

I think this one is highly personal. We all may have different views on whether or not we'd take a second chance on someone. I personally think that I would not be able to take a leap of faith and love someone again after going through the painful process of separating from them. I can only think of a few past love interests that I absolutely positively have NO love for anymore. It takes a lot for me to go from a state of love to a state of indifference. Those one's that managed to push me to a state of absolute indifference? If I were single in the future and they went really out of their way to try and win me over again, I'm not sure how I'd react. I'm thinking that I'd not be able to give it another try. Of course, I tend to surprise myself when it comes to hypothetical situations like this. So, who knows what I'd do if it ever becomes a reality. For me though, I'm guessing that I would choose to not even go down that path. So I think I personally could choose to love someone again after all love has died, but it's not likely that I would actually make that choice.

I like the analogy of the hidden energy in a warm baked potato! I think the flame or feeling 'in love' will occur when she reciprocates. Maybe your situation is not so bad but it isn't good enough if she doesn't put effort in making it better.  I asked my wife some time ago if she was saving herself for another guy in the future. I'm so confused why she didn't want to have sex with me. I don't know the answer. She's trying. I know she loves me deeply, perhaps like a baked potato. I am 'in love' with her baked potato. 
(FYI, trying to respond to this and your other thread.  Best wishes with your desire to try again.)