Wednesday 25 February 2015

What does 'I love you' actually mean?


Alas, it often means very different things, even to two people who are uttering those three little words to each other at the same time.  How many times have you heard a brokenhearted friend say "I don't understand; how could he just go?  He told me he loved me!"?  You may have said it yourself.  

Perhaps one person was saying "I can't imagine my life without you in it", while the other just meant "You're so exciting and exactly what I'm looking for, right now".

Sometimes it means the more sinister "I have an ideal in my head about the person I will love, and I want you to be 'it'"~ more on that one later!

I thought about this whole subject a great deal whilst writing my latest book, Last Child, because it features so many variations on the man/woman relationship.  Although not 'romances' by any means, my books do tend to be based around affairs of the heart, and I draw not only from my imagination but also from my own experience and observation of others This aspect of life has always been both interesting and so important to me, perhaps one of the reasons why I've never allowed it to fall into the second place necessary when you have children (actually, that's only just occurred to me!). 

Children or not, it isn't so important for everyone; there are those like Hannah (she appears in both Kings and Queens and Last Child), who prefer to keep such extremes of emotion at arm's length: "Some people need romance and passion like they need air to breathe, and some don’t.  I belong to the latter camp.  I’m happy to be a friend and confidante to those who need help in related crises, but have no desire to experience the despair that so often follows the joy."

(Sensible?) people like Hannah are just not made for the 'grand passion'; those explosive chemistry type of affairs, illicit as such things so often are, in which the two people have an immediate lust thing going on but also "that indefinable ingredient ‘X’ that turns attraction into love" ~ I won't say which two characters the one in Last Child involves!  The sort of love that leads people to leave long term partners, make crazy decisions, and tends to either burn itself out, painfully, or keep flickering away forever, even if the two are not together - think Burton and Taylor!  Even if we haven't the film star qualities of these two and our affair does not involve exclusive hotels, yachts, huge diamonds and newspaper coverage, I think everyone should have at least one of these sort of experiences in their lives!  Shame they don't always end in happy ever after...


In the second part of Last Child I've written two characters who, sadly, mean completely different things by those three little words.  His 'I love you' means 'I'm very fond of you but I'm really in this relationship because it gives me everything I need socially and financially', whereas, alas, hers says: 'I am obsessed with you to the point of not being able to live without you' ~ yes, for those who know their history, it's my modern day Philip of Spain and Mary Tudor.  

Old family friend Will Brandon makes this observation about 21st century would-be king Phil Castillo: “Lucky fella; a cushy job with a generous salary, a place in the bed of an attractive young woman whenever he wants it, and a nice little rent-free bolthole in the village when he doesn’t.  Can’t be bad, eh?”

...whilst poor Isabella feels like this:  "The ferocity of my love for him scared me, sometimes.  I couldn’t think about anything but him.  We’d be sitting at home watching television, but I’d be unable to concentrate on the programme.  I’d gaze at his face, study its angles and expressions, and I’d want to devour it.  Sometimes when we made love I left bite marks on his skin; he said he loved my passion, but I think it scared him a little, too."

Philip of Spain and Mary Tudor

This sort of relationship can work if the less enamoured is basically a decent person and appreciates where his/her bread is buttered (a young woman being totally spoiled by her doting, older, rich husband, perhaps!); sometimes love can grow out of such a situation, though more often than not the one with more to offer ends up with a broken heart.  I'm so glad I don't have the psychological make-up that allows me to be as eternally obsessed with someone as Isabella is with Phil; I know someone who suffers this affliction (poor her); her 'love' for the man in question colours her whole life, even if she rarely sees him. 

 
As sister Erin observes about Isabella:
"Love’s a weird thing.  It so often has so much other stuff attached.  Sometimes it’s more the fulfilment of a need.  Exhibit one: Izzy and Phil Castillo.  When she met him she was starved of love and affection, and just needed a good shag, in the opinion of most of the men at Lanchester Estates.  She saw mirrored in Phil’s empty blue eyes the image of herself in which she needed so badly to believe but was never truly convinced by, so when she felt her dream slipping away she clung to it by any means she could because she was terrified of going back to how she was before."

The final third of Last Child brings with it three more faces of love: duty, true soul mates, and that curious one of which my character Amy is guilty ~ she thinks she feels true love for her husband, Robert, though she is more in love with an ideal.  
Robert says: "Amy doesn’t really love me, anyway, although she thinks she does.  She loves her fantasy of me as one of the heroes from her stupid romantic novels, not me, the real me, how I really am."

I think this is more common that people realise (or admit), particularly amongst women who, when younger, daydream about their wedding day/future marital bliss, and amongst men who weave fantasies about their ideal woman - anyone who has been in a relationship with one of those men who tell you they adore you then try to change everything about you from your friends to your hair colour to the height of your heels will know what I mean by this one!

Being the object of this sort of 'love' should make the recipient want to say "Oh, excuse me for not being the person you've made up your mind I ought to be - not!!!", but, sadly, it all too often makes low self-esteem even lower; men who think love = protection and control have a radar that detects the sort of women who will put up with it.  As for women for whom "I love you" means "I want you to star alongside me in my fantasy of a perfect life.  Here are your lines and stage directions; if you deviate from them I will sulk" - they need a course in growing up!

As for 'duty' love, Robert's relationship with Amy begins because he is on the rebound, but grows into something genuine; however, he feels guilty for falling out of love with her almost before the ring is on her finger, and tries to make the best of it.  Erin thinks such duty is misplaced:
"If you don’t love someone, don’t stay married to them.  End of.  Don’t waste her life as well as your own.  Let her find someone who loves her, instead of putting her through years of anguish."  


As for Erin and Robert, their connection is a continuing theme throughout the book.  But are they true soul mates, two people who fit together so perfectly, or is their love destined to bring nothing but heartbreak (she says, as though writing a blurb for a romance book.....!)???

I hope if you have downloaded the book you enjoy finding out, and, whether you have or not, that you can relate to some parts of this post; I'd be interested to hear about anyone's own experiences, and promise I won't use them in future novels!



20 comments:

  1. This sounds like such a great trilogy, TT....Please can I have the books?

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  2. It's a two-logy, Carol, and you're joking, right??? :^D

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  3. What a great post Terry. I've downloaded Last Child and am rushing through my latest read so I can get started. My marriage was one built on fantasy, for me I thought I was getting my happy ever after, but for him it was a very different story. Of course this meant I had to change my friends, hair colour and stop wearing heels (I was taller than him!) Only when I left him did I realise how I'd been manipulated over the seven years we were together. I hadn't seen it happening because I was still in lala land of 'married life'. My real life began ten years ago when I walked out - best ending to a story ever! ;-)

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    1. Ohhhh yes, I know that one! I could write so much about men who manipulate - maybe another post some time!!! And let's hear it for realising what's happening and getting out :) xx

      Thanks re LC - cross fingers you'll like!

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  4. Ah, the complexity of loving. And then, just as you think you've got it sussed, you have grandchildren and discover more small people that you'd lay down your life for ...

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    1. I know it makes me sound shallow, but I am glad I escaped all this - I don't think I could bear the intensity of motherly love. Think this is partly because my brother's son died age 14 and I saw how it was.... it's bad enough having that 'lay down your life' feeling for my parents and husband!

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    2. How strange that I hadn't realised I hadn't experienced 'true love' until I met my second husband eight years ago - only different fragments of it.

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    3. Ah, I know just what you mean, Wendy! That's why when I hear people listing things they consider to be 'deal breakers', or complaining about trivial stuff or needing more time apart, I think, perhaps you just haven't been in love yet - only, as you say, in fragments of it. I think I've only been truly in love twice; the other times were in lust, or in strong attachment, or sometimes just in need :)

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    4. I have a friend whose son was murdered, so have seen how love can be devastated. But she says that she wouldn't swap those years with him, even now. But if the mother-bit is not for you - then fine. It's certainly not everyone's cup of tea!

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    5. Hi Jo, thanks for your comment; yes, I was concentrated just on man-woman love relationships in this article, rather than go into the other aspects of love. it's hard enough to write the mother-child element in novels, as I don't have any.

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  5. Very thought-provoking post, Terry, full of interesting points and perceptive insights. It made me think of that lovely book 'The Pursuit of Love' by Nancy Mitford about a girl who's searching for the 'grand passion' among an assortment of men whose motives are very different. From my experience, the only sort of love that really works is when two people accept each other exactly as they are - warts and all - sometimes that may mean needing to spend some time apart, sometimes not. One thing's for sure - love is an eternal, confusing mystery - but then, if it weren't, where would we writers be?

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    1. .... and alas, Pedro, the 'grand passion' cannot be sought, it just happens when it happens, usually with the most unlikely person and at the wrong time. I think different types of lurrrrve work at different times in your life. Given my chequered past, it has certain been that way for me, anyway!

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  6. A really interesting post, Terry. I think I have the Amy complex but to such an extent that nobody in real life could ever live up to it - hence my single status. I genuinely think Jem Merlyn in Jamaica Inn did for me at a young age, as he was my first literary crush and it went downhill from there on in :D

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    1. Ha ha! I've known a few terminally single women who have the Amy complex, but the difference is that you recognise it and are probably amused by it! I used to know this woman who wouldn't entertain the idea of going out with anyone unless they had a perfect body, just the right shoes, was the perfect gentleman, etc - yet she was nothing special. More than that, though, I meant it as the sort of woman Amy is, in that she marries a real life guy, then expects him to behave like a hero in a romantic novel. There's one scene where she makes up in her head how their anniversary dinner is going to be, then when the whole evening doesn't follow her idea of how a 'romantic evening' should be, she sees it as him letting her down... :)

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  7. I was the "build a wife" variety. My ex actually said he married me because he THOUGHT I had potential!?? Huh? I never however stopped believing in the kind of "warts and all" love that Peter refers to. And you're right Terry, it happens when you stop chasing it and just get clear about what you will and won't accept for yourself and go on about your business.

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    1. Oh yeah - my first husband had a thing about size 10 blondes, so he married a size 14 brunette (me) and made me feel awful for not being what he wanted. Well, what I mean is that I allowed myself to let him make me feel awful, but I was only in my 20s and knew no better! What I said to Peter about it happening when it happens was more that when the big lightning bolt ones happen, it's inevitably someone highly unsuitable, at totally the wrong time!!!! I know everyone says about you 'meeting someone' when you're not expecting it, but I've never found that; for me it's usually been that when I was open to it, the right person came along fairly soon; I think you need to have your mind open, sometimes. Which is something else I examined in this novel, which does seem to run the whole gamut of relationship possibilities!!!!!

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  8. A lot to think about here, Terry! I just downloaded Kings and Queens and Last Child, and look forward to reading both. Love is such a complicated word, and I really enjoy stories that look at it from different perspectives. --Mary Rowen

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    1. Ooh - thanks so much, Mary, and yes, I've only just skimmed the surface here...!

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  9. I have read and enjoyed both Kings and Queens and Last Child and found them so full of all the different kinds of love. All I can say about real life love (from my point of view, you understand)- is that I found my husband, David, liked him before I loved him forty-seven years ago (I was very very young, you understand) and we've grown old and wrinkled together. And he makes me laugh - a lot. And he's my best mate - even on his grumpy days - and mine!!.

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    1. That is lovely, and something few people achieve! I've never made it past 7 years with anyone - but am optimistic this time, not least because of our ages, ha ha!! x

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