Love

[thir]

That last part is an essential element. There is another condition, which for want of a better word I'll call possession-need, which is very similar except for the last part. Rapists and stalkers often say that they love the object of their obsession, but are happy to terrorise and abuse hir in order to get possession of hir, and sometimes to kill hir rather than let hir get away. I don't think most people would call that love, but as noted, it shares enough features to be confused with it. I think this is an important point which we'll come back to.

I have had thoughts like that but much too uncelar to put into words. Thank you :-)

Love also overlaps with but is not the same as sexual attraction. Love for a child or a parent is essentially the same as love for a mate, minus the sexual element: and it is possible to love a non-related fellow adult that you're not in any way sexually attracted to, though it takes some special circumstances.

I have had a love who got too sick to have a sex life, I did not stop loving him for that.

At the very least, it can radically rewrite ones priorities. People can give up their home, their job, their religion or politics. One of the reasons Cupid is shown as a child is the chaos love can cause.

Well put! We have seen on more than one thread how this can work, for better and sometimes for far worse.

Personally, I usually fall for someone as I get to know her, but I can remember in school falling for a girl who'd been around for years, but who suddenly was for no logical reason enormously important to me. (In a different way from the ones who were newly important to me because I'd discovered sex, and they were it. She wasn't particularly sexy, she was just the one whose name had been on the arrow that hit me. The others I wanted to fuck, rape, whatever pervy things I was learning to imagine: her, I just wanted to hold hands with and gaze into her eyes and tell her what a wonderful person she was.)

Love as temporary insanity. It really is!

When that happens in adult life I can imagine the mental upheaval it involves.

Oh Yes!

Now, this is where I am glad I defined the condition of possession-need as something close to love, but without the concern for the welfare or happiness of the object. Because it seems to me that much of what passes for jealousy is the result of mistaking possession-need for love.

Some, but by no means all!
But I think it is an important point, and very useful to take into account when you choose a spouse.

If you love someone, you want their happiness. If someone or something makes them happy, that makes you happy.
If you are possession-needy for someone, and someone or something makes them happy, that upsets you because it's taking their attention away from you.

In very general terms, yes. Like people who cannot bear to let their partner have friends, or an job, or take an education, for example.

I wonder if the poly theorists have come up with a better word for this? Because I think I've stumbled onto something important here.

Not just important for poly people, but for everybody in choosing a partner. As I see it, there has to be space and respect for everybody's needs. It means that you can expect your needs to be at least listenened to in an acccepting way, even if you cannot see how to meet them. Or, if your needs initially upsets your partner, after they have had a chance to catch up with themselves.

I have some trouble understanding relationships where someone comes out and to say something that is really important to them, maybe something that was hard to get around to saying, and it just gets brushed off.

If it is imortant for your partner, then it is important for you and for the relationship, not just in an ethical way, but de facto. As true as important things make or break relationships.