Years ago Pat Benatar sang Love Is A Battlefield
Such beautiful haunting lyrics of confusion and bewilderment that end in submission to war.
"You're beggin' me to go then makin' me stay
Why do you hurt me so bad
It would help me to know
Do I stand in your way, or am I the best thing you've had
Believe me, believe me, I can't tell you why
But I'm trapped by your love and I'm chained to your side"
There are tons of best selling books regarding how to gain success in terms of dating and marriage. None of these books are based on being yourself, being a good person, and loving the person that captured your heart.
Do you believe love is a battlefield or a chess game or are all these books and beliefs regarding implemented strategies hog wash? Has anyone ever been a victim, bamboozled or been fooled?
I think we bandy about the word love too readily. Love, in my opinion, cannot be a battlefield (although I was always a Pat Benetar fan).
I would say the books you reference are hogwash. Love is not built on deception because if you attempt to pretend to be someone you aren't then the person who you are with didn't fall in love with you. Love puts the wants and needs of other person on the same level as your own, or higher. Although striving to be a better person is a worthy goal. But, we can all stand improvement. If the object of your affection demands constant improvement on your part it isn't unreasonable to suggest you aren't the object of their affection.
I've loved unwisely in my life. I suppose I have been bamboozled, fooled and victimized. But, I do accept that much of it was my fault. I believe actions speak more loudly than words. If I chose to ignore obvious truths, in order to participate in an illusion of love, I think I should accept that I freely chose to be briefly bamboozled. When I chose to accept the reality actions have created then I chose not to be bamboozled.
realtalk247,
I believe the "battle" is within the individual.
We have to first do some introspective thinking to figure out who (we) are, what we want and need in a mate (before) we pursue relationships!
Unfortunately for the majority of us our first relationships usually happen during Jr. high and high school when hormones are raging and immaturity along with "unrealistic expectations" set us up for our first heartache.
We're too naïve to realize how rare it is to find one's "soul-mate" at age 17!
Nevertheless many people never fully recover from that first broken heart.
Instead of acknowledging they were immature, unrealistic, and naïve they act as if those teenage relationships were adult relationships!
Never mind the fact that their (ex) was just an immature teenager.
Every year there are millions of freshman who arrive on college campuses with the belief that they will maintain a long distance relationship with their high school sweetheart for the next 4-6 years while they get their degrees.
At some point they break the routine of going to class and studying in their dorm rooms. They start to participate in on campus activities, possibly pledge a sorority or fraternity, go to dances and sporting events, make new friends, and eventually decide to date people who are on campus.
The person that gets dumped feel betrayed or cheated on but the reality is both people were too immature to realize it was unrealistic to expect 18 year olds away from home to maintain long distance relationship for years.
Each of us gets to (choose) our own friends, lovers, and spouse.
If "love is a battlefield" it's because we have yet to perfect our mate selection criteria. We keep saying "yes" to the wrong people!
The only thing all of your bad dating and relationship experiences have in common is (you). Believe it or not a lot of folks prefer to "go with the flow" as opposed to having a "selection process". They allow "impulsive connections" and "happenstance" to dictate their relationship choices.
That's the equivalent of going shopping without a list!
Odds are you'll throw anything into your cart at the last minute.
Until a person makes the mind shift to stop "blaming their exes" and instead look at why (they) chose them or said "yes" to them in the first place then they're likely to keep repeating the same mistakes.
When we change our circumstances change.
When I teach my online dating course I stress the following because so many people are in a "hurry" to meet people. I say take your time, get to know them through emailing via the site and IM, eventually exchange personal email addresses, and when you feel comfortable phone numbers. Based upon conversations you decide what the next "milestone" will be.
If a company were looking to fill an important position not everyone who sent in a resume would receive a call from HR. Not everyone who speaks with the HR representative is passed on to the hiring manager, not everyone who speaks with the hiring manager gets an in person interview, and not everyone who gets an in person interview gets a "second interview" or lands the job!
Note: The company would be interviewing (multiple candidates) in search of finding the "right" one. They are in control their "selection process" not the candidate.
If love is a "battlefield" it means the person is doing something wrong!
Each of us gets to (choose) who we spend our time with!
The goal is to learn to become a "better shopper".
Know yourself, Love yourself, Trust yourself.
by Brandon Mallo 8 years ago
For them? Against them? What's your opinion on a long distance love?
by iloveglee83 12 years ago
Do you believe that everyone has a soul mate?
by These eyes 6 years ago
Why do men hurt the person they love? If they love a woman why they do crazy things?I have a good relationship with this man and he just admit that he was having an affair that he wants to continue seing that person. I never see this coming since everything was so great with us. We never have a big...
by RangerTexas 14 years ago
Im currently in a 2 year LDR, which we met through online, we started just messaging and chatting every night.We started to feel feelings for each other, so we talk sometimes during the day and night. She occasionally call or text me love notes( which i miss alot).She lives in another country and I...
by Joana e Bruno 13 years ago
Do you believe in long distance relationships? Why? Why not? Can you give examples?
by Nicole 10 years ago
Do you believe you can chose to love someone for the rest of your life?Is it possible that staying in love can be something you chose to do, if it feels right with a specific person? Can we see the connection that is already existing with that person, and chose to cherish it, make it grow, keep it...
Copyright © 2025 The Arena Media Brands, LLC and respective content providers on this website. HubPages® is a registered trademark of The Arena Platform, Inc. Other product and company names shown may be trademarks of their respective owners. The Arena Media Brands, LLC and respective content providers to this website may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website.
Copyright © 2025 Maven Media Brands, LLC and respective owners.
As a user in the EEA, your approval is needed on a few things. To provide a better website experience, hubpages.com uses cookies (and other similar technologies) and may collect, process, and share personal data. Please choose which areas of our service you consent to our doing so.
For more information on managing or withdrawing consents and how we handle data, visit our Privacy Policy at: https://corp.maven.io/privacy-policy
Show DetailsNecessary | |
---|---|
HubPages Device ID | This is used to identify particular browsers or devices when the access the service, and is used for security reasons. |
Login | This is necessary to sign in to the HubPages Service. |
Google Recaptcha | This is used to prevent bots and spam. (Privacy Policy) |
Akismet | This is used to detect comment spam. (Privacy Policy) |
HubPages Google Analytics | This is used to provide data on traffic to our website, all personally identifyable data is anonymized. (Privacy Policy) |
HubPages Traffic Pixel | This is used to collect data on traffic to articles and other pages on our site. Unless you are signed in to a HubPages account, all personally identifiable information is anonymized. |
Amazon Web Services | This is a cloud services platform that we used to host our service. (Privacy Policy) |
Cloudflare | This is a cloud CDN service that we use to efficiently deliver files required for our service to operate such as javascript, cascading style sheets, images, and videos. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Hosted Libraries | Javascript software libraries such as jQuery are loaded at endpoints on the googleapis.com or gstatic.com domains, for performance and efficiency reasons. (Privacy Policy) |
Features | |
---|---|
Google Custom Search | This is feature allows you to search the site. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Maps | Some articles have Google Maps embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Charts | This is used to display charts and graphs on articles and the author center. (Privacy Policy) |
Google AdSense Host API | This service allows you to sign up for or associate a Google AdSense account with HubPages, so that you can earn money from ads on your articles. No data is shared unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Google YouTube | Some articles have YouTube videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Vimeo | Some articles have Vimeo videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Paypal | This is used for a registered author who enrolls in the HubPages Earnings program and requests to be paid via PayPal. No data is shared with Paypal unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Facebook Login | You can use this to streamline signing up for, or signing in to your Hubpages account. No data is shared with Facebook unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Maven | This supports the Maven widget and search functionality. (Privacy Policy) |
Marketing | |
---|---|
Google AdSense | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Google DoubleClick | Google provides ad serving technology and runs an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Index Exchange | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Sovrn | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Facebook Ads | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Amazon Unified Ad Marketplace | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
AppNexus | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Openx | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Rubicon Project | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
TripleLift | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Say Media | We partner with Say Media to deliver ad campaigns on our sites. (Privacy Policy) |
Remarketing Pixels | We may use remarketing pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to advertise the HubPages Service to people that have visited our sites. |
Conversion Tracking Pixels | We may use conversion tracking pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to identify when an advertisement has successfully resulted in the desired action, such as signing up for the HubPages Service or publishing an article on the HubPages Service. |
Statistics | |
---|---|
Author Google Analytics | This is used to provide traffic data and reports to the authors of articles on the HubPages Service. (Privacy Policy) |
Comscore | ComScore is a media measurement and analytics company providing marketing data and analytics to enterprises, media and advertising agencies, and publishers. Non-consent will result in ComScore only processing obfuscated personal data. (Privacy Policy) |
Amazon Tracking Pixel | Some articles display amazon products as part of the Amazon Affiliate program, this pixel provides traffic statistics for those products (Privacy Policy) |
Clicksco | This is a data management platform studying reader behavior (Privacy Policy) |