The heart or the head

Follow your heart everytime - might hurt like hell at times, but it's surely more true to how you feel than trying to rationalise something that, by its very definition, CANNOT be rationalized. I believe in taking risks (my dad's a gambling man) and would rather risk all than take the safer option of listening to my head- which would probably say 'don't do that, it'll never work'. Dislike cliches, but I do believe it's better to have loved and lost. Love; heart; Gretna Green anyday, everytime.

live long and prosper, radio

logic is crap. Depends what you mean by mistake radio. Anything you experience is part of what makes you up, so even mistakes can make you as you are (I know that's like new age crap, but it's quite logical if you think about it). I've often found that when someone has told me 'follow your heart' what they really mean is 'follow your libido'. I think if you became Mr Logic, you might lead a very sad life (also a friend on mine who's a physicist proved to me that if you follow logic to its conclusion you end up staying inside your house never doing anything or going anywhere).

I'm no Spock worshiper Dan. Emotions are important, I'll recognize that. I just no longer believe that they should be the basis of major decisions.

What constitues a good decision? Getting your own way?

What constitutes a good decision? The answer in my opinion; a successful result. That definition could apply to a variety of things? I do agree somewhat with the libido thing though. Some of my "emotional" mistakes in truth have been "libido" related. My quandary (not a big one) at the moment is with the institution of marriage. The lady I've been seeing for the past year and I had a discussion on this subject. We both feel the same way that marriage is a thing neither of us wants to experience again. Maybe we’re both jaded and trying to be too logical, but still we get along very well and have much more in common than the fact that we can have sex.

If you both feel the same way, then that is great. Where there is a problem is where both feel differently OR both feel differently and pretend to feel the same about it. One boyfriend I've had has always known he never wants to get married, and never will, but he would say he wants to spend the rest of his life with someone, or at least wants to. I've had a 'broken' marriage, and as much as it hurt and as much as we both did/said things we perhaps shouldn't, I wouldn't go back and change it just because it didn't work out. You know?

Radiodenver: My quandary (not a big one) at the moment is with the institution of marriage. The lady I've been seeing for the past year and I had a discussion on this subject. We both feel the same way that marriage is a thing neither of us wants to experience again. Maybe we’re both jaded and trying to be too logical, but still we get along very well and have much more in common than the fact that we can have sex. if one marriage fails I think you have to learn from that failure and move on. It does not mean that the next one will (or won't but at least you will be wise enough not to make the same mistakes twice) When anything involves other people there are so many variables to consider but you use your head and your heart to hopefully make the best of it. what failed in the first marriage? what type of person where you then compared to now? what do you want to bring to a relationship? what don't you want in a relationship? typical questions that imo are answered with the head and heart but it has to be looked at honestly. GOD I'm LONELY LOLOLOLOL

Yeah, I agree....See, here's the logic...I know that I'm Jaded (as is she) so it's logical to want to shy away from marital commitments. On the emotional side though, we both know that we are compatible (to date). In the past, this is where I would be prone to the "emotional" decision. My logic says shut up, sit down and wait....time will tell if this woman and I are going to be a long term successful thing. One year isn't long enough to know. Emotionally, I still have a need to move to the Bahamas, which I could do on a moments notice. (Fleeing the reality?) Like I'm the only person that's ever had to deal with this...sheeesh!

ahhh... you know something... when I was with the man who would never get married, there was always this feeling that being not affraid would mean jumping on a train to Gretna Green and getting married, and I kept thinking that if he wasn't afraid and we were truly compatible then that is what we would do. I was probably wrong and should have carried on the way we were (happy in many ways)....

Well, I'm also tired of giving away houses. That factors in somehow.

It's much better to be dirt poor and always on the verge of being Bailiffed...then nobody can take anything from you anyway and you can start each relationship with a clear head.

OK, so I'm probably not the best person to ask on this one - in that my other half and I have been together since we were 17 and 16 respectively. We've been married for 30 years this September. It hasn't been easy and it hasn't been a smooth and trouble free relationship. We've both been twits from time to time but we do have a commitment to each other and to the kids that supercedes that. Now, as we approach our dotage, we've got all that shared stuff between us. It's been worth the silliness, the heartaches and the pain. It's also been worth the joy, the fun times and the deep understanding we have forged. We still argue, behave badly and piss each other off from time to time but these days, by and large, taking the rough with the smooth and every other platitude going, it's pretty good. I'm not sure you can ask for more.

Maybe I'm odd, but I really fail to understand this obsession with weddings and marriage etc. At the end of the day I think it's more important what's going on between two people and whether they get on with each other, rather than make a statement and put everything on the "right" and "proper" tracks for everybody else around them. If you have a relationship that works, i.e. that doesn't drag you down and interferes with your own life in a negative way, but makes you content and occasionally happy instead, then I think you're quite a lucky person! (It would be a different situation if you were to have kids together, granted, but even without marriage there are ways to get the legal side of it organised to fit everyody's needs and rights). And who's putting a gun to your heads to get married right now anyway? Why not wait and see how it goes, and who knows, maybe in a few years time you might have left the past behind and shed that jadedness to an extent you both reach a point when you want to think about getting married again. (In any case, I think RhodeIslandGirl's advice about a pre-nuptial agreement is not a bad one). I'd say follow your intuition, and by that I mean give yourself some time and think everything through and talk everything over until your head and heart can come to some kind of agreement. [%sig%]

Tony, I love to hear stories like that, and I think that that's what human beings crave most, despite much of our bravado, to share a history with someone and learn as we go along. It's easy to get addicted to presenting oneself as perfect all the time. The thing about a good relationship is that there is not the need, and indeed, even the bad bits are understood and empathised with (if not at the time). Your post put a tear in my eye. (a genuine one, not a sarcastic one).

Yes - I know how lucky we are - but what I wanted to stress was that it has been, and still is from time to time, hard work! I agree with pschmitt - there's no need to get married these days. I don't give a monkey's if my kids marry or not. My eldest has, my middle one lives with his partner and the youngest has even gone to University yet - but is in a relatively 'heavy' relationship. I think it depends on how you fell between you at the time. Marriage does make a commitment somehow more real - but it can also create more problems that it mends. Horses for courses, I guess.