Just my two bits...
AFAICT...
Romantic love involves an all-consuming dependency on each other.
Lasting love is in large part about mutual trust, which empowers the same mutual dependency.
It's a debilitating bliss, to be sure., but a liberating, exhilarating one beyond price.
In love, as in faith, there is a certain strength in surrender...
for both men and women.
A woman can place ultimate priority on her strong-willed independence,
and then hope for a man she can dominate and ultimately lose respect for.
A man place a priority on getting sex, and hope for women (plural!)
he can objectify, degrade, and abuse to inflame his frustration.
In a successful relationship there's plenty of empowerment and strength,
and tons of increasingly breath-taking sex, even after many, many years.
Without fear of mutual dependency, two really do become one.
A self-assured, independent person isn't afraid to take a backseat to the person they love.
I can attest that this is can (again) be debilitating, in a comical way, for example
the matter of deciding on a restaurant:
(You decide/ No, you decide/ No, please, I want you to choose what you like/ argh, haha/ etc..)
It all ends up in a warm curling-up together ANYWAY, so maybe the particular food doesn't matter,
no?
h
