Why do some guys feel that happiness is dependant on love?

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I think the idea is, in my mind, that finding someone you love should lead to starting a family. It can be a family of two, as it were (if you choose to not have kids), or maybe on the other hand you could choose to have many kids. Either way, it's still a family, and someone that will be with you for the rest of your life. In my case, my family that I have now won't be there forever. My parents will eventually pass on many years down the road, and unless i start a family of my own, there will be nobody to unconditionally love me when I'm an old man...

Toad, I see what you're saying...

I'm not sure it's possible to have "unconditional love" in that situation, though...look at it this way, you probably have all sorts of things you want from someone you plan to spend the rest of your life with, and things you wouldn't be able to stand. The same would be true for whoever you find. Then there are people who are looking for things in a partner that they never got from their parents, or otherwise fulfill some sort of unconscious need going way back in their lives. It seems like we're all looking for people who meet our needs (the "strings" attached)...but what happens to the relationship if we change, and our needs change?

Whereas since friends aren't expecting to live with you for the rest of their lives, and they're not trying to fulfill all sorts of unacknowledged and unmet needs from their childhoods, they're more likely to love you for who you are.

So...I agree with you that it would be fulfilling to get married and have a family...I'm just not sure that it would provide unconditional love, or that it's the only way to be happy. Does that make sense? Of course, YMMV.

"Unconditional love" is BS. I think it was another thread on this forum where I read something about that, and it basically said that love cannot be unconditional, because if your partner was to cheat on you - for example - then you'd obviously have a problem with that, and I couldn't agree more.

Most relationships end, even if you do love the other person and they love you, no matter who they are or how long you've been with them.

I know this is a guy's only thread, but I'm a girl and this is exactly the same for us. Single girls are treated differently by society than girls who are married or have a boyfriend, or have kids (or don't have them, or have them married, or single etc etc)...

Single women are often seen as independent. What a man thinks is, "Because she's too independent, how can I know she will make time for me?"

That's where the almighty compromise comes in. If you can love someone despite any given incompatibility, then the love is unconditional. That said, the love isn't necessarily going to stay unconditional forever and ever. It's something you and your partner need to work at indefinitely to maintain. But the security you feel when you know that you can go to sleep and she will still love you when you wake up just as she does now is completely worth it.

And friends have their own lives. Lives that you have no business being in. A friend could all of a sudden get a really good job halfway across the world, and have to pick up and leave right than and there. There's no animosity involved at all, just circumstance. In contrast, when you're in a relationship, you're in it together with someone close to you, and you'll end up staying together. Your circle of friends can deplete really quickly... in my experience, I lost nearly all of my friends after I graduated high school, and I get the idea that this is common for everybody. Therefore, in my mind, I'd rather have one really close relationship with someone I can fully share my life with, than to have 1,000 good friends. I end up not worrying about it then, and when I'm not as worried about my future I tend to feel more confident and more alive...

Actually its not BS.

How many people forgive their partner if they cheat on them, because they love them? A sh*tload.

If your partner was to do that and you did forgive them, you would still have a lower level of trust than you did before. If they were to then repeat their actions, quite frankly you'd be stupid to forgive them again. Therefore, the love is not completely unconditional.

How does lowered trust = less love? Trust is separate from love. I can trust someone and not love them. I can love someone and not trust them.

If you don't trust someone, it'd certainly damage the relationship. It will also change your perception of that person, and maybe open your eyes - after all, it's well known and often said that when someone is in love, they don't notice the person's flaws and generally think the person is 'perfect'. But if something like that happens and causes you to lose trust for the person, it could easily start affecting your love for the person as you can no longer have that line of thought. Odds are you'll also become increasingly paranoid and worried about the person's actions, which will serve to cause arguments and plague the mind of the person who's been cheated on, and would obviously damage the relationship further.

Separately from that, the general rule is when you love someone you trust them. As the two are related, it isn't unreasonable to expect the love to begin deteriorating once trust does.

The idea that when someone is in love, they don't notice flaws is a bunch of BS. That would be lust. When you love someone, you see them as they are-- flaws and all. You make a decision that you can accept the flaws and still love the person. When relationships deteriorate because of lack of trust, it isn't always because there is a lack of love. Someone can love someone and choose to end the relationship due to lack of trust. But lack of trust doesn't mean lack of love.

I'd certainly lose love for someone who cheated on me, that I can tell you for sure. And the fact the trust is gone will still damage the relationship to some degree, even if the theoretical person here is forgiving.

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Yes, it certainly damage the relationship, no doubt. But again, that doesn't change the love for a lot of people. Sorry for hijacking this thread