"If you love someone set them free" discussion.

The old saying is is that if you love someone set them free. If they return they are yours. If they don't, they never were (or something like that).

I always have problems with this saying.

How much freedom do you actually offer someone before that 'freedom' seems like a push away?

And if they return does it mean, well, they just haven't found anybody else yet?

How much tension and how much slack should we offer our partners/ girlfiends/boyfriends in the delicate thread that we call relationships? In other words we pull or grasp too tightly and they slip away. We let them be free, and they slip away.

What do you think? Any experiences to share?

"How much freedom do you actually offer someone before that 'freedom' seems like a push away?"

You give them all the space they need, so there is no limit to the freedom you give them.

"And if they return does it mean, well, they just haven't found anybody else yet?"

You never set your hopes to high when you have to let someone go, because by letting them go, you're suppose to be expecting them to never come back. So that means fully throwing away the leash.

A dog will always return to an old master they love, even after having a new one.

It comes down to how much they love you, and if they actually want to be free, doesn't it?

Well, I suppose it also depends in what context you choose to take the saying. I have trouble with this, because 'freedom' isn't as black and white as we'd like. Freedom from what, for example? Letting someone have space is a positive thing, but are we talking about letting a person have their own space, or are talking about letting them go altogether? It's difficult to answer without knowing what it really means.

Wait let me get this straight...You are refering to lovers everywhere as animals...Funny how that proverb can be twisted ever so slightly.

You are right, lovers do need freedom...

No Ismail, I am not refering to lovers as animals, I am merely using animals as a metaphor. You can interpret it however you wish, but what I mean is, if you let your lover go, they can either find a new lover, or go back to you, or even both. So you never know. That is also why I said, don't get your hopes to high.

Read my post Darien. You would see I just twisted the proverb, not accuse you of something...

Geez!!

Proverb or Pronoun?

What statement are you referring to??

"if you love someone set them free"

It may be a proverb or it may be an ancient cliche. Both of which are the same either way.

You lost me my friend. What does that have to do with animals?.. You twisted that one way above my head.

Nice rhyme though. :P

Lol...

Oh well...

I just said if you set a lover free and he comes back, won't that be the same like letting a animal loose in the wild after you domesticated it...Lol.

Lol, that makes sense now.

Well, only if you had them under the leash. :P

i agree with the statement

actually no i dont. why would u set free some1 u love?!?!?!

oh wait maybe....

nah...

You wouldn't force someone to stay in a relationship with you if you loved them. You would want whats best for them. Even if it means leaving you.

Darien:

'A dog will always return to it's old master' etc, is what you argue. Remember the old sayings: 'A man's best friend is is dog' and 'Diamonds are a girls best friend'. Sadly, suddenly your argument crumbles. And I really liked the hopeful metaphor.

To 'set someone free' is a gamble if you're hoping for them to return. However, if you are strong enough on your own it wont really matter - or will it??

sometimes freedom is good...even if you let them go...still be there...let them know not matter what the choice should be...stay behind them...and when you let them go...they will realize that you set them free to realize what they have lost....

Emma

Mel: 'A man's best friend is is dog' and 'Diamonds are a girls best friend'.

When best friends become their lover, then diamonds aren't forever and a man's best friend is his girlfriend.

That brings up another question, money or love?
My point still stands.

I find it so hard to let the person i love becasue they make me so happy. It is hard but i still do it because i do believe in that saying all the way.

Darien:

You lost me there, mate.

About the question referring about the saying that if you love someone you let them go if they come back they were yours if they don't they never were or will be....

States that when you love someone, and they either don't love you back or ask for something like freedom... and your heart gets crushed and you wonder why... but since you love them so...
and only want the best for them
you let them go. And if one day they do come back
you can look back to that saying that yes if they love you they will come back and if they never do come back it was never meant to happen meaning they never loved you.
And about freedom.........
Freedom can be stated in many ways, just you and your lover both together are free
you are free from love... you aint with that person
etc.. etc.. there are so many
Freedom is when you feel this ease, where you can breath and not give a ---- about anything or just that particular thing.
Aight I can go on and on... but yea.

love is an amazing thing well if you want the person to be happy let them go if you truly love them and don't have an infatuation or obsession let them gooooooo it's hard but it's for the best
it's not worth your heart and the pain

Mel:

You are saying that 'Diamonds are a girl's best friend', when 'a dog is a man's best friend' right?

But would most girls choose love or money?
Diamonds as her best friend, or a guy?

IF a girl could choose love over diamonds as being her best friend, I'm sure she will. So Diamonds aren't a girl's best friend. So my argument still stands.

many people have a diffrent opinion about this statement of *if you love someone set them free*
the way it is interpret is totally up to you. some may say it means if you love some one so much but they dont love you let let them go. and some say it mean if they love you too much maybe you should set them free. I think it means if you love someone but your afraid how they will feel you should set them free and if they come back then they love you but if they leave then well at least their still your friend

darien:

Man's best friend is is dog with the juxtaposition of: diamonds are a girls best friend is meant to be ironic in a jokey way.

I like this one. The worst way to miss someone is when they are standing right next to you yet you know you cant have them. I love that quote from experence.

my experience with this is:
if a guy you like likes you but doesn't really want to be with you, just for a casual one night stand, or insists on keeping an open-relationship -- I have said in the past -- No. Move along.

If your partner wants to be free, then let them go, no matter how much you love them...it's hard, but respect is worth more to me.

If they return, I'd ask so, have cheap motels lost their turn on? well, you know, only more politically correct..depending on how mad at them I was.

I've always felt that the word 'trust' is somehow involved in the whole freedom thing. You should probably trust the people you love. Sometimes maybe they end up leaving you. Sometimes you get screwed over by giving them freedom. But I think that if someone leaves you for good when you give them freedom, they were probably trying to leave regardless of the freedom you'd give them.

I don't think my idea of freedom can ever be seen as a push away. Freedom isn't dismissal, and shouldn't be mistaken for not caring about what the person does. I think that the freedom you'd grant a person is that they know in the end that they should make their decisions for themselves, and that you'll understand, even if you disagree.

I think that if they return that could mean they haven't found anyone else, but I think it could also mean that they chose you all over again. I don't think that the freedom you give is given in discreet spurts, but rather uniformly.

E.G.

I dated my girlfriend for 2.5 years. I went to college at UC Berkeley. She stayed a home. We tried for a long distance relationship, but for whatever reason, she broke up with me. She soon thereafter started dating another guy. During the break-up process, I actually might have used the saying that graces the title of this thread. I told her that I wanted her to stay with me, but it was her decision to make, and that me 'forcing' her to stay with me would only postpone our problems. She chose to break up with me.

Six months later, she broke up with her new boyfriend, and basically came back to me. I dunno what that really means in the context of 'what's too much freedom' and whether or not she 'found anybody else yet', but I'm glad that things turned out this way, and the end result makes me feel satisfied. Any thoughts on that?

I happen to love that saying and in my heart I believe it's true. I don't think it's about giving up slack to let your significant other run free as in just having other partners. I believe in the saying it's about letting go completely. Breaking all ties. My mother met a man when I was 5 years old and they fell in love but sadly troubles started when I was about 13...so they split up. When I was 18 or 19 they got back together. Now 2-3 years later and they're doing well. They let go of each other and found that it was real...it was supposed to be. For me THAT ALONE makes that statement true. My mother even married in the period of time they were apart and still it wasn't enough...he IS the man for her and now they know that. If there is something there and you split up you feel the NEED to go back....if the bond is that strong you will reunite and to me that's special. I don't know maybe I'm a hopeless romantic but I believe it's awesome.

Mel:

it wasn't that funny :P

Natalie and sean - well put and very interesting.

My opinion is this:

These days we live in a speedy 'MTV' culture where we just take chunks of this and chunks of that and throw them all together in an effort to come up with somekind of stability: not just within relationships but with everything.

We don't seem to have the time to 'date' properly, nor do we seem to have the time to give the other person space if either want it. Hence, many go from meeting to first kiss to sex to engagement ring to marriage within nano- seconds. Others go at the same pace but leave the rings out!

What I'm saying is that because we live in a culture of immediacy (western culture) we don't feel that we have the time to 'set anything free' to watch it grow, blossom and eventually return to us.
So we cut our losses and move on - or they do the same.

That quotation above: the 'set them free' was penned in much quieter times than these. I believe that if you don't 'grab' (bad word) what is in front of you (metaphorically), then someone else will.

I applied that saying to my life.

And the saying itself is very cute and inspiring so don't get me wrong.

But it doesn't mention the struggle it puts you through. If you love someone, so dearly, then it would nearly kill you inside to know that he'd rather be away.

For example, I let him go no matter how much it was tearing me apart day by day. I gave him the choice of returning to me, I never said "Just leave" i just stayed where i was and waited for him to talk to me. And he didn't notice or care. He obviously didn't love me back the way that I loved him, and THAT kind of pain, along with the torture of letting him go...its agony. Especially when he starts to "love" other people and you are looking at yourself now like, "What an idiot I was."

Some things you just don't want to know. I wish I didn't know that he doesn't care anything about me. But I do.

And although I do feel more detached from him now, you have to keep in mind that some wounds don't heal so easily. In the end, I realized my own weakness and started talking to him again first.

Trust me, its a HARD and TERRIBLE thing to do to yourself.

But then again, if your love story doesn't turn out a failure like mine, that extra encouragement could help you, not harm you.

So you gotta look both ways on that one. It hurts really really really really really really badly. And I can't believe I even attempted to apply that theory in my life with my only love.

Grr. i still smack myself over it.

in response to Mel:

I think that a lot of the things you said made sense, about the immediacy of modern culture. I don't like living that way though, and I don't really plan on playing that game. I know it is relatively pointless to bring in my personal conviction into an argument like this, since we're sort of doing a generalization, but I think my girlfriend and I are going to be just fine, and we'll take our time going about our romance. I don't think that the saying doesn't mean you should sieze the day. When I think of what it means to NOT set someone free, I think of begging and groveling for them to stay, for them to change their minds. I think of extreme selfishness and a lack of humility. Those characteristics do seem to be omnipresent in modern society, but I don't think they have to be on an individual level.

In response to the post above:

I agree that living by that saying is excrutiating at times, as I've done my best to live by it (or my understanding of it - it seems that people might have different interpretations of what freedom is and how you give it to someone). But I think things are going to end up working out in the end, and hopefully you can feel that way someday too.

Thanks. I hope things work out better for us both in the end, too. But for the long year it has been without him, I regret ever doing it.

Then again, there may be someone for me right around the corner....so waiting it out is the only option I guess i have at the moment.

But thanks