Love is pain

The argument

Love is not the pleasurable, light-hearted experience it is framed as being. Fundamentally, it is destined to bring the individual nothing but pain. Most incidents of love end painfully, either from being unrequited, from one party having their heart broken, or from the sustained heartache of two people growing apart. This tendency to be hurt so deeply by love not being returned is, in reality, love's pivotal feature. Many things can make us happy, but nothing can make us heart so deeply, be so vulnerable, or be so raw as love can. Philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre proposes that even that act of being in mutual love is a constant act of pain. We rely on the other person in our relationship to make us exist, we constantly are focussed on the other person seeing us how we want them to, on ensuring they continually love us. This is not a pleasurable experience; rather, love is a "hazardous, painful struggle" in which each party is treating the other or themselves as an object. Other explanations of love focus on the positives - the happiness, the endorphins. However, the true epitome of love is in reality the pain that comes with it.

Premises

Counter-arguments

This argument mistakes love's risks for its essence. That love can end in heartbreak shows it is capable of causing pain, not that pain is what love fundamentally is — by the same logic any deep attachment, friendship or ambition would be defined by its capacity to disappoint. It also generalises selectively: painful endings are more memorable than quiet, enduring contentment, so building a definition from breakups and unrequited longing overweights the dramatic cases and ignores the many relationships that are sources of sustained joy, security and meaning. Sartre's 'hazardous struggle', moreover, describes a particular failure of love — the attempt to possess another's freedom — not love as such; his own account allows for authentic relation. And even granting the position that love is 'pure emotion', pain is only one emotion among many it involves, so singling it out as the true epitome is asserted rather than shown.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] That much love ends painfully reflects the salience of heartbreak and the selection of memorable cases, not that pain rather than joy or security is love's defining feature. [Rejecting P3] Sartre describes a failure mode of love — the doomed attempt to possess another's freedom — not the nature of love itself, which his philosophy also allows to be authentic.