Who believes that love is a two-way street?

Love is a two-way street. Traffic ebbs and flows in either direction. It doesn’t need to be exactly balanced.

I have had it be two ways. Good luck finding someone where you can have it both ways too.

I agree with @fluthernutter. Love is a two-way street that yes, ebbs and flows and isn’t always equally balanced. That’s been my experience in the past and it is my experience now. I love my husband and feel loved by him in return. There are times when I think he loves me more than I love him and vice-versa. There are times I love him more than he loves me. I don’t think the difference in our love for each other is pronounced, but as @fluthernutter wrote, it’s the nature of love to ebb and flow.

^ There are times when I think he loves me more than I love him and vice-versa. There are times I love him more than he loves me.
That reciprocity of love is what creates your relationship. Would it still be a two-way street if you loved him, but he did not love you or cared that you did? There would be no relationship, but you would be the only on in love and in love with one who was not giving it back; how is that a two-way street of love?

I wouldn’t be with him @Hypocrisy_Central. I’m not that desperate. I think that would be incredibly sad and painful and I don’t need that in my life.

I believe that it usually is reciprocal but that does not negate the concept of unrequited love. Both exist.

You can of course have unrequited love. Some people do enjoy having crushes but that’s not for me. I think that we are talking about relationships here. And for love within relationships to flourish and grow, it has to be present on both sides. I want a relationship with someone, not to admire them from afar as if they were a work of art or actor (I do love John Cusack but in the same way i love pizza)

Love is many things, but felt in an individual capacity. Relationships are the give and take alliance associated with love.

“Love” is always unfolding or not unfolding in the moment. Yes, there can be ebbs and flows but if the flow becomes dammed up on either side for long, the love dam bursts.
This is why I do not believe in ” forever” when it comes to love. At best a love relationship is a renewable contract with either party reserving the right to renounce their love at any time.

Love is a choice not some out of control emotional force. One can choose to love another or not love another in a manner that may or may not work for the other party.
Love is about freedom, most peoples idea of love is more about taking hostages.
You WILL love me, forever! lol

@Hypocrisy_Central I have always thought that although that expression/truism uses the word “love”, it means a successful loving relationship, so in that case, I don’t think you actually disagree with in the intent of what it says.

Another way of reading it, is that even though love is a two-way street, people often don’t act like it is, or don’t use it as one. Using it in both ways works best, but as in traffic, it requires cooperation, consideration, alertness, and agreement about what the rules are, or there can be congestion, upsets, accidents and injuries.

Again, it doesn’t seem like you really disagree with the phrase, unless you interpret it some other way.

As other people have pointed out, love can be a two-way street, but it isn’t always. I also believe that there are people out there who, even knowing they love someone but aren’t loved back, are ultimately okay with it. Because when you truly love someone, you want them to be happy – whether or not they end up with you.

”It has seemed to me lately more possible than I knew, to carry a friendship greatly, on one side, without due correspondence on the other. Why should I cumber myself with regrets that the receiver is not capacious? It never troubles the sun that some of his rays fall wide and vain into ungrateful space, and only a small part on the reflecting planet. Let your greatness educate the crude and cold companion. If he is unequal, he will presently pass away; but thou art enlarged by thy own shining, and, no longer a mate for frogs and worms, dost soar and burn with the gods of the empyrean. It is thought a disgrace to love unrequited. But the great will see that true love cannot be unrequited. True love transcends the unworthy object, and dwells and broods on the eternal, and when the poor interposed mask crumbles, it is not sad, but feels rid of so much earth, and feels its independency the surer. Yet these things may hardly be said without a sort of treachery to the relation. The essence of friendship is entireness, a total magnanimity and trust. It must not surmise or provide for infirmity. It treats its object as a god, that it may deify both.”

@Coloma “Love” is always unfolding or not unfolding in the moment.
Please expand that thinking is love a discovery or a science process?

This is why I do not believe in ” forever” when it comes to love. At best a love relationship is a renewable contract with either party reserving the right to renounce their love at any time.
If it is not forever, maybe it was never real. One has a dog while it is a puppy, I very, very rarely see people fall away from love of the beast when it grows up, or grows old, if anything they love it more. When it comes to who you share a life with, I never seen true love treated like I used to love Seattle, but I love Montana now for the big sky.

Love is a choice not some out of control emotional force.
Then it is a power most people are clueless to understand. Why would someone make themselves sick and depressed by having a fanatical love for someone who they know will never love them? They could make the choice to stop loving that person, sparing themselves much emotional grief.

@Zaku I have always thought that although that expression/truism uses the word “love”, it means a successful loving relationship, so in that case, I don’t think you actually disagree with in the intent of what it says.
In the purist form of the love virus that would be the case, but some (maybe many) take on the mutated form, they say they love but there are no roots or they really do not know love from a deep infatuation. A lot of people suffering the aforementioned condition believe it is love, but never knowing the effort and commitment real love requires.

@Hypocrisy_Central

Love relationships are living entities and prone to birth, growth and death like everything else.
Love is as real as the moment, people change and grow and grow into or out of a particular love relationship all the time. Just because a love relationship falls away does not mean the experience was not real when it was happening.
Yep, it is a choice but many emotionally immature people do not realize this and feel gravely victimized if their love interest rejects them.

@Hypocrisy_Central Yes, there’s a lot to learn about love, and many misconceptions and pitfalls. No one-liner is going to do it justice, nor make sense from every point of view.

Poetry – even just a one-line expression – is an invitation to further exploration.