Well, first let me say; this is great. This is just what these threads are supposed to be. All our issues are complicated, and even more complicated by the common issue of depression. And maybe I'm wrong, but I believe that perhaps people here are more vulnerable to depression because we 'feel' more deeply than most.
Things don't get sorted out unless they are first written down. Don't any body feel sorry for writing the wrong thing on a post. But let me begin with a stanza worth repeating:
4EverMe wrote:It is good to be loved,
But better it is to love...
Precisely why this pain
Stabs worse!
So true (and so misunderstood). Jack Cornfield quoted someone else [can't remember who] that: '...a furnace doesn't need the warmth' and in that respect we are the furnace.
We don't need love as much as we need to love. A big part of the problem comes from how people define love. And that ties in to Sara's question about love, and respect, and physical intimacy. So many people admit that love is a verb, but then they treat it like a noun; something to acquire, to possess, to give away. This gets back, again to love as an act of giving or a fact of currency, because currency is a thing, a noun (even as intangible as is often is) and an action can only happen. Then it's gone. It is either a fantasy for the future or a memory of the past, but only a fact right now.
So I'm going to define love as I see it. Might clear up some things about risk and (inevitable) pain and (optional) suffering. But I have to get to work first.
Later.