Can love vanish at once?

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
My favorite book/movie of all time is "Gone With the Wind." I am going to go to the last scene where Scarlett is begging Rhett for another chance after she decides she loves him, not Ashley. Rhett says something like, "Scarlett, has it ever occurred to you that even a deathless love can die?"
She says something like, "But you said you LOVED me."
And he says, something like, "I did."
"Well, love can't just die!" she says, trying again.
"Yours for Ashley did," he says.

Do you think love can die just that fast? Or is this just a dramatic moment in a marvelous book? Can you wake up one morning, suddenly see something different in a partner or somebody else you love, and suddenly not have feelings for them? Is it individual, depending on the person?j

I thought about this when I flipped to this chapter of "Gone With the Wind" and decided I do think it can. But I think it is after a long, hard haul with the person and something to bring something new and unacceptable to light.

How do you feel about Margaret Mitchell's ending to Rhett's love for Scarlett and Scarlett's alleged "I never loved him" about Ashley? Apply it to real life, if you think you can.

By the way, I have owned six copies of this book and have reread it I don't know how many times. I like it more than the movie, but I like the movie too.
 

Lil

Well-Known Member
How do you feel about Margaret Mitchell's ending to Rhett's love for Scarlett and Scarlett's alleged "I never loved him" about Ashley? Apply it to real life, if you think you can.

I don't think Scarlett ever loved Ashley. She just thought she did. I think that people mistake attraction, infatuation and obsession with love. Or they just want something, maybe a way of life, so bad they mistake something less than love, for love. When my ex asked me why I loved him once, and the only reason I could think of was, "because you love me", I realized I didn't actually love him at all. In fact, I didn't even like him. Since he never really loved me either, I guess that was kind of fair.

As for Rhett, well, I don't think love "dies". I do think it can be killed.

I have never read Gone With the Wind.
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
Lil, I'm not a big fan of Civil War stories and I look at 1,000 page books and laugh. But I could not put this down. I was walking around the house into walls while reading. It is one of the most honest and best learning experiences to read about the truth of the Civil War from the southern side. I learned more from it than I ever learned in school. It made me laugh and cry and it was so well written. I highly recommend it. The movie is garbage compared to the book. Scarlett actually has three chidlren. Bonnie dies, but you do feel a little more hopeful because she had a child with her first husband, Charles, and with Frank Kennedy. Melody is amazing and that comes through more in the book than the movie. Scarlett spends most of her life trying to stop Ashley from falling after his world falls apart...he is not a strong man, but the book really shows yout hat without Scarlett he could not make it. And Melody (and Melody is aware of his weakness).

I think it is a book that everyone should read at least once. The book is not as depressing as the movie. More stuff happens in between. A movie has to condense everything into a shorter version of any book. The only movie I ever saw that I felt was as good as the book was "Misery" by Stephen King. All the other movies fall short of the books. But I am a big reader. I favor the longer version...

I do think she loved Ashley, in denial of how weak he really was, but stopped loving him when she had a lightbulb moment when Melody died. She actually saw that he was playing her and loved his wife and, worse, was helpless without her, which made Rhett suddenly become the strong man that he actually was. By then Rhett had lost bonnie, his love, and was tired of "Ashley, Ashley, Ashley"...she would not sleep with Rhett because Ashley and Melody were supposedly not sleeping together because if Melody got pregnant again she could die (and, indeed, she did and she died). Rhett was hurt and angry and made Bonnie his love, but when she died, as he said "she took everything."

Great read.
 

Lil

Well-Known Member
I've heard it was an amazing book, just never actually got around to it. I do agree, books are pretty much always better than the movies...Misery being very close and the only one I can think of that I felt that way about. Totally agree with you.

I suspect the book gives you a lot more insight into Scarlett's feelings for Ashley than the movie did.
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
Well, it did, but you could see that she was pretty much doing what we do to our Difficult Child...enabling his helplessness. And he had a few meltdowns where he almost betrayed his wife because of his attraction to Scarlett and she was ready to "do it" but he backed off every time and said, "NO! NO! We will NOT." Once he planned to leave with Melody, but she used Melody's love for her (Melody had no idea that Scarlet loved her husband) and Scarlett talked Melody into staying on Tara with her by crying and saying Ashley was ungrateful and wouldn't stay and help her when she had offered him half interest in her mill. He had wanted to strike out on his own or felt he never would. You really got to see how browbeaten Ashley was when he said, bitterly, "Scarlett, look at me. I will stay here. I won't go to Atlanta. I can't fight you both." He turned and walked away, but you know Scarlett knows that he isn't happy about it and that she is feeling badly about it...however not enough to tell him she's changed her mind. She was selfish until the very end, yet I admired her strength. Man, she was the first strong woman written about. She was a feminist; a survivor. But she was very seflish too. Yet i doubt most people who read the book dislike her. She was a very interesting mix.

Read it one day.
 

everywoman

Well-Known Member
I've read it over and over since I was about 14. I think it takes years for love to end. I was married to ex for 23 years. The last 5 were horrid. The lies and his addiction killed the love I must have once felt. Once it was gone, it was gone.

If you like GWTW, I recommend reading Margaret walker's Jubilee. It is a similar story, but from the point of view of a slave.
 

svengandhi

Well-Known Member
I read GWTW for the first and last time when I was 12. I enjoyed it, though I didn't really "get" the Southerness of it, being a child who lived in a housing project in the South Bronx. I saw the movie in the theater when it was released for some anniversary, possibly the 30th, Like SWOT, I enjoyed the book more but have seen the movie again.

To me, Scarlett is a total NPD, combined with borderline. She reminded me so much of my sister, who even at age 8 was a histrionic drama queen and she is, therefore, one of my least favorite movie heroines. I actually cheered for Rhett when he left her on the doorway.

As for can love die, from my experience, I say yes. When H cheated on me and I found out, I still loved him and wanted to work it out. One day, I walked in and found him on the phone with his POS. I began screaming, grabbed the phone and screamed at it and slammed the phone down before walking out of the room. I hadn't even reached the door when he picked up the phone, dialed it back and APOLOGIZED for the mean way I spoke to it. I literally felt the love for him leave my body at that moment and it's never come back, more than 10 years later. I won't divorce him and I care about him as the father of my children, but my love for him is dead and gone.
 

Scent of Cedar *

Well-Known Member
(Melody had no idea that Scarlet loved her husband)

Melanie.

:O)

I love Gone With the Wind, too. I've read it all my life, over and over again. Sometimes I love the strength and wildness of Scarlet, but I admire the Melanie character and believe, in my secret heart, that this is how all Southern ladies are.

I think you would enjoy ShoGun, by James Clavell, SWOT.

I think we do not fall out of love with our people. I think we stop believing in them.

That is what happened with my sister, I think. For such a long time, I believed about her what I wanted to. Now, I cannot seem to believe in the good in her, anymore. She looks ugly to me, now.

I feel tricked, but I guess it turns out I was tricking myself.

Huh.

With my kids, the thing I stopped believing in turned out to be my fantasy child. Or maybe, it was myself as the fantasy mom that I stopped believing was me. It was like I had stuffed both them and myself into this ready-made role. MAN, I ENJOYED BEING PERFECT WHILE IT LASTED!

I did.

I would trade all this wisdom and compassion for that "perfect" in a minute.

And we would all have dinner and the cloth and napkins would be white linen and there would be candles and a freaking centerpiece from FTD.

Ahem. There is that dinner theme again.

Too sad, too much pain; whoa, it was bad, to live the years between perfect and now.

I loved them enough, it was real enough underneath, that we seem to have survived what then happened to all of us.

It is what it is.

***

Between mates, I think what I see is trust over time. I cherish and respect my D H for his judgment, for his unwavering choice of me again and again, for his belief in me. But we did not get here easily. We began it like everyone does. D H was like ~ I don't know. Irresistable to me. I think it is rare for a marriage to distill over time as ours has.

It is a living thing, to this day.

I am going to miss him.

Cedar
 

Scent of Cedar *

Well-Known Member
I literally felt the love for him leave my body at that moment and it's never come back, more than 10 years later. I won't divorce him and I care about him as the father of my children, but my love for him is dead and gone.

That would have done it for me, too.

You learn they never were who you thought they were, and you never believe in them, again.

In that instant, the love dies.

So, love can die. Maybe, love dies all the time. There are those for whom we resurrect it. D H did not do that, to me, svengandi. I would not believe in him again, if he had. I would believe that is who he was, what he did. Thinking about our own times of betrayal...there have been some times I felt that same draining of all feeling. It was like an echo, that place where those feelings had been only moments before.

You are right. I still feel that same echo in that place where those memories are.

Cedar
 

witzend

Well-Known Member
I think that for Scarlett and Rhett hope died. I still love my kids but I have no hope whatsoever that it will ever be a fruitful relationship. I won't waste my love where there is no hope of a healthy relationship.

I also think that Rhett and Scarlett mulled their love for each other and Ashley's place in their lives over time and time again in the book and it wasn't just a last minute decision. They just reached a point where they knew it was hopeless.
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
Scarlett still loved Rhett or thought she did at the end.

Melanie!!!! How could somebody who read that book so many times call her Melody????

:angry-very2:
 

witzend

Well-Known Member
I think that for Scarlett and Rhett hope died. I still love my kids but I have no hope whatsoever that it will ever be a fruitful relationship. I won't waste my love where there is no hope of a healthy relationship.

I also think that Rhett and Scarlett mulled their love for each other and Ashley's place in their lives over time and time again in the book and it wasn't just a last minute decision. They just reached a point where they knew it was hopeless.
 

Confused

Well-Known Member
What is sad, I cant remember this book! I believe I read when I was younger, but my stress level has been so high I cant seem to obtain or remember much anymore! But its a good question, honestly, at least for me,so far the love never quit for someone over night no matter how bad something happened. It took a while. Of course I attach easily in the first place depending on things.
 

susiestar

Roll With It
I haven't read the book or seen the movie but a friend spent hours of our childhood telling me all about it and how wonderful it was. The pressure turned me away completely, stubborn cuss that I am.

I do believe that real love isn't like a light switch. Youo cannot just turn it off suddenly. Many people think they are in love with someone when they are in love with the idea of love rather than the person. When you are in love with the idea of love, that can turn off like a switch because it isn't attached to the person you are with. You can just turn on them quickly because they are not meeting your ideal and you are not attached them them.

Just my 2 cents.
 

Scent of Cedar *

Well-Known Member
Many people think they are in love with someone when they are in love with the idea of love rather than the person.

True.

I think maybe some of us are in love with the idea of being married. I am, for sure. I think D H probably is, too. Maybe that is why some of us stay married and fall in love with one another over and over again, and some of us pull an Arnold: "Hasta la vista, baby."

Correctly spelled, of course.

D H loves to play that Eagles song about the woman who had to eat her lunch all by herself because he was already gone.

I mean, he loves that song.

We also like the one about "You're still the one." We love (and sing it to one another all the time) the line where he says: "We've been together since who knows when ~ and I never want to see you, again."

And we like that one about the woman who has to know "right now" and the man who promises to marry her and then, there they are, stuck. I can't think of it right now, but both male and female are singing their hearts out about what a mistake that turned out to be.

Meatloaf is the male singer.

We love stuff like that.

D H loves Rolling Stone "I'll never be your beast of burden...."

Gaaaaaa.

:O)

Cedar

I am very sure Rhett and Scarlett come back together. Rhett will go to England or wherever trying to forget Scarlett, but he never will be able to. He will show up back in Atlanta, and marry Belle Watling, because she has a heart of gold. Her child will turn out to be Rhett's son.

Rhett will accidentally sleep with Scarlett on the side.

That's how life happens, right? In the end, it is always so good to see people we slept with once.

That was a joke.

I hardly ever sleep around.
 

witzend

Well-Known Member
I think that for Scarlett and Rhett hope died. I still love my kids but I have no hope whatsoever that it will ever be a fruitful relationship. I won't waste my love where there is no hope of a healthy relationship.

I also think that Rhett and Scarlett mulled their love for each other and Ashley's place in their lives over time and time again in the book and it wasn't just a last minute decision. He was quite a bit older than her, and he just reached a point where he knew it was hopeless.
 

Scent of Cedar *

Well-Known Member
He was quite a bit older than her, and he just reached a point where he knew it was hopeless.

That could be Witz? But I think Scarlett would have grown through the pain of realizing the fool she'd been over Ashley, over having convinced herself Ashley was who she needed him to be.

Maybe that is the magic in that book, the thing that we find in it, generation after generation. (Both my granddaughters have read GWTW. Plus we watch the movie when they are home with us. And Love Story. Remember that one? We love it. And ET, the Extra Terrestrial.)

We cling so stubbornly to what we believe is true.

Witz, my heart aches for you. You have had it worse than me. I am so angry for your sake. I would like to punch that husband in the nose. What a destructive so and so.

It is unbelievable, what we do to one another.

I know you have gone on to create a full and beautiful life, Witz.

You win.

But I hate the hurt of it, for you.

Cedar
 
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