Stoicism and Love: What the Stoics Say About Love

Love has been one of the biggest topics philosophers have been thinking about. It’s not surprising since all of us loved someone. We experience love with our family, friends, or even romantic partners. With regards to Stoicism, what do the Stoics say about love?

The Stoics say that love is a universal emotion where an individual admires another individual. Thus, the Stoics appreciate and accept the feeling as a part of life. However, Stoics are careful not to let love harm their rational thinking and not expect people to love them back.

This blog post will be focused on romantic love and Stoicism. of course, you can also apply the concepts to loving our family and friends. First, I will show you the basic concept of Stoicism in dating, whether a stoic man or woman. Then, I will discuss how Stoics love, what they thought of love, and marriage.

What do Stoics say about love?

One of the common misconceptions of Stoicism is that Stoics are emotionless.

The truth is, emotions are universal. Thus, all people experience them.

Because love is an emotion, Stoics also feel love.

As proof, there were texts found where Marcus Aurelius and Seneca wrote about love to their wives.

Thus, the concept of love is often discussed in Stoicism.

To young Stoics, it can be hard to try making things coherent. How can dating, love, and Stoicism come together if Stoicism is all about being rational and logical?

That’s what this blog post is all about. We will be discussing how to make these concepts coherent to Stoics, especially young Stoics who are confused with Stoicism and relationships.

To start, we need to review the dichotomy of control, one of Stoicism’s core fundamentals.

The simplest explanation of the dichotomy of control is that everything that happens in our lives can be divided into two, which are things we can’t and can control.

In love, we can control things, such as how we love the person, and things we can’t control, such as the love we will be getting from them.

The Stoics believe that loving another person is a thing we can control. However, we can’t control others.

This means we can’t expect others to love us back. However, we have control over loving others.

Since Stoicism is about being resilient and strong, the Stoics love without expecting something in return. Because we can’t control other people’s actions, we shouldn’t expect them to love us back.

That way, since we are not expecting, we won’t be hurt if someone doesn’t reciprocate our love. Most people see love as a give and take. However, take note that what you can only control is giving.

By doing this, if ever the person we love won’t love us back, we can stay strong and get over it fast.

We won’t regret anything since we did our best to love them.

The Stoic knows how to accept fate. They can do their best, but they also know not to expect.

Don’t forget yourself when loving. Be logical. Accept fate, especially if the one you love doesn’t love you back.

Finally, with regards to fate, you have to understand the impermanence of things.

The Stoics believe in the impermanence of things which means not everyone or everything around you is permanent.

Today, the person you dating might like you, but there might come a day when they won’t love you back anymore.

Things change.

Life is unpredictable. One day, you have someone around you, and another day, you may lose them.

That’s why the Stoics are instructed to love without expecting and to love as long as they can.

That means you seize every chance you have to love your partner. Seize every opportunity to love your friends. Then, while the chance is there, love them.

That way, you won’t have any regrets.

As a Stoics, if you’re on a date with your partner, then make the most out of your time together. Enjoy the present situation.

As long as love doesn’t harm your logical thinking, don’t hold back. The only time to think about your love is when it starts to harm your logical thinking.

But how does that work? What do I mean by love not harming our logical thinking?

To explain that, I need to discuss love, emotions, and Stoicism which you will find in the next section.

For a guide on dating a Stoic, feel free to check this post: Can you date a Stoic?

Do Stoic people fall in love?

Stoic people fall in love because love is a universal emotion, and everyone can experience them. However, the Stoics also understand that too much love can cause people to be irrational. That’s why Stoics know how to control and react appropriately to love so they can remain rational in these situations.

As of now, we discussed how stoics should love others without expecting in return and seize every moment to love others.

However, we still need to discuss if Stoics fall in love.

I often see in forums that people practicing Stoicism are confused as they try to control their emotions because they start to feel in love with another person.

The truth is, that is the wrong approach to love. Instead, Stoics need to accept love as it is an emotion where you feel attached to a person.

Let’s come back to the dichotomy of control.

Remember that love is an emotion, and all of us can feel emotions. It is a fact of life, and trying not to fall in love is against the dichotomy of control.

Instead of trying not to feel love, a Stoic should learn how to react to these emotions.

A Stoic should accept and feel love. Love is an emotion. It is a feeling.

However, Stoics should not let love harm their rational thinking.

The Stoics stay away from passion. In context, passion, according to Stoics, is intense emotions capable of harming our rational thinking.

Since love is an emotion, it is also capable of turning into passion.

The problem here is that intense love can cause us to do irrational things.

Some irrational things can be forcing your partner to love you back or spending everything you have just to satisfy your partner.

When it comes to extreme things such as these, Stoics should learn how to control themselves. For example, they shouldn’t let love harm their logical thinking.

We all have free will. Stoicism is about using that free will to our benefit.

To make the most out of your free will, Stoics should know how to control love to prevent it from turning into a passion that can harm our rational thinking.

For a blog post talking about freedom, free will, and Stoicism, feel free to check this blog post: Stoicism and Freedom.

Now that we understand love and Stoicism, we need to talk about the drawback of Stoicism when it comes to love.

I want you to be aware since Stoicism is not all about loving endlessly. You should also know how Stoicism can harm your relationships.

A problem with Stoicism and love is emotional attachment.

We are emotional creatures. In fact, many people think that improving their relationship means connecting better on the emotional level.

However, this could require a person to experience passion.

Since Stoics are trying to stay away from passion, it might feel like the relationship is not improving in the other person’s view.

That may be the reason why most young Stoics are confused. Their feelings want their love to become a passion for deepening their relationship, but their logical thinking prevents it from happening.

It might also be why someone in a long-term relationship with a Stoic can feel their relationship isn’t going anywhere.

Now that you have both the benefits and drawbacks of love, according to Stoics, let’s bring it to the next level.

Do Stoics believe in marriage?

The Stoics believe in marriage. In fact, famous Stoics such as Marcus Aurelius and Seneca have been found to write messages about love to their wives. Since Stoics accept love as an emotion, it is also common for them to believe in dating and marriage.

Lastly, marriage.

The Stoics believe in marriage. As a matter of fact, we can see texts from Stoics where they write about love for their wives.

The fact that they have wives means some ancient Stoics are married individuals.

The Stoics are taught to love whenever they see chance and to love without expecting something in return.

From these, we can infer that Stoics believe in marriage.

I know I kept things about Stoicism, love, and marriage simple.

We do not need to complicate how Stoics view love.

With this, you now have a complete understanding of Stoicism and love. You’ve seen how Stoics view love, the limit of loving, and the drawback of Stoicism when it comes to love.

What’s next? I know love can also be disappointing. The good news is Stoicism offers ways to handle disappointment. Here is my blog post talking about the topic: How Stoics deal with disappointment