My daughter was recently on display at her school's Fiddler, on the Roof. She was one of the daughters. If you don’t know the story, it focuses on the changing culture of marriage, from where marriage is arranged based on mutual attraction by family and community.
In one song, the protagonist asks his wife if she loves him. She answers that for 25 years she has shared her bed, made her meals, taken care of her house, raised her children - so what is the question? The point is, in their relationship, love was not a question or even a consideration. But after a while, they decide that, really, they love each other.
This made me think about what I knew about marriage. And here's what I think about the question of love and marriage: We fall in love to be together, then spend the rest of our lives learning to love others.
You see, the initial attraction is really about the "I". "I" definitely feel, so I know I'm "in love." But that part of the relationship is driven by my need to feel that way, my need to be with another person, my need to meet my needs. My needs are fueled by my desire to experience the intense feeling of "being in love".
But actually, love is a verb that I use for another. So, it takes me the rest of my life to learn how to meet the needs of my spouse. From my desire to be with my spouse comes my desire to meet the love needs of my spouse.
The overwhelming feeling of attraction makes us “stupid” in commitment, and then we have to constantly strive to build a relationship. I say "stupid" because our culture teaches us that love is the foundation of a relationship not. This is only a temporary starting point. It is not a destination. It's just a part of a lifelong relationship, journey.
Those intense emotions will subside over time. The overwhelming need to be with someone who marks part of a relationship is not sustainable on its own. It's like putting a flame in a bottle. Eventually, the flame will burn and dry out all the oxygen in the bottle.
Therefore, there must be some "fuel of fire." This is the verb "love." When I work lovingly, I fuel the fire and keep it burning. If I stop paying attention to someone else's needs because I don't feel that love, the relationship will slowly (or not slowly) die.
When we believe that "love" (infatuation) is the heart of the relationship, when that feeling disappears, we believe that we are no longer in love. It is not; We just failed to put out the fire.
Reality TV has proven that any two people can fall in love with the right circumstances and setting (the chemistry of fascination). But the story after story shows that it is difficult to switch to "true love" coming from action. Choose action, and don't be fooled by chemistry.
By acting on love, making love not an emotion but a verb, we keep the emotional fire burning. And that's the great irony: If we rely on the feeling of being in love to keep us together, it will fail. But if we put it aside and focus on being loving, the feeling of being in love lasts. Mature love is a verb, not an emotion.
Great write
Thank you
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