Almighty Dad | A stay at home dad blog

I sat down yesterday, and I wrote an entire article about the subject of love.  It wasn’t terrible, but it was entirely too philosophical and sounded just a tad high-minded.  Besides, after two pages, I realized it could go on forever.  Nobody wants to read the ramblings of an average guy trying to sound smarter than he really is.  Now I’m starting over with a narrower scope hoping I can convey this single idea rather than give a dissertation about why I think love is a messy and unnecessary word. 

There’s a book called Love is a Decision – and I read it!  The basic premise is that love is not an accident, that it requires the conscientious effort of both partners to foster a loving relationship.  Barring the fact that my 15 bucks probably could have been better spent on beer, the book wasn’t untrue; it was just obvious.  Every Christian probably knows about the 4 words the Greeks used for love (I’m certain you’ve heard at least a dozen sermons on it), eros, philia, agape and storge.  It’s like the Eskimos having 50 words for snow; sometimes you just need a more precise description.  Eros doesn’t last long in marriage, and marriages that rely on it invariably fail.  Therefore, a lot of people suggest couples should instead work to foster philia or agape rather than eros (which unfortunately get’s old quickly).  While that is probably sound advice, I don’t think love is purely a decision.  If that were true then, through sheer willpower, I could marry anybody and learn to love them, and I don’t think that’s possible.  I think the love you feel for a spouse is equal parts decision, destiny and luck. 

Getting in Harmony: 

My theory about making a marriage last has to do with getting on the same frequency as your partner.  I think love in marriage is relative.  It is not determined by how passionately you feel for each other. It’s about how passionately you feel relative to each other.  For instance, two dispassionate people could create a lasting and loving relationship, regardless of how cold they appear to you and me, because their frequencies could be closely enough matched to create a stable relationship.  All they need to do is make a decision to more perfectly match those frequencies so that they can live in harmony.  When that happens, they’ll feel a kind of love for each other that lasts.  Likewise two reasonably passionate people could have a different looking but no less successful marriage if they followed the same philosophy.  Neither of the two couples would be any more likely to divorce because each of them has found harmony in their relationship.  Love, therefore, is a relative concept.  Mine won’t look the same as yours.  The objective in marriage is to be reasonably compatible in the first place and to work thereafter to find a common and comfortable frequency on which to sustain the marriage. 

The Luck Factor: 

Sometimes you just get unlucky.  Getting hit by a meteor is unlucky.  So is marrying someone who undergoes a rapid personality change after marriage.  Contrary to popular belief, people do change.  Sometimes for the better, and sometimes for the worse.  Marriages are sometimes not destined to work.  There’s nothing you can do about it; it’s just bad luck.  Successful marriages rely, in part, on being fortunate enough to have picked someone who isn’t, in the future, going to deviate to far from where they began. 

Destiny: 

Do you think your marriage is an act of divine destiny?  It isn’t.  What most people ascribe to fortunate destiny is really the product of having a big pool of choices and being smart enough to make the right one.  Destiny, therefore, is of your own making.  For example, imagine I can’t find a job, and I move to New York City to look for one.  Two weeks after moving I end up finding a job in the garment district unloading trucks.  It’s a job, but not a great one.  Then, because I don’t like unloading trucks, I occupy my days talking to people about the clothes I’m unloading, about how fashionable they are and how they would look on so and so,  etc… . I begin to actively participate in my own circumstance.  One day, I end up saying something that impresses a famous designer who then asks me to come work for them as an intern.  Anyway, you get the picture.  I end up being the next big thing in fashion.  Is that destiny?  No, it’s a series of decisions I made to put myself in a position to have good fortune.  Marriage is just like that.  You could settle for whatever is available nearby, or you could keep a positive attitude, go looking, and see where life takes you.  There are no guarantees, but you’ll be more likely to find your destiny if you look for it. 

Love isn’t an easy topic to talk about.  For one, it’s hard to define.  It must be a necessary component to marriage, but it doesn’t have to be the same kind for everyone to be effective.  A better goal than love in marriage would be harmony, as that is a more concrete concept.  Love means too many things to be of any practical value.  You’ll know it when you feel it, but it shouldn’t be on the lesson plan.  Accept that luck has some part in marriage and that destiny is really just a series of individual decisions.   

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