“Brothers, love is a teacher, but one must know how to acquire it, for it is difficult to acquire , it is dearly bought, by long work over a long time, for one ought to love not for a chance moment but for all time. Anyone, even a wicked man, can love by chance.” The Brothers Karamozov by Fyodor Dostoevsky.
Love and marriage, love and marriage… Sinatra (and the theme song for Married with Children), tell us that “they go together like a horse and carriage… you can’t have one without the other”. It’s interesting that we talk about marriage as if it’s a rational choice: weigh the options, make a plan, be sure about what you’re doing. (All of which is good advice about buying a car, let alone making a decision that will affect the rest of your life.) But, we talk about love as if it is an insurmountable, inexplicable, uncontrollable force. Think about the phrases we use: I can’t help falling in love with you, I love you but I’m not in love with you, we just fell out of love, you can’t help who you fall in love with. We make our passion passive, casting love as a noun, something that happens to you, something you can’t control, something that is not your fault. We talk about loving by chance.
Hollywood sells us on heart-breaking moment of a hard-fought confession of love, the kind of undeniable love, against which we cannot fight. The moment when the long-lost boyfriend interrupts the wedding when the priest says, “Speak now, or forever hold your peace.” The moment when the long-suffering best friend confesses his undying love to the object of his affection, and she realizes he’s been the one for her all along. The moment when star-crossed lovers defy family and convention to be together. We hope that after we fall in love, that love will take care of itself and always be there, that we will live “happily ever after”. Those moments make good movies (or sometimes really terrible movies), but a tear-jerking confession in a rainstorm does not a marriage make. Marriage is built on the act of loving, not the phenomenon of falling in love.
My husband and I are soon celebrating our 13th anniversary. Thirteen years is a drop in the bucket for many couples, who have celebrated three times or more that amount. Thirteen years is also a long time, for those who haven’t had the fortune to marry, or haven’t had the fortune to stay married. I am far from an expert; but we are muddling through our life together. Thirteen years of real, imperfect, difficult, and wonderful lessons learned from love.
Loving someone is an action, it is a choice, it is something you DO, not something that just happens to you. Loving someone for years means putting his needs first sometimes, and allowing him to put mine first sometimes, too. It means showing gratitude for the little things he does, and accepting compliments graciously. It means giving him space to be angry sometimes, and allowing myself space to settle down. It means forgiving, and allowing him to forgive me. It means keeping a sense of humor, as often as possible, with as much enthusiasm as possible. Loving means noticing him, thinking of him when he’s not around, considering him in decisions. It does not always come naturally, or without effort. It is intentional, thoughtful, and sometimes difficult. Loving someone means choosing him, over and over again, every day, choosing him as my partner, to support me, to challenge me, to love me, actively, not for a chance moment, but for the rest of our lives.
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