Editor’s Note: This post is by Simple Marriage contributor Mary Ann Crossno.
Valentine’s Day is about idealizing romantic love.
Learning to love however, is the most important growth experience this life offers.
Romantic love can lead to learning to love – but it’s a path we each have to choose.
Romantic love starts as a perfect storm of timing, chemistry, family history, experience, mythology and mystery. It floods the brain with cravings and pleasure as strong as any drug and dramatically impacts motivation, elation and focused attention. This chemically altered state of consciousness can last somewhere between a few months and as long as four years. It’s the pursuit of this temporary state of romantic love that shows up in some people who move from one relationship to another.
Romantic love is an illusion that refuses to see us as we really are and as such, it depends on agreement and tolerates differences poorly, if at all. It’s like a blob that absorbs all who enter and then spits out the empty shell.
The transition from romantic to sustaining love begins when you take the risk of wanting more than needing your partner.
Sustaining love is love that is devoted to learning to love – your partner, your kids, your parents, your siblings – all of the most important people in your life. Sustaining love is the net we need to catch us when the altered state of romantic love beings to fade.
Learning to love should be the commitment we make when we marry.
I choose you to be the endless mystery in my life. In your eyes, I will discover me – the one I am, the one I long to be, and the one I don’t want to be. In your heart, I will be more content and lonelier than anywhere else on earth. In your mind, your thoughts will shape my thoughts. The more I study to learn who you are, the more I will learn who I am. In your presence, I will know me.
Sustaining Love
- Is not self-centered or other focused
- Comes from genuine acceptance and respect for you – the way you are – and for your partner – the way he is.
- Is humble – it’s pride that keeps you from expressing your most tender, vulnerable emotions; it’s pride that says, “I will if you will.”
- Does not weigh what it gives in terms of what it gets
- Looks for agreement when possible, but allows, expects, and encourages disagreement
- Is not defensive, reactive, or argumentative
- Can differ on principle
- Involves giving to others AND receiving from others
- Knows that love is unlimited, but the time to give that love is limited
- Listens without interrupting, does not read minds, is not judgmental
- Believes in you and believes in your partner
- Holds onto the commitment, knowing that ups and downs come and go
- Wants more than needs your partner
- Comes from suffering, life experience, hard work and determination
- In sustaining love, good humor laughs at one’s own mistakes
- Places tenderness – being delicate, vulnerable, sensitive, gentle, and considerate – before sex
- Sustaining love is reliable, friendly, and not heavy
Sustaining love motivates us to work toward creating a climate of love -one that is calm, reasonable ,and respectful. Respecting our separateness is the foundation of human connectedness. Without respect, closeness is impossible.
Respect is defined as not trying directly or indirectly to change anyone. We know we are being respectful when we refuse to tell others what to do.
Learning to love leads to a growing acceptance of my limitations, my inability to change others, and with that comes satisfaction in simply doing my part, the best I can. I learn to accept that love is a risky business that deeply invests my tenderness and emotional vulnerabilities in my partner. The end of sustaining love is always painful – because one will die and leave the other.
When we live fully alive in our marriage, we don’t look away from that reality – we make the best of love and we let love make the best of us.
Hi Mary Ann,
You’re so right that GENUINE acceptance and respect are so important. Sometimes we deceive ourselves that we accept the other person. When the acceptance real, it a lot easier.
@Daphne . . . we know it’s genuine, when we’re no longer trying to change them or tell them what to do or how to be. And that ain’t easy!!
This post really spoke to me. I am right on the heals of my 25th anniversary, not an easy feat. The thing that kept us together has been the commitment we have to our marriage. We went through many years of really difficult times but it was when I stopped working on him and started working on me that things began to change for the better. I wanted more from life and decided that was about me and not him. So I started really trying to figure myself out and be the person I was inside. I did want more than I needed him. It was freeing in that my focus changed and I was able to find fulfillment more from myself and not by trying to suck it out of him. Since then, we are closer than ever and I am loving him more than ever before, respecting him more than ever. What is really super cool about it, is knowing I want him but I don’t have to look to him to be happy or have a good life. Those things are dependant on me and my relationship with myself. It’s been a long hard road and I have worked very hard but totally worth it.
Could you please explain : Is not self-centered or other focused ? Those statements seem contradictory. Thanks for a great post!
@ Laurie,
Thanks for sharing your experiences in learning to love. It is truly a challenge and yet the most rewarding effort we can undertake IMHO.
Sustaining love . . . is not self-centered or other focused.
This is way of reminding us that one kind of craziness is just as bad as the opposite kind of craziness. If we are self-centered, we give little thought to our partner’s well-being and live as though we are in it “just for us.” We act like people users and abusers, taking without thought for what we need to give.
If we are other-focused, we place the entire responsibility for our happiness and well-being in the other. “The other” can be our spouse, but it can also be our kids, our parents, our friends – other-focused people are often self-decribed “people pleasers.” On the surface, being a people pleaser seems like not such a bad thing to be. Underneath, people pleasers spend all their energy adjusting themselves to accommodate whomever they are with at the moment. They are pleasing others because they have not, or will not do the work to discover what will please them.
Either position – self-focused or other-focused – is a way of avoiding being responsibile for self and to others. Oddly enough, both positions wind up using the other person in the relationship. Self-focused people openly use and abuse others to get what they want without regard for the others. People pleasers use others to get a positive sense of self that comes with the approval of being a people pleaser.
“Is humble – it’s pride that keeps you from expressing your most tender, vulnerable emotions; it’s pride that says, “I will if you will.â€
This is really eye opening. Thank you for this inspirational post. You are right this is what has been holding me back.
That’s delicious. I perform non-denominational weddings and I’d love to be able to print this out and share with couples who come to me. A realistic, true and, yes, romantic perspective on love/loving.
(ok if i share it? with attribution, of course.)
@deb- Feel free to use anything you’d like.
That was the Prettiest thing I have heard in a long time. KUDOS!!!