Understanding True Love

One of the keys to a long and happy marriage is understanding that it’s not who you love, but what you love that’s important. Let me explain. Consider an average couple; we’ll call them John and Sarah. John and Sarah meet at a party and begin talking. John is 22, handsome, dark-headed, athletic, and has a good-paying job. Sarah is 20, attractive, intelligent, has beautiful hair, and also has a good job. Attracted to each other right off the bat, John and Sarah start going out together. Their relationship continues to grow until one night John says, “Sarah, I love you,” and Sarah replies, “I love you, too, John.”

Since John and Sarah have fallen in love, they decide to get married. John gives Sarah a ring and they begin planning their wedding. John and Sarah are so happy in their love that they feel it will sustain them forever.

Somewhere along the way, however, they both had better figure out what they love about each other, or they are headed for trouble in their marriage. John needs to ask himself, “Why do I love Sarah? What is there about her that causes me to love her? Do I love her because of who she is, or for some other reason? Do I love her because of her attractive figure or her beautiful hair or her good job?” Sarah at 20 is all of those things, but what about when she is 40? What if at 40 Sarah has put on some weight and lost her slim figure because she has borne three or four children? What if she no longer has that good job because she stayed home to raise those children? If John loves all of the things Sarah is when she is 20, how will he feel about her when she is 40? Sarah needs to ask herself the same questions about John. At 22, John may be everything Sarah has dreamed about in a man, but what about when he is 42 and has started losing his hair? What if he has lost much of his youthful athletic build because he has worked in an office day after day for 20 years? What if the company he worked for went bankrupt and the only job he has been able to find is as a mason’s helper making half the amount of money he did before?

It is not enough just to know who we love; we need to know what we love. We need to know why we love the person we love. This is critically important for building a happy and successful marriage.

The point I am trying to make is this: The person we marry is not the person we will live with, because that person is changing all the time. Today, my wife is not the same woman I married, nor am I the same man she married. Both of us have changed in many ways and continue to change every day. If we who are constantly changing trust solely in each other to keep our marriage going, we are in real trouble. No matter how much we love, honor, and esteem each other, that alone might not be enough in the long run. Respecting and esteeming the honorability of marriage as an unchanging institution helps bring stability to our ever-changing relationship.

The person we marry is not the person we will live with. That is why marriage itself is to be honored and esteemed more than the people who are in it. People change, but marriage is constant. We must love marriage more than our spouse.