The first time I broke my wife’s heart was the first time I cried over a woman. A situation over a girl we both knew and something I had forgotten about..etc.
We had just started taking our relationship seriously and regardless of what your online guru says your past still has the power to hurt others—pain doesn’t have an expiry date. At that moment the relationship we hadn’t yet built was already tumbling down. Just when it all seemed lost—it was love that saved the day. Love descended from the ceiling of our apartment with its cape on and made sure everything was ok.
You know your special, right? I wouldn’t be crying if you weren’t special to me.
Immature confessions. Followed by vigorous head nods and deep hugs.
In the early stages of a relationship, the emotion of love is the hero. In the beginning, love is like ZamZam water—it heals everything.
It took me years to learn that emotional love doesn’t have the strength to hold a marriage together when it’s falling apart. It doesn’t have the bandwidth to sustain a severed connection between two people.
“I love you” is a complicated phrase to say to another person. Modern language describes it as a sentence, but anyone that has been in love knows that it’s more like a dissertation. Love is a high maintenance emotion; four letters that come with a long list of demands hidden between each letter. The Hollywood dramatic cut scene with the violins playing romantic love won’t cut it in a marriage.
In a marriage, romantic love is the icing on the wedding cake; honesty is the base; vulnerability is the batter; trust is another layer and sacrifice is the secret ingredient. Each day in a marriage requires a different layer of love. Married love must be fluid, because somedays it is kisses and back rubs, and on others it transforms into sacrificing football matches for reading nursery rhymes.
We learn one area of love and think the job is done, but hinging your marriage on one definition of love is like flying a helicopter with only one propeller blade— and no wheels for a safe landing.
A marriage needs emotional love, logical love and spiritual love. Falling in love feels great, but you only realise how deep love gets when you raise your head to breath and find yourself drowning. Don’t marry for love means don’t marry for one kind of love; the butterflies, the roses and the dinner dates. That love makes great insta stories and beautiful memes, however, the love that keeps a marriage together is the kind that doesn’t make the highlight reel.
Romantic love has it’s on and off days, but genuine love is timeless. Genuine love is complex; it’s testing; it breaks every rule—that’s why people can grow apart and still love each other.
Stop depending on one definition of love to solve all your problems. Don’t say “I love you” until you are aware of the choices that come with that declaration. Don’t confuse being in love with understanding love.
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