What does that really mean?When I perform weddings, I usually read a passage by Kahlil Gibran that speaks to the importance of maintaining our individuality, even in the midst of a marriage or partnership. His poem alludes to the thought that supportive pillars offer strength to the structure of the temple by their distance apart more so than their closeness. Of course, too far apart will also create a weak state, but too close simply does not work. When sharing this reading with one bride prior to the wedding, she disputed it saying, “Isn’t the whole point of us getting married so that we can be one?”
While I empathize with her perspective as a new bride, I suspect some seasoned brides (and grooms) would offer her different advice. We naively think when we get married or partnered that we are supposed to be one, i.e., the same. This causes a series of control and approval issues to arise as we desperately try to mold the other person to our expectations. At the beginning of the relationship, couples often entwine themselves and their lives so closely that when one or both start to bounce back to their own shape and express their individuality, it sends the relationship into a tailspin.
This brings up the question of what love actually is. Most of us think of the compassionate, warm or romantic feelings we have for another. Others think love looks like something (or someone) you own, something that is possessed and belongs to you. Sometimes we think it is something that has the right to control us, or we it. But what is love, really?
One could get quite esoteric with this question since love is not tangible and likely a different experience for each of us. We have no idea when someone says “I love you” whether they mean the same thing we do when we say it. Therefore, we project what we think they mean from our experience and beliefs about love, rather than theirs. This can be a slippery slope, yet we do the same thing when we sleep with someone else—we project what we think sharing sex means onto them without finding out what it means to them. And we do the same thing with getting married and having children. We project our vision of what a marriage and a family should be like and then are dismayed when the other person’s image doesn’t match our own.
Heck, we can love someone without them even knowing it. We can be loved by people we don’t want love from or love people who want nothing to do with us. We can think we feel love for people we haven’t even met yet. Is it love for the person or love for what the values they represent or hope they will be to us? We can even continue to feel love for and from someone who has long since died. All this makes you wonder whether love is even externally generated and given, or rather, if it is solely awakened inside oneself, remaining an entirely internal experience. Can we really give someone love or can we only act lovingly and kindly toward them? Can we actually love them if we don’t act lovingly or kindly toward them?
Sorry for asking more questions than I’m answering, but the first step of doing something about the dilemma of what love is and how to do it requires some self-inquiry to establish what you believe.
Now, just because you believe it doesn’t mean it’s true, but self-inquiry and examination are good starting points. Doing so will better prepare you to discuss and share your perspective with a partner, bringing you closer to mutual understanding.
Look at your beliefs. Where do they come from? Notice whether you are projecting them unknowingly onto your partner. Look at your experience and see if what you believe makes any sense. Then think back on your relationships and determine if what you’ve been thinking and doing have actually worked. If so, happily continue on. If not, see if you can find a way to love that works better.
With Aloha,
Eve
Intellectual Foreplay Question of the Week:
Does your love exist in the present moment or is it all based on the past, or on a dream of the future?
Love Tip of the Week:
When your arms are full of expectations, beliefs and judgments you have no room to hold love.
Eve Hogan, author of How to Love Your Marriage, Intellectual Foreplay, Virtual Foreplay, and Way of the Winding Path, is also the proprietor of The Sacred Garden, a nursery and healing sanctuary in Makawao. It is open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily. For coaching or speaking events, call (808) 573-7700. Website: www.EveHogan.com. Blog: www.AskEveAdvice.com. Send questions to AskEveAdvice@aol.com.