Seth Adam Smith says real love transcends feelings to become an unconditional commitment to an imperfect person.
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My wife and I have known each other since high school, but didn’t date until much later. We had only dated a couple of weeks before we realized that we were madly in love and wanted to get married.
I was all for it! I even suggested a spontaneous, immediate wedding in Vegas. (Seriously.) Kim, however, was a bit more practical about the whole thing. She wanted to take time to plan it all out.
I felt deflated. “We’re so different,” I said. “You like to plan, while I like to be spontaneous.”
Funny as it may seem, the more I think about this conversation the more I’ve come to realize that planning to love someone—or choosing to love someone—is actually one of the most beautiful things about love.
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Kim’s eyes widened. “I can be spontaneous!” she said, hurriedly. “I can totally be spontaneous. You just have to tell me in advance when you want to be spontaneous, and I will write it down in my planner…”
I gave her a strange look. She was totally serious! Clearly, Kim did not understand the meaning of spontaneity.
Funny as it may seem, the more I think about this conversation the more I’ve come to realize that planning to love someone—or choosing to love someone—is actually one of the most beautiful things about love.
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I’ve heard it said that real love is an unconditional commitment to an imperfect person.
It’s true.
When all the butterflies have fluttered away and your wedding day becomes a distant memory, you will discover that you’ve married someone who is just as imperfect as you. And they, in turn, will come to learn that you have problems, insecurities, struggles, quirks—and body odor—just as real as theirs!
Then you will realize that real love isn’t just a euphoric, spontaneous feeling—it’s a deliberate choice—a plan to love each other for better and worse, for richer and poorer, in sickness and in health. Of course, you don’t choose who you’re attracted to, but you definitely choose who you fall in love with and (more importantly) who you stayin love with.
Our society places a lot of emphasis on feelings. We are taught that we should always follow our feelings and do whatever makes us happy. But feelings are very fickle and fleeting.
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Our society places a lot of emphasis on feelings. We are taught that we should always follow our feelings and do whatever makes us happy. But feelings are very fickle and fleeting. Real love, on the other hand, is like the north star in the storms of life; it is constant, sure, and true. Whenever we’re lost and confused we can find strength in the love that we have chosen.
Besides, life already offers us plenty of spontaneity: rejection, job loss, heartache, disappointment, despair, illness, and a host of other problems. We simply can’t abandon ship every time we encounter a storm in our marriage. Real love is about weathering the storms of life together.
In speaking about my grandma, Grandpa once told my mom, “It hurts me to see her like this. You know, when I got married I thought that everything would be smooth sailing. I never imagined that I would have to help her change her catheter every day. But I do it and I don’t mind it—because I love her.”When my grandma was in her fifties, she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, a degenerative disease that disrupts the body’s ability to communicate with its nervous system. Within a few short years, Grandma had lost the ability to walk and was confined to a wheelchair. Grandpa, who was then the chief of police, retired two years earlier than planned in order to take care of Grandma. He helped her do everything—from getting around the house and visiting the doctor, to helping her take her medicine and bathe.
More often than not, real love has its sleeves rolled up, dirt and grime smeared on its arms, and sweat dripping down its forehead.
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Love is so much more than some random, euphoric feeling. And real love isn’t always fluffy, cute, and cuddly. More often than not, real love has its sleeves rolled up, dirt and grime smeared on its arms, and sweat dripping down its forehead. Real love asks us to do hard things—to forgive one another, to support each other’s dreams, to comfort in times of grief, or to care for family. Real love isn’t easy—and it’s nothing like the wedding day—but it’s far more meaningful and wonderful.
I recently came across this wonderful quote: “No one falls in love by choice, it is by chance. No one stays in love by chance, it is by work. And no one falls out of love by chance, it is by choice.”
Whenever my wife and I run into a problem in our marriage we do our best to choose love. While we’re certainly not perfect, the love we share today is more real and more wonderful than anything we had ever anticipated.
So, whatever spontaneous storm may come our way I plan on loving my wife.
If you truly love someone (and they truly love you), commit to that love and plan on it being hard work.
But also plan on it being the most rewarding work of your life.
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Seth Adam Smith is the best-selling author of Your Life Isn’t For You—a book about finding hope and healing through healthy relationships. This article was originally published on SethAdamSmith.com.
Photo by Steve Halama on Unsplash
Excellent
I definitely agree with this article. It’s not that he is disregarding what you feel. What the author is trying to say for me is I think, sometimes, there comes a point in our life like marriage when what we usually feel when we are still in the courting stage is already gone.. sometimes there’s a point when we dont feel any romantic thing anymore.. and that’s where real love come in.. where working in a relationship comes in.. this is of course for those seems to be falling out of ove. Domestic violence of course is a no no… Read more »
I thought it was very well put, some people forget after there married and achieved this milestone of the relationship status they stop working in the relationship and putting in effort… any relationship takes work, and taking time to listen before rushing to replying which so many people forget anymore… they just want to be heard first and not the other person…
always take the time for one another make the other person know how fortunate they are is key, that gift can be taken from you at anytime!
Hi Seth. Thank you for your article and for your desire to promote goodness. I find your article, however, unhelpful. To reduce love to a mere act of the will or to a choice is not helpful and, taken to an extreme, can be quite damaging. Let me explain. If we reduce love to just a choice or a commitment we can quickly become hypocrites; people that act right but have rotten hearts. Am I loving my wife (or my neighbor) when I feel hate within but don’t act on it?? Am I loving my wife when I spent time… Read more »
This is well said. I really like your point: “real love is an unconditional commitment to an imperfect person.” The biggest change that my wife and I have tried to make is that when we are fighting, we need to let go of our perspective of “winning or loosing” the fight. What is more important is seeing what the other person is saying underneith their words about their needs, and finding ways to ensure that we both feel supported and loved and deeply heard. That takes a lot of mental self-control to catch ourselves before we fall deeply into the… Read more »
You can always tell when you’re speaking the absolute truth because you don’t get any comments, I guess the negative people don’t have anything to disagree with? Lol Great article!
Hi Edmond I do not think everybody disagrees, English is not my first language and I do not understand what LOVE means in English American. The advice the writer gives here is like the one ministers preach when couples are married in church. I do not believe in unconditional love for adults. And frankly I do not call it love ,when I behave decent,respectful actions towards a spouse I no longer have warm feelings or tenderness . Love without feelings? I don’t think so. And I do not say or feel that person that treat me with dignity and respect… Read more »
Silke, I can’t speak for Seth, but I will give you my two bits of a response. I agree love isn’t entirely unconditional in a marriage especially when abusive behavior and infidelity come into play–and I know this first hand because I lived it. I loved him, in spite of his terrible actions, but eventually those feelings were traded with disgust and intense remorse along with feelings of being trapped in a hell I wanted to escape. So I did. If your husband is a compulsive cheater who doesn’t wish to be faithful (and I, like you, think porn is… Read more »