Do I Love You?

Peaches,

You make me feel complete. More by an embrace with you than anything else. You were my first love and my first heart break. And yet you are the one that continues to complete me. I felt that first heart-pounding love with you as well as the enduring, life-long love. Since the puppy love stage has passed, it may not seem as intense as it was at first but it’s no less real and more resilient. In my despair the only comfort I can feel is in your arms. It is always soothing. Sometimes anger persists but with your patience it passes.

Do I love you? Yes. Am I “in love” with you. Resoundingly, yes.  I believe that for us, to love and to be "in love" is the same thing. It is often an affection (storge love) that arises by fondness and familiarity. It is sometimes familial love (phileo) as between family members. More often than not it is an agape love (caring regardless of circumstance). And we most certainly have an eros love, linked by intimacy.

If Love's a Sweet Passion, why does it torment?
If a Bitter, oh tell me whence comes my content?
Since I suffer with pleasure, why should I complain,
Or grieve at my Fate, when I know 'tis in vain?
Yet so pleasing the Pain is, so soft is the Dart,
That at once it both wounds me, and Tickles my Heart.
- Henry Purcell

We bring each other pain, yet we find pleasure in the warmth of each others' embrace. We are taken to the heights of bliss together and the abyss of sorrow together. We live the mundane together and cherish the sublime together. Am I in love with you? I must be, for I love you.

Do we really love each other so much we look for the betterment of the other, or do we love each other only to the extent we can please one another?  Do we simply want to gain pleasure out of our relationship; the “what’s in it for me” attitude?  I’m certainly not selfless, yet you provide a soft place to fall at the end of the day. 

I am committed to you and our love. I have made the choice to be with you for the rest of my life. Through richer and poorer, in sickness and in health, for better or worse. I do not believe that divorce is a compulsory option. I do not believe God intends for us to love someone only for a while, only to have us drift apart in a painful separation. If that happens it is because of the choice of the lovers, not due to fate. The illusion that there is someone else better suited for us than each other holds empty promises that can only leave us more tormented. Being released by paper from a marriage is a figment of our imaginations. How often do you see divorcees continue a relationship through casual means, bound together by their children, and continually dredging up pain? How often do you hear a divorcee admit the grass was not greener on the other side and they wish they had made the effort to remain in the first marriage. Moreover, divorce begets divorce. It is a fact in this country that many divorces are perpetrated by repeat offenders because the marital relationship is now disposable to these people.

How can we "know” when to cut the bonds and “know” when we don't love someone anymore?  The peaks and valleys of love can last for years.  Does a protracted valley justify separation, only to seek another partner to repeat the cycle? What kind of life is that? From butterflies in your stomach to separation and back again over and over? Why not just give up on that kind of “love?” It seems to me it’s not real love that person seeks, but someone to make them happy. This type of search will always leave you empty. Why? Because there is a direct correlation between how much effort you put into a relationship and how much pleasure you get from it. Once you decide you aren’t going to put any more into it, you won’t get much more out of it.

Through an almost involuntary process, I find I do not feed our relationship from time to time.  In those times I feel neglected because love is reciprocal.  Love is work. It is not always easy. It is not always pleasant. A marriage is not just erotic pleasure, nor is it just affection. A marriage is wanting the best for your partner. I must appreciate the fact that you love me and work daily to love you more.  Without you, I live in a fog and don’t know which way to go. Without you, the morning holds no joy. Without you, life has no support.

I truly love you and always will. 

Love,

me