As I mentioned in Monday’s post, I’ve spent a lot of time
defending the natural family, so there’s been little time to talk about how to
enjoy better family success. Today is related.
I have a long list of posts on defending marriage, the institution
itself. I’ve done a lot less on how to enjoy better marriage success. But I’m thinking
about Valentine’s Day, coming up tomorrow, so here are a few collected thoughts.
In Stephen Covey’s classic book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, he tells this story:
At one seminar where I was speaking on
the concept of proactivity, a man came up and said, “Stephen, I like what you’re
saying. But every situation is so different. Look at my marriage. I’m really
worried. My wife and I just don’t have the same feelings for each other we used
to have. I guess I just don’t love her anymore and she doesn’t love me. What
can I do?”
“The
feeling isn’t there anymore?” I asked.
“That’s
right,” he reaffirmed. “And we have three children we’re really concerned
about. What do you suggest?”
“Love
her,” I replied.
“I
told you, the feeling just isn’t there anymore.”
“Love
her.”
“You
don’t understand. The feeling of love just isn’t there.”
“The
love her. If the feeling isn’t there, that’s a good reason to love her.”
“But
how do you love when you don’t love?”
“My
friend, love is a verb. Love—the feeling—is a fruit of love, the verb. So love
her. Serve her. Sacrifice. Listen to her. Empathize. Appreciate. Affirm her.
Are you willing to do that?”
In
the great literature of all progressive societies [i.e., civilized societies, not socialist societies as the word progressive now connotes], love is a verb. Reactive
people make it a feeling. They’re driven by feelings. Hollywood has generally
scripted us to believe that we are not responsible, that we are a product of
our feelings. But the Hollywood script does not describe the reality. If our
feelings control our actions, it is because we have abdicated our
responsibility and empowered them to do so.
Proactive
people make love a verb. Love is something you do: the sacrifices you make, the
giving of self, like a mother brining newborn into the world. If you want to
study love, study those who sacrifice for others, even for people who offend or
do not love in return. If you are a parent, look at the love you have for the children
you sacrificed for. Love is a value that is actualized through loving actions.
Proactive people subordinate feelings to values. Love, the feeling, can be
recaptured (pp. 79-80).
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| image found on Pinterest |
Some people think raising daughters is tougher than raising
sons. Certainly it’s different. But youth leader Elaine Dalton (author of A Return to Virtue) once said
something that stuck with me as key:
“The greatest thing a
father can do for his daughter is to love her mother.”
She’ll know how to value herself as a woman, and expect and
accept the kind of love you want for her, if she sees her father setting the
example of love with her mother.
Covey and Dalton are both Mormons, and while Mormons
emphasize family strength and forever marriage, many others also have insights
into how to do it.
We were given a useful book a few years ago: Love and Respect, by Dr. Emerson
Eggerichs, with the subtitle The Love She
Most Desires, The Respect He Desperately Needs. The premise is that, among
the differences between men and women are these basic needs. A woman needs to
be cherished—to be loved unconditionally. A man needs to be respected—maybe even
in order to grow in respectability.
So, if you are a wife who wants to be loved, start with
respecting your husband—not waiting until you think he meets some standard you
have set for being worthy of respect, but starting with the understanding that
he comes worthy of respect, and your showing that makes it more true. And, as a
husband, while doing the respectable job/money-related work might help make you
more respectable, you’ll get more by showing your love for her. These things
are interrelated. Love from a respectable man is more valuable than from a
dirtbag, so a woman is happier being loved by a man she respects. And a man
might value respect from strangers or acquintances, but it means so much more
to him to be respected by the woman dearest to his heart.
Part Two of the book, called “The Energizing Cycle” (p.
115), shows a circular graphic in which his love motivates her respect, and her
respect motivates his love. It’s one of those simple but not easy things about
a happy life.
I’ve been following the Matt Walsh blog for a while now, and
the more I read, the bigger fan I become. He wrote a piece recently titled, “I Wasn’t Ready for Marriage.”
The whole thing is worth reading,
but here are some highlights:
If there’s one thing about life that I wish everyone would
consider — particularly my peers, and those younger than me — it’s that you’ll
never do the big things if you’re waiting until you’re ready to do them.
You’ll never be ready.
You. Will. Never. Be. Ready.
You can’t possibly understand the reality of marriage — the
joy, the commitment, the love, the anger, the pain, the hope, the fulfillment,
the excitements, the banalities, the journey, the sacrifices, the rewards, the
journey—until you’re in it. Same can be said for parenthood, only more so….
We commonly view living together as a logical step before
marriage, but it isn’t. It’s something some people do, but it isn’t a step to
marriage. Your marriage is defined by the commitment you make to the other
person—not by the bathroom or mortgage you share. Living with someone is not a
“warm up” for marriage or a “try out” period, precisely because it lacks the
essential, definitive characteristic of that permanent commitment. You can’t
comfortably transition into an eternal vow. You make it, and then it’s made.
Period…
In fact there is, as far as I can tell, only one form of “not
ready” that should possibly stop you from walking down that aisle: immaturity.
If you are prepared to dump someone you profess to “love” because they chew with
their mouth open or leave wet towels on the floor, you have a maturity issue.
And remember, it’s YOUR issue….
The real checklist ought to have only four items.
Do I love this person? Can I trust this person? Can they
trust me? Do I have the maturity and strength to give myself to this person,
and to serve this person, every day for the rest of my life?
I can’t tell you how you’ll answer those questions, but I can
tell you what my answers were before I said “I do” to Alissa:
Yes, I love her, but I don’t really understand love or what
it means. Yes, I trust her, but I don’t understand trust or what it means. Yes,
she can trust me, but I will still come up short in ways I cannot yet predict.
Yes, I have the maturity, but I still have a lot of growing to do.
And then we clasped hands and walked into that wild unknown.
Matt and his wife have only been married a few years, and
fell into the wild unknown of parenthood as well, by having twins about a year ago. God bless
them with long and happy lives!
If you’d like some short but valuable advice on getting the
message of love through to your beloved, you could try The 5 Love Languages, by
Gary Chapman. Knowing your own “love language,” as well as your spouse (there
are also helps for understanding and loving your children and teens) will help
you both give and receive more abundantly. The five languages are,
1.
Words of Affirmation
2.
Quality Time
3.
Receiving Gifts
4.
Acts of Service
5.
Physical Touch
One thing to remember is that you’re better off expecting to
do the translating both directions. Even when the other person also believes he
is doing the translating for both giving and receiving, it will still seem like
you’re the one needing to do it all. Oh well. Just do what you can and accept
what you can get.
Even deeper is a book called Bonds That Make Us Free, by C. Terry Warner (yet another Mormon),
of The Arbinger Institute. The subtitle is Healing
Our Relationships, Coming to Ourselves. It’s about more than spousal love.
It’s a very disciplined approach to philosophical introspection. Wow! But it
hurts the brain. You can get a daily (or so) thought by liking The Arbinger Institute on Facebook.
One last thought:
“The greatest
thing you’ll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.”
—“Nature Boy,” a
song performed by Nat King Cole, 1948,
written by Eden Ahbez, 1947
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