After the love is gone...

So much lately has me thinking about love. In the words of Inigo Montoya

"I don't thin that words means that you thin it means."

After being married for what feels like eons and having my fair share of struggles it occurs to me that maybe we don't really understand love. Maybe that is why our divorce rate is sky high. I will tell you what love is not. It is not butterflies or being twitter-pated. It is not a crazy obsession that makes you call them and hang up. It is not happiness or happiness in that person's company. I think it looks less glamorous.

I think love is plunging the toilet all night after your sick boyfriend clogs it because he drank too much and then driving him to the Dr the next day. I think love is sitting up all night with a sick child. I think love is caring for an ageing parent. Love is not glamorous or shiny. It is hard work.

So why do we think love in a marriage will be all Disney and wonderful?

Most people say they just grow apart or fall out of love. And I think that is a cop out. Something doesn't die unless you have neglected it. Whatever happened to trying to revive it? Nope, in our culture we just cut our losses and walk away. We deserve better right? We all think that until we are the ones dealing out the offenses. Then we just want someone to show us a little mercy.

I hear couples all the time telling about the lines that their spouses would never cross. Unless you have a time machine how do you know? The man he is today is not the same man he will be in ten years. You will not be the same either. You will both change and evolve because life keeps changing and when you have those defining moments then you will know what love is. I think we all need to take a trip over to 1 Corinthians chapter 13 before we decide to get married. Look at that chapter and apply it to our spouses. Could we really not hold their offenses over their heads? If not then maybe he isn't the one for you. I told my sister in law before she got married that if she couldn't forgive him then she shouldn't marry him. "Forgive him for what?" she wondered. "For whatever it is you think he will never do" I replied.

Of course abuse and criminal things are a different story and most of us never deal with those things if we are lucky.For most of us those moments of gut wrenching pain and sorrow will come in the form of infidelity, substance abuse or some sort of deception. In those moments, because there will be more than one, when you hate that SOB more than anything will you be able to forgive? Will you be able to move on? I am not saying it happens over night. I am saying its your choice and the issue that breaks you will rear its ugly ahead in your next spouse if you run from it.

I look at marriage in a different way now. I don't think its designed to make me happy. I think its designed to make Dan and I better. We are both growing and working out our issues together. We both have to make that decision.  Sometimes I need more grace and sometimes he is the one in need. It's arrogant to think you won't ever be on the receiving end of grace. You will mess up, and when you do I just hope you have shown enough love and patience that he will know what to do. I hope you will choose to love and let emotion do what it does best.......change.