The True Nature of Love
Was exploring the study room at home when I found this old version of reader's digest titled "The Art Of Living Together" which was dated 1978. (Thats the year my parents knew each other btw. *grins*) It was essentially a handbook on marriages and family. lol.. Although I'm not that kinda lovey dovey kinda person but there is this beautifully written and interesting article on true love in a marriage... And no, I'm not in love. hah..
The True Nature of Love
by Alexander Magoun
What is love? In spite of all that science and religion have told us, people do not want to understand the true nature of the most potent force in the word. They believe in the Hollywood myth, which may well be a thrilling part of attraction and courtship, but is not, and never can be, love.
There will be less disillusion and heartache in marriage when we begin to understand that from the illusions of romance a deep and abiding love may emerge. Love is the passionate and abiding desire on the part of two or more people to produce together conditions under which can be, and spontaneously express, his real self; to produce together an intellectual soil and an emotional climate in which each can flourish, far superior to what either could achieve alone.
In a true marriage, man and woman think more of the partnership than they do of themselves. It is an interweaving of interests and a facing of sacrifice together for the sake of both. Its feeling of security and contentment comes from mutual efforts.
The more completely one can express his real self to another person, the more deeply he can love.
This means that a man can speak honestly to his wife, letting her know what is actually in his mind, without fear of misunderstanding or any form of reprisal. But if he refrains because he is afraid that she will misunderstand him and take revenge, these two people are not producing together the intellectual and emotional climate in which each can be his real self.
There are many false emotions that may lead us into unhappy marriages. For instance: sexual desure aroused by physical beauty or perhaps sheer energy. That is why we need to know the difference between physical attraction and deep affection.
Another false emotion is the need of living life vicariously though another person because of inability to be one's self. It may be that the wife's father was poor, hence she goads her husband on to make more money and so to be like the man she wanted her father to be.
Other misleading emotions include the compulsive desire to feel needed; a man's wish for a woman to mother him; a woman's determination not to be an old maid.
We may think that we are in love because of the way another person makes us feel, but love is not delight to me, love is self-realization together in us. Two mutually infatuated people can want each other desperately, without love, and without sensing the emotional insincerity which consumes them. Neither perceives he is experiencing little more than cheap reassurance. What seems to be love is but blind delight in being treated as if one were perfection itself.
Self-realisation together includes the right of each partner to pursue individual interests. It often takes five years for a young couple to discover that "we do everything together" is sentimentality and not love. Their activities are confined to what both enjoy: "they do everything together" because they fear that individual activity may cause them to drift apart. By yielding to this fear they narrow their lives, invite boredom and may soon be drifting apart - doing even that "together".
But a man and a woman really in love know that mere differences of opinion are not the same thing as a loss of emotional unity.
True love is not so blind! It sees faults as well as virtues, unhesitatingly accepting the fact that no one is perfect. Love says, and with honest feeling, "I know that I shall be irked by your inability ever to be on time. I know that you will be irritated by my smoking. I know that differences in our energy and tempo will annoy both of us until we learn how to work them out together. But what matters is that we each sense and like the kind of person the other is, and want to cherish him for what he is."
No two human beings can possibly live together in the most intimate emotional relationship known without sometimes frustrating each other. Understanding is needed because where love is blocked it turns to anger and hate. To think that there are no things to be given up for each other is to suppose that love costs nothing. Love is self-discovering and self-fulfillment through healthy growth with and for the other person.
Real love wil grow as the years go by. The very experience of loving will lead to the discovery of how to love better. The only thing in the world as strong as love is truth, and there are reasons for believing that as far as marriage is concerned they are different aspects of the same thing. A deep and abiding love is the emotional response to an intellectual recognition of the truth about another person. Love's development, like that of a tree, is not a steady process but an irreuglar one. The art of love is patience till the spring returns. But what we have really loved can never be lost. Its influence on our personality is always with us, and perhaps even death does not take it away.
The True Nature of Love
by Alexander Magoun
What is love? In spite of all that science and religion have told us, people do not want to understand the true nature of the most potent force in the word. They believe in the Hollywood myth, which may well be a thrilling part of attraction and courtship, but is not, and never can be, love.
There will be less disillusion and heartache in marriage when we begin to understand that from the illusions of romance a deep and abiding love may emerge. Love is the passionate and abiding desire on the part of two or more people to produce together conditions under which can be, and spontaneously express, his real self; to produce together an intellectual soil and an emotional climate in which each can flourish, far superior to what either could achieve alone.
In a true marriage, man and woman think more of the partnership than they do of themselves. It is an interweaving of interests and a facing of sacrifice together for the sake of both. Its feeling of security and contentment comes from mutual efforts.
The more completely one can express his real self to another person, the more deeply he can love.
This means that a man can speak honestly to his wife, letting her know what is actually in his mind, without fear of misunderstanding or any form of reprisal. But if he refrains because he is afraid that she will misunderstand him and take revenge, these two people are not producing together the intellectual and emotional climate in which each can be his real self.
There are many false emotions that may lead us into unhappy marriages. For instance: sexual desure aroused by physical beauty or perhaps sheer energy. That is why we need to know the difference between physical attraction and deep affection.
Another false emotion is the need of living life vicariously though another person because of inability to be one's self. It may be that the wife's father was poor, hence she goads her husband on to make more money and so to be like the man she wanted her father to be.
Other misleading emotions include the compulsive desire to feel needed; a man's wish for a woman to mother him; a woman's determination not to be an old maid.
We may think that we are in love because of the way another person makes us feel, but love is not delight to me, love is self-realization together in us. Two mutually infatuated people can want each other desperately, without love, and without sensing the emotional insincerity which consumes them. Neither perceives he is experiencing little more than cheap reassurance. What seems to be love is but blind delight in being treated as if one were perfection itself.
Self-realisation together includes the right of each partner to pursue individual interests. It often takes five years for a young couple to discover that "we do everything together" is sentimentality and not love. Their activities are confined to what both enjoy: "they do everything together" because they fear that individual activity may cause them to drift apart. By yielding to this fear they narrow their lives, invite boredom and may soon be drifting apart - doing even that "together".
But a man and a woman really in love know that mere differences of opinion are not the same thing as a loss of emotional unity.
True love is not so blind! It sees faults as well as virtues, unhesitatingly accepting the fact that no one is perfect. Love says, and with honest feeling, "I know that I shall be irked by your inability ever to be on time. I know that you will be irritated by my smoking. I know that differences in our energy and tempo will annoy both of us until we learn how to work them out together. But what matters is that we each sense and like the kind of person the other is, and want to cherish him for what he is."
No two human beings can possibly live together in the most intimate emotional relationship known without sometimes frustrating each other. Understanding is needed because where love is blocked it turns to anger and hate. To think that there are no things to be given up for each other is to suppose that love costs nothing. Love is self-discovering and self-fulfillment through healthy growth with and for the other person.
Real love wil grow as the years go by. The very experience of loving will lead to the discovery of how to love better. The only thing in the world as strong as love is truth, and there are reasons for believing that as far as marriage is concerned they are different aspects of the same thing. A deep and abiding love is the emotional response to an intellectual recognition of the truth about another person. Love's development, like that of a tree, is not a steady process but an irreuglar one. The art of love is patience till the spring returns. But what we have really loved can never be lost. Its influence on our personality is always with us, and perhaps even death does not take it away.
posted by Rayne at 8:39 PM
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