Love

Recently I was speaking with someone about divorce. I asked about the reasons why and I was told the main reason they wanted a divorce was they no longer loved their spouse. My response to that was

so what?

which was met with a quizzical expression on their face. They informed me that marriage needs love and without it divorce ensues. That started a long conversation on what love is. You see, I don't think love is about the ooey gooey feeling in the pit of our stomach we get anytime the person is around, rather love is a decision. That ooey gooey feeling can come out of loving somebody or it can come from lusting for somebody when people find a replacement for their spouse, but love is a decision we make. In a marriage, it is necessary to decide one is going to love their spouse. That means serving them, knowing their needs and meeting them. It means putting our spouse first and our needs second. Sure that can get hard when our spouse is self-centered and unresponsive to our own needs, but before any discussion of our own needs can begin, a decision needs to be made to love our spouse with service and meeting needs. After that, the discussion can begin. After a person feels loved by their spouse can talk start about the spouse's needs and how they can be met as well.

All too often, people give up quickly on marriage. It's work. Heck, it's hard work. Too often, when things are going bad it turns into tit for tat. They don't meet my needs in this area, so I won't in that area. Just working to hurt each other for the last hurt they put on us. Half the time, a perceived offense is just that...perceived. Men and women are different and don't see things the same very often at all. What might be offensive to one is normal behavior to the other. Too often, when things are hard, we begin talking to folk who don't need to know about problems in the marriage...people at work, members of the opposite sex. Then, those people comfort us in our difficult time, they give us what we need. Which all too often is just somebody to talk to...they love us. Then we turn to this other person for love rather than our spouse. Then divorce is spoken about...I've heard it before

my spouse doesn't love me, but so-n-so has listened to me and understands me

which is to say they are meeting needs and loving you at the time. Marriage is hard work and it requires effort from both of the people involved in it. Efforts need to be taken to keep communication open long before problems arise. If problems do arise, though, we need to stay away from discussing them with members of the opposite sex. They are marriage counselors that can help with our problems. If one from the phone book doesn't work, find another. If they are not trusted enough, speak with your spiritual leaders. It's hard, but we need to work for our marriages and keep them going strong...and meeting needs.