It is dangerous because it creates an unrealistic expectation. Marriage experts say that a leading cause of marital failure is unfulfilled expectations. If we go into marriage with expectations that are so unrealistic that they cannot be fulfilled, we are setting ourselves up for failure.
Why is the notion of an ever-improving love an unrealistic expectation? Because the love that is being described is an emotional love. All human emotions come and go in intensity. Emotions are based on our physical and mental energy levels. If we are tired, not feeling well, under stress, etc., our emotions fluctuate. This is true of love, anger, happiness, joy, sadness, and grief.
Let’s be honest. There are some days when we do not feel passionate about anything! We are physically drained from work or family commitments. Perhaps our diet has been less than idea. Perhaps we are sleep-deprived. Maybe we are over-stressed. Whatever the circumstances, our physical and mental ability to love emotionally or to express any emotion with passion is limited. Our emotional gas tanks are empty! There are times when our spouse may not be very lovable. Perhaps their emotional gas tanks are empty as well. Perhaps their work or their commitments to family life have depleted them. Maybe their stresses have made them irritable or
impatient.
The idea of love as an emotional experience, as a passion, growing through the years on a daily, steady basis is an illusion. It is an impossibility--physically, emotionally, and mentally. A graph of emotional love would not be one that shows a straight line of upward progress. Rather, the graph would resemble the design of a roller-coaster with upward inclines, downward plunges, even a few loops!
Yet, if we have gone into marriage with a fairy tale view of an overwhelming passion for our mate growing to escalating heights unabated, we will be devastated when the realities of life ambush us with the truth of inconsistent passion. This disappointment results in a sense of a failed dream. This relationship is not what I had planned. The relationship does not live up to expectations. It has failed. Should we divorce?
However, the problem may not be the relationship. The problem may be that the expectations of the relationship were so unrealistic that no human relationship could have lived-up to those expectations. It is not the relationship that needs to be changed, it is the expectations that need to be changed.
If the expectations were based on a faulty view of what love is, then this view is the place for the adjustment to begin. At the root of the problem is language. In English, we have one word “love” that is used for any number of meanings. I “love” my wife. I “love” my children. I “love” lasagna. I “love” basketball. Now, clearly I mean different things by “love” in each of these sentences (although my wife may dispute that at times!). The Greek language that the New Testament was written in has several different words for love based on the different meanings. This approach seems more realistic. For example, the Greek “eros” is the word for romantic, passionate love. It is the word for the emotional love of man and woman for each other. Another word for love was “agape.” This is a love not of emotion but of attitude. It is a love rooted in a conscious decision that the needs and well-being of the beloved ismore important to you than your own needs and well-being. It is a love that is totally other-focused rather than self-focused.
This type of love is not affected by the ups-and-downs of life as is emotional love. Emotional love is contingent on feelings, circumstances, and energy. A decision of commitment to the spouse and his/her well-being is not as vulnerable to the changes and stresses of life. Because of what is happening at work, I may not have the energy to love you emotionally with the depth of passion that I had last week but I can still honor my decision to put your needs ahead of mine.
If love is the emotion only, then it is going to come and go because that is the nature of emotions. If that is all we expect out of marriage, then during the emotional down periods, we have nothing left. We are hurt. We are frustrated. We are disappointed. We want out or we look elsewhere for the emotional boost. The relationship is in danger.
But if love is the choice, the decision to commitment to the fulfillment of the need of the spouse, then the relationship is stronger. The changing contours of life do not alter the attitude as easily as they do the emotions. The attitude of love can hold the couple together until the emotional batteries can be recharged and the passionate love is re-energized.
A relationship based on expectations of a constantly expanding, growing, flourishing romance where one is over-powered by the emotional experience is doomed to failure. Real life human beings simply cannot function consistently on this level. However, if the relationship is built on a conscious decision that you will have an attitude of self-sacrificing commitment to the spouse, then if can survive. The attitude can carry the couple through the valleys of emotional love until the heights can be restored. Happily ever after cannot be achieved with merely emotional love, it can only be achieved with an attitude that assists the emotion.
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