Considering what love is as well as what it really isn't

A couples counselor and relationship coach,
practicing in South Portland, he was for 24 years the
Partners columnist for the Maine Sunday Telegram.
He hosts the Internet site marriagesupport.com,
and is currently at work on a book about
day-to-day love.
Love makes the world go round, so they say.
When two people love each other, how can their
marriage fail? When two people don't love each
other, how can it possibly succeed? Clearly,
love is very important in relationships. But, what
exactly is it?

Love is the word people use to describe
their feelings for God, for the marinara sauce
at their favorite Italian restaurant. Love is what
they feel for their children, for that pretty dress
they saw at the mall, and even for cold beer on a
hot summer day.

Love is hard to define, because we use
the word to describe so many different conditions
and emotions.

For example, love is dependence (I love you
baby, I can't live without you). It's appreciation (I
just love your flower garden). Love is infatuation
(I met the most wonderful man; I know I will
love him forever). It's also receptivity (Thanks
for the invitation; I'd love to go).

Unfortunately, the more feelings and sentiments
we call love, the less the word actually means. We
can get around love's indefiniteness by restricting
ourselves to the feelings and sentiments that have
been traditionally associated with love between
partners. This list would include warmth, concern,
respect, caring, gratitude and affection.

Taking that approach is definitely an improvement
over calling everything under the sun love. A
problem remains, however. No matter how
restrictive we get about what can legitimately be
called love, we are still basically talking about
feelings. Love for most people is feelings. There's
nothing wrong with that - except that feelings are
transient. They come and go. Anything that comes
and goes can't absolutely be relied upon - including
feelings of love.

The next time you have a strong feeling,
don't give it a name (like anger or boredom).
Instead, just watch it. You will notice that
your feeling will change in a little while. It will
either disperse, like a cloud does, or transform
into some other feeling. Feelings don't last; they
change into something else.

A major problem in many relationships is the
fact that couples get married largely on the basis
of that great biochemical/feeling state called
falling in love. Then the falling in love feelings
become the standard against which the marriage
is measured. As a couples counselor and
coach, I often hear people complain, I am not in
love with him (or her) anymore, as if not having
the original feelings was sufficient reason for
considering the marriage a failure.

Feelings are unstable; they change. Does this
mean that feelings should be discounted in relationships?
Absolutely not.

Feelings are the warmth, color, depth, heart and
intensity of love. Relationships would be dry as
bones without feelings. The difficulty is not with
feelings, but with the extent of our reliance on
them.

The story is altogether different if we define
love not as feelings primarily, but as behavior
supported by feelings. Then, love becomes
primarily a verb, not a noun a doing rather
than a feeling. Your love for your partner is a mix
of the loving actions you take plus your loving
feelings.

Love definitely comes down to earth when
behavior becomes the standard by which it is
judged. I really respect you, a man declares
to his wife. When she presses him for evidence,
he can't produce any actions of his that show his
respect. Either he doesn't respect her or - another
possibility - she has never told him what specifically
she would like him to do that would show respect.

If love for you is all about feelings and your
loving feelings for your partner have gone away,
then you may figure that it's time to leave the
marriage. On the other hand, if love is action as
much, if not more, than feelings, then you figure
out what actions you and your partner could take
to make the relationship work. Also, when you
regard love as behavior, you are only one step
away from thinking about the actual relationship
skills you need to behave lovingly toward
each other.

When people regard love as primarily action
something you do and when they learn the relationship
skills for behaving lovingly in different
situations, they are much, much better prepared to
succeed in a marriage or committed relationship
than are those for whom love is primarily feelings
and, Gee, I don't have those feelings for you any
more. Too bad.