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.”