The Living Love
Song
Paula looks sad as she slumps into a chair in my office and puts her hands over her face so she won't have to look at her worried husband sitting next to her. Her drooping shoulders and her long blonde hair, hanging in disarray, speak volumes about her mood.
"I feel so bad," she begins. "I just don't think I love Randy anymore. I would like to do something about it but I don't know how to change my feelings."
Randy's eyes are red and moist as he struggles to make sense of what he is hearing. "I thought everything was okay between us. . . until recently," he says. "I still don't understand what's wrong."
Before me on my note pad are the symptoms of an ailing marriage: Randy is under enormous pressures at work to meet deadlines and hold onto his job. Paula is gaining weight. He is spending more time with their children than with her. He forgets to kiss her goodbye on his way to work. They haven't made love in weeks. At a time in their lives when Randy needs to pay special attention to romance, he is taking his desperate partner for granted. The more they focus on their problems the more their desire for each other fades. Love songs are forgotten. Moonlit nights are ignored. Dinners out are unscheduled to
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save money and time. Leisurely walks in the park are lost memories in the hurried press of life.
The young woman Randy married did not want to hurt his feelings; the young man Paula married did not want to burden her with his troubles at work. As a result, he was shutting her out of his personal life and she was preoccupied with his neglect. Both had lost all passion in their marriage because passion needs hope to survive and neither was hearing any strains of it from the other. They did not yet know about the living love song.
PASSION IS ACTION
Feelings of passion benefit a marriage because they are powerful motivators for us to act in loving ways. This passionate feeling of the desire for closeness is important in marriage because it fosters intimacy which leads to more loving actions.
Passion is both feeling and action. Feelings, however, change easily. They are not stable. It is normal for all of our feelings to fluctuate, and this is true for feelings of passion as well. Since fluctuations can occur from moment to moment it is not wise to base our love simply on how we feel.
Paula had felt excited when Randy was courting her. She had learned to associate her love for Randy with the romantic feelings he seemed to give her in those early days. "That's how love works," Paula had concluded. She assumed that passionate feelings would emerge whenever Randy would say and do the right things to make her happy. Without realizing it, she had taken a passive position, making her husband responsible to pump up her desire for him. She wanted to feel her love first so that it would be easy to live it. This was easier for her than acting passionately, which would eventually develop passionate feelings within her. However, passively waiting for our mate to "light our fire" is not sufficient to keep passion alive.
It is not reasonable to require our mate to inspire our feelings of desire. It is our own responsibility to keep our passion alive.
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When it comes naturally, we can enjoy it! When it doesn't, we can do something about it even though we may not feel like it. By acting passionately, we can start to feel our passion return. Our love song starts to come alive. Sometimes we have to sing a few bars before we get into a singing mood. But by taking responsibility for being passionate, we can sing the first stanza of our living love song. This is the love song that accepts responsibility for acting lovingly toward one's mate regardless of how we feel.
Randy had fallen into the "squirrel cage syndrome": longer hours of work to make more money to support his wife resulting in separation for longer hours . . . . In his frantic race Randy became oblivious to the needs of his wife for more personal attention. He was providing economically but not emotionally. Paula was losing hope that her life with Randy would ever improve.
Hope is the fuel of passion. To survive, marital passion needs a reasonable hope for achieving closeness. If we ever lose hope of attaining that closeness, our passionate love song will lose its melody. But even hope is a matter of faith. "Easy hope" is always being able to see the light at the end of the tunnel. "Hard hope" is holding fast to our dreams and expectations even when we see no light at the end of the tunnel.
The stronger our hope, the more capable we will be of maintaining our passion. Our own inner attitude will have a direct effect on how passionately we love, even when we aren't in the mood to sing a living love song.
Passion cannot survive merely on unexpressed hope. Genuine hope should say something. Unexpressed desire seldom finds fulfillment, whereas expressed passion usually evokes a response. Not every response is satisfying, but if we do not express ourselves, no response is even possible.
Paula had not taken responsibility for her own passion, but had quietly waited for Randy to notice her. Had she insisted that they spend more time together, praised him for what he was trying to do, and become more assertive about her own needs for affection, she might have saved herself a lot of pain and trouble.
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PASSION IS SEXUAL BUT. . . .
Passion is usually equated with sexual activity. Certainly marital passion is likely to lead to sexual enjoyment. But passion is broader than sex alone. Marital passion is the desire to be close to our mate. When Randy and Paula stopped sharing their feelings with each other they no longer felt close. They tried to use sex as a means of drawing closer but it didn't work. Why? Because there was no expression of passion in their communication apart from sex.
There are people who have active sex lives with little else going on in their marriage. They use multiple methods for enhancing their sexual excitement. But the end result leaves them unsatisfied and trying harder. They are too focused on sex instead of upon loving each other.
Paula expected more affection because she and Randy had experienced more in the past. Before the pressures of financial survival hit them so hard, Randy had more time for them to enjoy each other. She never expected things to be any different and it was difficult for her not to take it very personally. When they did try to make love, Randy was too tired to enjoy it and Paula felt distant.
It is normal to hope that sex will make us feel closer to our mate, but sex alone cannot provide what we seek—the deep and lasting satisfaction of true closeness. Emotional intimacy can be satisfying without sex but sexual passion is not ultimately satisfying without emotional intimacy.
It is important to cultivate emotional passion before we try to fulfill physical passion. The ultimate fulfillment of passion is consummated through sexual expression, but it begins with emotional closeness. The husband and wife who know about verbal intimacy, self-disclosure, risk-taking, and sharing feelings with each other will approach sex as a celebration of the closeness that they have already achieved with their hearts. Love-making then becomes a satisfying expression of intimacy already
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established rather than a desperate attempt to fill a personal void.
DESIRE CAN BE DANGEROUS
All passion is not positive. Passion is energy that can be used for good or ill. Expressing our passion without good judgment is like letting an automobile engine control a car with no one at the steering wheel. There is a lot of power in an engine, but its constructive use needs to be under control. Similarly, feelings can be a powerful motivator, but their expression needs to be under the control of objective thinking.
I know a man who is passionately jealous and possessive. He lacks confidence in himself and is afraid his wife might leave him. She was originally very devoted to her husband, but his oppressive control and unrealistic demands are driving her away. His desire is destructive. It lacks objective judgment and self-control. To be positive, a passionate love song must be under the influence of constructive and loving principles.
NEW TESTAMENT LOVE
In the New Testament, the Greek word agape is used when Jesus tells us to love one another. It's used again when Paul tells husbands to love their wives. Scholars explain that this Greek word refers to the will, not to feelings. It conveys the idea of showing love by the way we act. When we love our mate with agape love, we are helpful rather than possessive.
The Bible clearly refers to love as a behavior more than as a feeling. In I Corinthians 13, the great "love chapter," the apostle Paul used behavioral terms and verbs of action. "Love is patient, love is kind" (v.4), he said. "[It] rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres"
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(v. 6-7). The only time Paul uses feeling words in reference to love is when he is talking about what love is not. Love is not envious, proud, or easily angered. In I John 3:18 the apostle John writes, "Let us . . . love . . . with actions."
Feelings of "love" that are not translated into behavior are worthless. Feelings themselves are not love. Feelings come and go. They are unstable, unreliable. If we act loving only when we feel like it, our love will not be consistent.
The Bible teaches that how we treat others is the yardstick to measure our love, not how warmly we feel toward them. To obey the Scriptures and act lovingly toward a mate (or other people as well) is to anticipate that loving feelings will follow. Of course loving feelings make loving behavior more enjoyable. But even when feelings of love aren't present, we can act loving anyway. Eventually the feelings we are demonstrating will come along.
This is exactly how it worked out for Randy and Paula. She didn't want a divorce but she had lost hope. She was willing to try anything to feel her passion for Randy again, once she knew what to do.
She began by talking more openly to Randy about her needs, about her pain of feeling isolated. She took a risk and got his attention. His attention then gave her confidence to further risk finding out how he would treat her if she continued to act loving toward him. She didn't blame him or focus on past events that he could never change.
"Randy," she said one day following the counseling session, "I know you are tired, but we need some things from the market so I can finish dinner. Would you go with me so we can be together a little longer?"
"Well, I am tired," her husband replied. "But we haven't really seen much of each other lately, have we?"
She was happy that his response was positive, even though she certainly hadn't been eager to take the risk.
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RESISTANCE
Too many sad and sorrowing adults wait for love's feelings to wash over them before they are willing to act lovingly. It feels phony somehow to act loving if our mate has just torn all our self-esteem to shreds with harsh accusations. Two important issues need to be addressed at this point:
First, the Bible never invites believers to put on a happy face if someone is putting them down. Jesus didn't drive out the money-changers from the temple with a grin on his face. Neither does God expect us to cover our pain with a smile that contradicts our feelings. But just because we might feel more like withdrawing doesn't mean that is the best response. We sing our love song by acting with care and respect while also sharing our feelings of hurt with our mate.
Sometimes our feelings of hurt are due to our own oversensitivity. When we are not getting our needs met in general, we are especially vulnerable when a specific need is treated as unimportant. We need to learn how to be more resourceful in meeting our own emotional needs so that we will be less sensitive in reacting to the needs of our mates when they hurt us.
Second, people resist doing something that doesn't feel natural. Of course we are to be honest, but in a relationship, it is honest to live what we believe, not what we feel. One woman says out of an angry heart. "I can't keep fixing my husband dinner when he comes home late from work and then complains about what I've fixed him. It feels phony," she complains, "to do something I don't feel like doing. Shouldn't I be honest?" She's uncomfortable doing something that is contrary to the way she feels.
It is not phony to live contrary to feelings. Most people do it every morning when they get out of bed even when they are tired, or refuse dessert even when they would like to eat it!
It is phony only to act contrary to beliefs. If I believe that love is a worthy value to live by but act insensitive to my mate's needs, I am being phony because I am not acting in accordance
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with my belief. I am letting my feelings control my life. It is responsible, not phony, to live lovingly even when we do not feel loving. The good news is that, by believing in our love and acting lovingly toward our mate, we will eventually feel the love that we want to feel.
This is not to say that we should squelch negative feelings. It means that when we reveal negative feelings it should be done in a constructive and responsible way.
Passion can fluctuate like the wind. It is good to have passionate feelings to motivate us to act lovingly. However, when our passionate feelings have left us, we can restore them by accepting the responsibility to act lovingly toward our mate even though we do not feel like it at the moment.
Paula decided to think about her husband's needs instead of dwelling on her own. In the course of counseling she learned ways to take better care of her own emotional needs so that she wouldn't be overly dependent upon Randy and resentful if he failed her. Then she decided to give to him what she could, even though she felt she wasn't getting much back.
Her first move was to plan and prepare a lovely, candlelight dinner with Randy. During the course of the meal she told her husband what was on her heart:
"Honey, I want you to know that I appreciate all the hard work you do to provide for us. I get lonely for you when you work late, but I know you love me. I just want you to know that I want to be close to you whenever I can be."
Her courage in "singing" her love song by living out her love toward Randy is paying big dividends. Passionate desire is once again present. Most people need to work hard to maintain passion in marriage. We act passionate to feel passionate. This is the living love song.
* * * * * * *
We have seen that passion, the emotional dimension of loving, can be powerful and satisfying. But it is a feeling, and as such it is very undependable. True love is more than mere feeling. Agape love is behavior governed by our Christian beliefs.
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That kind of love doesn't express itself only when it feels good. When we act loving, even though we do not feel loving, we are fulfilling the command of Christ as well as setting the stage for loving feelings to return to us.
Sounds easy if you say it fast, doesn't it? Let's get specific in the next chapter: How can we act loving when we don't feel passionate—or even positive—anymore?
