Then promise me you will love me forever.
WIFE
As with all events in life, love changes. I mentioned earlier that every love eventually is broken by illness, separation, or death. It is the process of loving that constitutes our wellness, our ability to achieve super marital sex. The process of loving is infinite even if people aren’t.
Marion Richards, in her book Centering, writes, “The product is not what binds the artist to his craft. Nor the actor to the theater. Nor the person to his being. It is the transformations.” We should commit to process, not people, to a process of vulnerability and the sharing of self, not the struggle to keep love alive as somehow separate from us.
Remember, love is a decision and a decision is necessary to end it. Even in grieving, there comes a time when the decision to “un-bond,” must come. Unbonding does not cancel the memory, the love trace, but it requires a change in the relationship because of the loss of the physical presence of the loved person. Ending is as much a part of loving as beginning.
The love decision is never mutual. Author Zick Rubin points out that the decision to separate comes when one partner feels that the costs of being in a relationship exceed the perceived benefits and
one partner is willing to take a chance, to try for another bonding. As I discussed in Chapter Three, we all “dump” and “get dumped.” It is part of the process of loving and being loved. To believe that any relationship or bond is forever is self-deception. To remember that loving is forever is the ultimate human hope.
A bond’s end is one of the most painful of human experiences, but as writer Shirley Luthman writes, “I don’t believe people put themselves through very painful situations unless that is the only way they can learn what they need to know.” Researcher Clark Moustakas states that the very power of the loving process is its continued jeopardy of changing and ending. This is a universal truth for all living systems.
“I never thought I would hurt like this. I feel it everywhere, in every inch of my body. I’m sick, heartsick,” reported the wife. “I’m sorry I ever loved, and I would have never loved if I knew I was going to pay this price.” She should have known. It is the very nature of love to contain in its intensity its own destruction, as a star explodes from its own heat. The decision to end will never be mutual; we all end up hurt. Understanding this will not lessen the pain, but it may free us for a focus on the joy of the process, for it is the process, not the product, that is forever.
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Tags: General health