Tuesday, 04 May 2010
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Is Love Enough? Can Love Conquer All?
Two months ago, I agreed to stop fighting for my marriage. At the time, I thought I’d fall apart.When Mike first said he wanted a divorce, last October, I had a bit of a breakdown. It took a couple of days, but one morning I started to cry and couldn’t stop for the next five hours. I texted Mike to come home so that he could take care of Cavanaugh and/or me. I told him I didn’t think I could survive a divorce, that I wasn’t sure I’d live through it.
He hung around and gave me time. Though I thought we were still working on the marriage, I believe he was done back then, that the attempts at dating or just bridging the chasm between us were out of obligation and kindness. I am grateful for that.
Even though I felt blindsided two months ago, I had already processed some level of loss, the fears about what would happen if the marriage was really over.
Happily, most of the fears were just those awful demons that dance around in our heads. The sky is not falling. The sun still rises too early in the morning. And I get through many days with less than five minutes of tears, some days with none at all.
No one could have gotten me to believe I would feel this okay just sixty days in to a new life I didn’t think I wanted. That’s not true. I thought often about wanting a life without Mike.
But I’d get scared. Or I’d think about our vows and my parents divorce and how I swore I would never get one. The biggest thing though was that I kept asking myself if I loved him. And the answer was always yes.
I still do love him. But I was asking the wrong question. I believe now that love is not enough, not even close.
Mike and I fought so hard to stay together. We fought with each other, against other people. We compromised ourselves until neither of us had the life we wanted. Bud did I love him? Yep.
And I grew up on romance novels, still am happily entertained by schlocky romantic comedies (okay, not right now, but I will be again). I was so invested in believing that love conquers all. One of my favorite scenes from Princess Bride is when Wesley and Princess Buttercup are reunited after tumbling down a steep and long hill.
Wesley: “Can you move at all?”
Princess Buttercup: “Move. You’re alive. If you want I can fly.”
Wesley: “I told you I would always come for you. Why didn’t you wait for me?”
Princess Buttercup: “Well, you were dead.”
Wesley: “Death can not stop true love. All it can do is delay it for awhile.”
Princess Buttercup: “I will never doubt again.”
Man, did I buy that idea. I didn’t want to doubt Mike or our love. And how different could a farm boy and a princess be? If they could make it, with all that Mike and I had in common, of course we could.
But I wasn’t considering all that we didn’t have in common and how hard we were having to fight to try to stay together. He said over and over, “It shouldn’t be this hard.”
I didn’t want it to be that hard either, but I thought that even if it was hard, as long as we loved each other, we should keep fighting. Does that sound as crazy to you as it does to me? Because it wasn’t just fighting for our relationship, it was fighting each other over who got what they wanted, who got let down, who felt guilty.
So, sixty days after Mike said he still loved me but he didn’t want to be married to me anymore, I feel relief most days. Negotiating who we’re going to be to each other now and if we’ll actually be able to pull off a friendship is challenging. But most days, there’s not fighting.
I had no idea how tired I was of fighting. No matter how much love there was, or how good our intentions, it just shouldn’t have been that hard.
Where do you stand on the love conquers all/love is not question? How has it played out in your life?
Post from MamaTRUE
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About the Author
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- From: mamatrue
- Name: mamatrue
- About Me: Sonya S. Feher is stay-at-home-mama to Cavanaugh True. She found out she was an attachment parent when she and Cavanaugh were invited to a playgroup full of AP families. Loath to admit she had no idea what AP was, she went home and Googled it. Sure enough, her new friends were right. Since then, she has become a co-leader of the South Austin chapter of Attachment Parenting International, a contributing editor for API Speaks, and a columnist for The Attached Family. She blogs about parenting at http://mamatrue.com and writing at http://sonyafeher.com. You can contact her at mamatrue (at) sonyafeher (dot) com.
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Comments (17)
Love, for me, is not a feeling. It's a choice. If you can fall in love....you can fall out of love. I think there is a world view of love that loves with strings attached and then there's the God love which is clearly defined in I Corinthians 13. I would never judge you or any other person that is in the middle of a difficult marriage. Each has his own journey and battle on this earth and is doing the best they know how. If love "conquers all", then why isn't the whole world saved? I believe God's love has to be received, but not all recieve it. A strong healthy relationship is a two way street. True love is selfless and looks out for the needs of the other. True love is not concerned about what it will get in return. God's love is like the sunshine. It just keeps shinning upon us all and it always will. But relationship with God begins when we begin to reciprocate that love....to take and give it back. Anyone can say they love someone, but not everyone can say they love to the point of laying down their life....there's a difference in action. Love without action is dead, in the same way that faith without works is dead. Back to feelings....they will always come and go. Feelings make a poor master, but an excellant slave. In my 38 years of marriage, feelings have come and gone, but my choice has remained to love, honor and cherish....that's what I've learned.
I feel that love doesn't conquer all, not at all. There can be love, but there also has to be strength, patience, compromise, understanding, and the list goes on and on. Just because you love one another doesn't guarantee happiness, it doesn't guarantee stability, nor longevity. You choose to grow old with a person and so on. It's a relationship and just like any other relationship it takes the willingness of BOTH parties to make it work. It truly doesn't matter how much one person tries more than the other. Once one person decides that the relationship is over that's it. If one party fails to respond to the others actions, the other person cannot force the other to do what they want. Love is never enough... There is so much more to us than love....
For me, love has conquered all. My husband and I have almost given up on our marriage a couple times, but never at the same time. This last time has proven to me that we're willing to do whatever it takes to make sure we stay together. We want to work harder because of love, even when it made more sense to give up.
best of luck to you and him. i hope that it will work out for you both in the end. and that you two are both calm when you do make the decisions. even divorce is a 2 person process.
Where do you stand on the love conquers all/love is not question? How has it played out in your life? - i believe love is what makes you wake up in the morning to make breakfast for your favorite person, but it is not what makes you annoyed and yelled at your best friend. so, it is an iffy answer if an answer at all. i don't experience life to the fullest, but, i think i tried to reason with myself to not be too judgemental and harsh. that's all.
I wish love concored all. And maybe it does. I think the real question is, Is the love you have for eachother now, the exact same love you had for eachother when it all began? Love always changes and developes and grows. But some times, like in this case, it seems love had grown adn developed all that it can and its time to move on. No wait said it wouldnt be hard, no one said it would be easy. No one said it wouldnt hurt. Of course it hurts.
Without the pain, we wouldnt be able to truely appreciate the happiness and the good times. I am still young. I haven't found my 'forever love' so I can't exactly relate to how you're feeling and what you are going through, but I believe all love has a course. Your love ran it's course. And if it is meant to be, you will be together again. Who knows. Life has a funny way of working things out sometimes.
@Bumblypick@xanga - Amen.
Love doesn't just happen...it's a choice. A choice you make every day when you're in a relationship. Staying married is a choice too. For my husband and I, divorce would never be an option. If things ever got really bad (abuse, infidelity, etc.) we might consider a period of seperation, but our marriage is a commitment we consider to be worth fighting for. That's what our love is...a commitment.
Sometimes things are better the second time around. I know. That is how it is for me.
Best of luck to you.
I don't think anything conquers all... all perspective I suppose haha...
For me ,love is all ! Love can surely conquer everything !
I agree kind of with a little bit of everything everyone's said. I think it's so crazy how much you went through for the sake of love for your husband. Yes I agree that love is hard, but that's because of our emotions. I think our emotions are very powerful factors in our lives and at the same time it's not exactly the most stable aspects of our lives. So when a big decision such as marriage comes along, I think it is so important to have a stable foundation that that decision can rest on. It could be pure commitment and the sheer will to see things through, or maybe spiritual, and it's always good to have the emotions there too (ie happiness). So when I read:
I didn’t want it to be that hard either, but I thought that even if it was hard, as long as we loved each other, we should keep fighting. Does that sound as crazy to you as it does to me? Because it wasn’t just fighting for our relationship, it was fighting each other over who got what they wanted, who got let down, who felt guilty.
I was in great awe at how much dedication you had to your feelings for your husband. It's definitely so hard to keep loving, trusting, and doing those selfless things for your spouse even when it's not being returned. So I think that in a sense, love is a choice, you choose to be sacrificial, you choose to be selfless, you choose to act on your love whether the feelings are there or not. And if both of you choose not to endure, to give up things because your emotions have changed, then where does the marriage fall back onto? Is there another piece of foundation, like maybe your personal will to your commitment "till death do us part," or maybe even a spiritual one? Do you believe that God's love for you is so great and that through your love for God, you will stay committed to your marriage and your spouse?
To sum it up, yes i believe love conquers all if you choose to, whether it be if you choose to continue loving your spouse, if you continue to love your commitment to your marriage, or if you continue to love your God. I pray everything works out for you whatever you choose to do.
While I would like to be able to say that "love conquers all", I've learned that it doesn't. Life is too unpredictable to expect that from love.
I agree with the first commenter. Love isn't a feeling; it's a choice. That feeling dies ALL THE TIME. But when you make the choice to love through action, by serving your partner even when you want to murder them, then that feeling can often be renewed.
True love is hard because it's not based on feeling. Anyone who says "it shouldn't be this hard" has lust/feelings in mind and not love. The happy-go-lucky-attraction-and-hormones feelings that you get while dating aren't love; they're just the feel good hormonal responses that bind two people initially. Then comes the reality and the work it takes to stay together. And the fact that it will be hard is a given. Because the feel good feelings will die at times. Sometimes for years. And the only way they can come back is if both partners are committed to work through the rough times by serving one another selflessly. It's the hardest thing in the world. But that's love.
If you have the feel good feelings/attraction to one another, but not the commitment to keep working at them, then what the marriage has is the feeling but not the action. It is essentially a loveless marriage. True love is selfless. Parents often have true love for their children. No matter what the child does to the parent, the parent will keep working for and serving that child. They will keep trying to help the child grow.
I don't agree that love is a choice and not a feeling. I don't think you can choose love, I think love chooses you (as corny as that sounds).
But in my opinion, love does not conquer all. And the love in movies doesn't really happen, it's nice to think it does, but realistically: it doesn't. Love requires a lot of commitment, determination and passion. Otherwise it dies.
I'm not speaking from personal experience, because I've yet to fall in love, but I've seen relationships and breakups and I honestly don't think love conquers all. Maybe for some people it does, and if it does, that's brilliant. But not for everyone.
I also agree that love isn't a feeling. I know when I was 9 months pregnant with our second child, we had some REALLY bad times. But that was when I learned how very valuable marriage counselling was. In part because it helped me to leave my frustrations and hurt and the feeling that I needed him to demonstrate his sorrow or his love and devotion at the counsellor's office. I always left feeling a burden lifted. We left and didn't discuss our problems afterward, only in counselling, and that left us time to have fun with each other again. That rebuilt our relationship, and I think it would be a good thing for us to periodically venture back into it when things always seem to be hard again.
I'm sorry for your heartache and for your broken family and the broken dreams as well.
I think soap operas, romance novels, etc do us no good at all - unless we read it knowing "this is not a real depiction of love or life in any way." On the other hand, sometimes I will read a little non-thinking trashy book because gosh darn it, I'm tired of sesame street and dora.
My parents are my true inspiration for love. They act the same now, 26 years into their marriage as they've acted towards each other my entire life. They still hold hands and sing to each other, write poems and such. So yeah, love might not be EVERY THING in a marriage, but it's a HUGE thing. Never underestimate it.
Short answer, no.
I'm going through this right now with my
husband. Our marriage has turned into one of convenience and we're too
young for that. Money is a legitimate argument waiting to happen while
who wakes up with the baby on weekends is not.. at least not every
weekend. We've thrown a lot of ideas around, but we've decided to put it
all on the back burner and let a lot of things go because we're in no
position to be making legal and complete lifestyle overhauls right now.
It's
day to day. The words divorce, love, hate, responsibility, family, and
future have been haunting parts of our vocabulary. Sometimes I wonder
what to do and sometimes I just come to the conclusion that love doesn't
conquer all and maybe we weren't meant to stay together after all.
We'll see what the future holds.
Good luck! I wish the best for
you and your family. :)
Thanks for writing this story about how you have dealt with the grief and pain surrounding your divorce. I am in a similar situation right now. My boyfriend of a year and a half has been slipping away for a while now. I love him very deeply, and he says that he loves me too, but I cannot believe that. He has done many things in our relationship to cause hurt and distrust. I can't say that I am innocent, but I have always been open and willing to work on things, to apologize, admit when I'm wrong, forgive, share intimacy, etc., etc. You know, all of things it takes for a relationship to be successful. I found out he was looking for jobs in other cities behind my back. Talk about being betrayed and blindsided. He was doing all of this without ever making any attempt in our relationship to do his share of work that was needed to heal us. I am having a lot of trouble letting go. It is all very fresh. I haven't had a good cry yet. I am waiting for it. Love definitely does not conquer all. I can tell you that the love I feel for him is infinite, even though he doesn't deserve it. I have not received that back from him. The only time I have received what FELT like love was when he was kind to me to sow his own needs, fears, etc., not mine. That is the hardest part. I am not scared to be alone so much as devastated that it has come to this painful disaster when I love him as much as I do, was ready to settle down with him, and put so much time and effort into all of this only to feel deceived and used by him. Thinking about him with someone else, or the fact that he has never loved me is incredibly painful to process. I know I'll be okay eventually, but when, I have no idea. I have to live with him for at least 6 more months because of our lease. That is going to drag things out. I wish it was sooner rather than later. Yet, even though I know all of these negative things about him, I still haven't been able to shake the idea that somehow I can say something to wake his mind and hammer down his brick wall to make him understand how precious and fragile love is, and that we could be as happy as two people could be together if we were BOTH willing to work at it. Alas, I've tried. He is driven by selfish needs. However, one thing that has been helpful for me through all of this is journaling. I have been writing about my feelings and experience with him everyday usually once, but twice if needed. I'm thinking that one of these days, I will be so over it that I won't want to write another word about him...go ahead and give it a try. it helps more than you would think.