This is post is prompted by a message at the Bread n Roses message board..
It made me want to hang my head in exasperation.
It also made me very sad.
Toedancer asks, in essence: why must love be lifelong in order for it to be love?
Well, what if it's not lifelong?
What if there were conditions attached to loving someone. What if the underlying message of a relationship was:
- I will love you as long as I feel like it.
- I will love you as long as you make me happy.
- I will love you as long as you are not an inconvenience.
Would a person feel open to intimacy in such a situation? Intimacy involves exposing one's vulnerabilities, and it's more difficult to be vulnerable if love is unconditional.
That guardedness closes off emotional growth. It closes off the joy of the security of someone else's unconditional acceptance. When you can show yourself to another person, as you truly are i.e. be vulnerable, and you are not worried that the person will not break off the emotional connection, that brings a source of joy-- perhaps unconscious, but it's there.
People want to be as they truly are. I think that's universal. A two-person, exclusive, life-long relationship, i.e. marriage,is the best place for this to happen. However special friends and family members are, they can never be the object of that same self-revelation and self-giving.
Giving! That's another aspect of lifelong exclusivity.
Love is the donation of self and one's resources. A relationship is like an investment. You want an emotional return on it. If you think that your relationship can possibly be cut short, you will not invest of your self as much as if you were sure the relationship was not going to end. If you see your life as being a series of romantic relationships, why invest in a relationship that is souring and that you foresee will end? At some point, it may not be worth the investment. You're not going to expose yourself to hurt and frustration if you think the other person will not stay (or that you have a door out!)
What all this boils down to is that marriage is the best guarantor of emotional fulfillment. It may not be as easy as serial monogamy; it may not even have all the spark of going from romance to romance. What it does provide is the best opportunity for emotional fulfillment and intimacy. Romance, in the grand scheme of things, isn't that emotionally fulfilling if it's not accompanied by a corresponding mutual commitment. It's comparatively superficial. Marriage is where you get to be as you truly are, where you get to be accepted as you truly are.
