Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Is Love Enough?

I came across this quote from Eat, Pray, Love today, and I wanted to know everyone's thoughts on it. Elizabeth Gilbert writes, "We were so committed to solving this thing. Because how could two people who were so in love not end up happily ever after? It had to work. Didn't it?"

What do you think? Is love enough? Comment or post away, even if you haven't gotten to this part or even started the book!
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3 comments:

  1. AnonymousMarch 10, 2010 at 6:35 PM

    I FOUND YOU! Woot! Now on the to the real reason I'm here: my thoughts.

    I think the telling phrase is "we were so IN love."

    Far too often in our culture, where marriage isn't the sacred covenant it ought to be (and is elsewhere, where choice has nothing to do with the matter - not that I'd want to live in those places, but still...), feelings pervade and pervert everything. "We're so in love...how can it be this messy!?" Because you're still two essentially selfish humans, that's how. And at the end of the day, the commitment you make has to be a covenant...one that cannot be broken, even if you sometimes want to break it. If there is any kind of an out, even an inkling of a "could be greener" attitude, it's not true balls-to-the-wall committment.

    But, that said, the covenant involves two people. And even if one is all-in committed to the marriage, if the other isn't, it's easy to unravel.

    One thing a marriage counselor told us once is that when we, as a couple, find ourselves in an ugly place facing a seemingly insurmountable problem, the thing that will and must carry us over is our conscious decision to uphold one another *first* and cherish our marriage above ourselves. Because - and I hate to sound totally lame here, but I'm finding it more and more true the longer I'm married -there are three persons in this marriage, and the Third is quite capable of keeping it together even when neither of us wants it. So it's not even our commitment to each other that's so importnat (though it's crucial, for sure); it's our commitment to our marriage that is key, paramount.

    Anyway, those are my dumb thoughts.

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  2. CarrieMarch 10, 2010 at 9:19 PM

    I very much agree with Amy (above). Marriage is a covenant between and man and woman AND God (the third person). And love is a choice. When you enter the COVENANT of marriage, you are saying that you will choose to love that person every day. That means on days when you are so mad you are swimming in it, you bob your head above the water of anger and frustration and say, "I choose to love you even today". The feelings come and go...some days you DO feel like loving him, and boy do you, but the commitment speaks to the peaks and valleys (and plateaus for that matter too.)

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  3. joannaMarch 11, 2010 at 10:51 AM

    I agree. I feel like "love" in today's cultural sense is not enough. That kind of love is all about feelings and the mysterious "spark" that must be present at all times. I think that for marriage to be successful there must be a healthy dose of commitment and an even bigger helping of unselfishness. And God at the center of it all.

    Which is easy to say and believe in when you are single and not married. Much harder to live out daily I am sure.

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