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To have the love we want but are not prepared to give, we seek romantic relationships.
We think these relationships will rescue and redeem us but true love only has the power to redeem if we are ready for redemption. Love saves us only if we want to be saved. So many seekers after love are taught in childhood to feel unworthy, told that nobody will love them as they are. They construct false selves. In adult life they meet people who fall in love with their false self but that love cannot last. At some point glimpses of the true self emerge and disappointment ensues. Rejected by their chosen love, the message received in childhood is confirmed. Nobody could love them as they really are.
Few of us enter romantic relationships able to receive love. We fall into romantic attachments doomed to replay familiar family dramas. Usually we do not know this will happen precisely because we have grown up in a culture that tells us that no matter the extent of our sorrow, alienation, emptiness, no matter the extent of our dehumanization, romantic love will be ours. We believe we will meet the one of our dreams and often they show up just as we imagined they would. We wanted the lover to appear but most of us were not really clear about what we wanted to do with them – what the love we wanted to make was and how we would make it. We were not ready to open our hearts fully.
Toni Morrison in The Bluest Eye identifies romantic love as one of the most destructive ideas in the history of human thought. It's destructiveness resides in the notion that we come to love with no will and no capacity to choose. This illusion perpetuated by so much romantic lore, stands in the way of our learning how to love. To sustain our fantasy we substitute romance for love.
When romance is depicted as a project, or so the mass media especially movies would have us believe, women are the architects and the planners. Everyone likes to imagine that women are romantics, sentimental about love, and that men follow where women lead. No doubt it was some one playing the role of leader who conjured up the notion that we “fall in love,” that we lack choice and decision when choosing a partner because when the chemistry is present, when the click is there, it just happens – it overwhelms – it takes control. This way of thinking about love is especially useful to men socialized by patriarchal notions of masculinity to be out of touch with what they feel.
Thomas Merton in his essay “Love And Need” contends, “The expression to “fall in love” reflects a peculiar attitude toward love and life itself. - a mixture of fear and awe, fascination and confusion. It implies suspicion, doubt, hesitation in the face of something unavoidable, yet not fully reliable.” If you do not know what you feel, then it is difficult to choose love; it is better to fall. Then you do not have to be responsible for your actions.
Even though psychoanalysts from Fromm in the 1950's to Scott Peck in the present day, critique the idea that when we fall in love, we continue to invest in the fantasy of effortless union. We continue to believe we are swept away, caught up in the rapture, that we lack choice and will. In The Art of Loving Fromm repeatedly talks about love as action, “essentially an act of will.” He writes “To love somebody is not just a strong feeling – it is a decision, it is a judgment, it is a promise. If love were only a feeling, there would be no basis for the promise to love each other. Feelings come and go. Peck builds upon Fromm's definition when he describes love as the will to nurture one's own or another's spiritual growth adding “The desire to love is not itself love. Love is as love does. Love is an act of will – namely both an intention and action.Will also implies choice. We do not have to love. We choose to love.” Despite these brilliant insights, and the wise council they offer, most people remain reluctant to embrace the idea that it is more genuine, more real to think of choosing to love rather than falling in love.
Harriet Lerner shares that most people want a partner “who is mature and intelligent, loyal and trustworthy, loving and attentive, sensitive and open, kind and nurturant, competent and responsible.” No matter the intensity of the desire, she concludes “Few of us evaluate a prospective partner with the same objectivity and clarity we might use to select a household appliance or a car.” To be capable of critically evaluating a partner we would need to be able to stand back and look critically at ourselves, our needs, desires, and longings.
She says "It was difficult for me to take out a piece of paper and truly evaluate if I was able to give what I wanted to receive. And even more difficult to make a list of the qualities I wanted to find in a mate. I listed ten items. And then when I applied the list to men I had chosen as potential partners, it was painful to face the discrepancy between what I wanted and what I had chosen to accept. We fear that evaluating our needs and then carefully choosing partners will reveal there is no one for us to love. Most prefer to have a partner who is lacking then no partner at all (not me) What becomes apparent is that we may be more interested in finding a partner than in knowing love.
People believe that approaching love with will and intentionality will bring an end to romance but this is simply not so. Approaching romantic love from a foundation of care, knowledge, and respect actually intensifies romance. By taking the time to communicate openly with a potential mate we are no longer trapped by the fear and anxiety underlying romantic interactions that take place without discussion or the sharing of intent and desire.
Women rarely choose men solely on the basis of erotic connection. Females are socialized more to be concerned with emotional connection.We know about having great sex with men who are intimate terrorists, men who seduce and attract us by giving just what you feel your heart needs then gradually or abruptly withholding it once they have gained your trust.
All relationships have ups and downs. Romantic fantasy often nurtures that difficulties and down times are an indication of a lack of love rather than part of the process. In actuality true love thrives on difficulties. The foundation of such love is the assumption that we want to grow and expand, to become more fully ourselves. There is no change that does not bring with it a feeling of challenge and loss.When we experience true love it may feel as if our lives are in danger; we may feel threatened.
John Welwood in his book Love And Awakening: Discovering The SacredPath of Intimate Relationship makes the useful distinction between a heart connection and soul connection. He says “ a soul connection is a resonance between two people who respond to the essential beauty of each other's individual natures, behind their facades, and who connect on a deeper level. ”This kind of mutual recognition provides the catalyst for a potent alchemy. It is a sacred alliance whose purpose is to help both partners discover and realize their deepest potentials. While a heart connection lets us appreciate those we love just as they are, a soul connection opens up a further dimension – seeing and loving them for who they could be, and for who we could become under their influence."
Throughout our lives we meet many people with whom we feel that click that could take us on the path of love. But this click is not the same as a soul connection. Often a deeper bonding with another, a soul connection, happens whether we will it to be or not. Soul bonding is not necessarily simple. Sacred relationships require work.
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