Love, Part II

William R. Colagrande, MS

Last time in Love, part I, we examined the notion of “falling in love” that I compared to being struck by a thunderbolt and we began to draw the distinction between love and passion. I stated that passion was essentially an individual experience, a blissful, expansive state, but one not even necessarily related to another human being. Love, on the other hand, is a warm, affectionate caring about another person, wanting to serve them and wishing the best for them. It differs from passion in that it is not about us, it’s about another.

Part of the confusion surrounding love and passion is that as a culture we have lost touch with the cultural roots of these two notions. The first references to what has come to be thought of as romantic love we find in Twelfth century literature. Initially known as Courtly Love, it was a highly idealized, even spiritual relationship between a knight and his lady fair (think of Lancelot and Guinevere.) Each knight agreed to obey his lady in all things having to do with affection, relationship, manners and taste. Within her realm she was his queen. He was not, however, to be involved sexually with her, nor could they ever marry (each other; she was usually already married to another nobleman.) Sex or even marriage between them would only defile the idealized relationship to which they aspired. A third requirement was that they keep themselves aflame with passion for each other but continually channel that passion into a religious or spiritual experience. French love songs of the time were called romans, which was later anglicized into “romance.”

So the original notion of romantic love was an idealized and spiritual one, from which sexual contact and marriage were intentionally excluded. Wives would not complain that their husbands weren’t being romantic were they aware of this original definition. But that is my whole point: having lost touch with what romantic love originally meant is it any wonder there is so much confusion and misunderstanding about what love means for us today?

Well, then, what is love? It is a warm, affectionate feeling of caring whereby we want only the best for the other person: their well-being, their safety, their happiness. Through love we act toward the other person only in ways which promote these qualities in them. Above all, love is about relatedness. I can’t truly feel love without being in relationship to another person. I can say I love baseball or fishing, but that would be inaccurate. We can only truly love another person. And loving them, we want only the best for them, and that is what distinguishes love from passion.

In marriage, in a committed relationship, it is important to understand the difference between passion and love and to balance them. There is nothing wrong with passion, though what seemed to come of its own accord in the early innings of a relationship becomes something that must be consciously worked at later on. Passion helps keep the spark of excitement and other-worldliness alive in the relationship. We can continue to experience it in part by consciously striving to become more of who we are, pushing our comfort zone by revealing more of ourselves with honesty and humility. And this will in turn inspire, encourage and (dare I say) inflame your spouse to reciprocate in kind.

In Part I, I mentioned the notion that part of what attracts us to each other is seeing and eventually realizing lost aspects of ourselves in the other person. There is much to ponder in this regard. For those of you who have been together for a while, did you ever wonder: “Why him/her? How did I choose to marry this person from among all the potential available candidates?” Makes you consider that perhaps forces are at work that transcend our conscious awareness. A lot of credence is given in the fields of depth psychology and spirituality to the idea that we are drawn to those who will help us reclaim hidden aspects of ourselves that need to be acknowledged and worked though for the sake of our psychological and spiritual development. It is in concepts such as this that the mystical aspects of Twelfth century courtly love have survived to the present day. I must add that these concepts are much more widely know and accepted in other, particularly Eastern, cultures than they are here in the West. Here, the idea seems unusual at best, and that is part of the price we have to pay for all of our technological, industrial and economic preeminence.

So, in passion we find the inspiration to become more than we are. In love, we care, with warmth and affection, for another and, through this relatedness, we find joy, support, affection, generosity and the ideal medium for psychological growth, emotional maturity and spiritual development. While these two statements could be considered oversimplifications and certainly are only one man’s opinion, I do think they are a useful, potentially constructive and certainly an interesting take on the mysteries, myth and magic of this thing called love.

2005

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