Does being in love matter?

[GIGATT247]

Should a person stay married to someone they are not in love with, that they married for the wrong reasons, if their lack of being in love with the other person is causing the other person pain because they are in love?

 

[Distant_Shores]

love is a choice. You choose to love someone for the rest of your life or you choose not to. Love is not something you fall into or out of

 

[Melbelle]

Love is not a feeling but an action, you can be inlove with someone or your not just like someone said, its a choice, you can either choose to love or choose not to love, Just like Christ choose to love us and he died for us, but if he wouldn't have then he would have chosen not to love us and just not care.

 

[MrsGnomeCrusher]

What's your definition of "love?"

 

[GIGATT247]

What if you never loved the person. Not you fell out of love. Is it fair for this other person to wait for someone to fall in love with them when maybe they never will? Maybe it's just not meant to be. Who said love is a choice? How many people have fell in love with the wrong person or not fallen out of love with the wrong person and have endured a lot of heartache? Who chooses to do that? Brotherly love is a choice, but not romantic love. The kind of love that makes husband and a wife. How can you have a marraige with someone that you only love with a brotherly love? How can you love them with a brotherly love and watch them hurt when you know they can see that you are not in love?

 

[fluffy_rainbow]

Should a person stay married to someone they are not in love with

If there is no cheating or abuse involved then I would say the person should stay married. In Jesus' time, people were betrothed oftentimes to people they had never even met before. Sometimes it took years for them to adjust and fall in love, but they remained faithful to God, each other, and their marriage vows.

that they married for the wrong reasons

What would be "wrong reasons"? To have sex? Pregnancy? Money?

 

[the_man]

Should a person stay married to someone they are not in love with, that they married for the wrong reasons, if their lack of being in love with the other person is causing the other person pain because they are in love?

The love we are talking about is eros. (the kind of love lovers are in). Anyone with a healthy view of this love knows that it is fleeting and that we cannot build a relationship on such a foundation (or even worse, make such a god). Those that do (literally) fall 'out of love' when it disappears (when it is a god, and it no longer "ordains" love, the same result is achieved).

Four Loves by CS Lewis is a very good read.

 

[the_man]

What if you never loved the person. Not you fell out of love. Is it fair for this other person to wait for someone to fall in love with them when maybe they never will?

The type of person you are talking about is rather cruel.

Maybe it's just not meant to be.

Maybe, maybe not

Who said love is a choice? How many people have fell in love with the wrong person or not fallen out of love with the wrong person and have endured a lot of heartache? Who chooses to do that? Brotherly love is a choice, but not romantic love. The kind of love that makes husband and a wife. How can you have a marraige with someone that you only love with a brotherly love? How can you love them with a brotherly love and watch them hurt when you know they can see that you are not in love?

Just as friendship (philia) is a choice, so is eros. When you get in a car, you don't choose to get in an accident...but the nature of driving is such that is a dangerous adventure. The nature of love is such. I should shut up and let someone more qualified speak:

Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable."
-- C.S. Lewis

 

[GirlieGirl]

I think you can divorce if there has been marital unfaithfulness. And if he beats you I personally make further exception.

The love stuff is supposed to be worked out before you marry ideally. And if not, I believe the Scriptures call us to make the best out things.

Are you looking for a loop hole in marriage? I don't think you'll find it in the "lack of love feelings" issue.

 

[Billy Batson]

if you're not in love and you've no reason for being married other than being married, then divorce. most people here will tell you that love doesn't matter in so many words; it is a choice to be in love or not, but your life is first and foremost, yours - not the church's, not your spouse's, and not even god - he gives us choice to be his or not through our choice in believing in him or not. we're only his in that he bore us the bodies and souls, but after that, he has let us free. love should be the most important thing in a relationship, first and foremost, and should that ever be lacking, then what purpose is there to remain married other than selfesh personal gain? everyone always says, no you shouldn't divorce, UNLESS something about their personal lives, in which they think they should have the only exception.

 

[InTheFlame]

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
1 Corinthians 13:4-7

I have suspected for a long time that practically any man and any woman could marry and be happy together, as long as they are both committed to the marriage, and actively love each other.

By 'actively love', I mean the above lived out in real life... being patient with my spouse (not tapping my foot and glaring at him when he's taking 5 minutes to get across one simple message), being kind to him (buying him little presents, giving him a shoulder-massage), not being envious (being happy when something good happens to him), not boasting (avoiding pointing out when I've done something nice to him, if he's slow to mention it), not getting proud and wanting MY way or waiting for HIM to apologise where we're both in the wrong (most of the time), being polite and considerate of both his needs and requirements (knowing that the dishes just WON'T get done if he's really tired), seeking to meet his needs and wants before my own wants, being slow to get angry (consider what's going on, extenuating circumstances, what I've done to contribute to whatever the problem is), and not mention past issues that are resolved and dealt with when I'm upset. To be honest with him (gently where I might cause pain), trust him, seek to protect his back (which involves not complaining about him to others without presenting an honest picture of his good points too), trust him where I have no good reason not to, know that God has a good plan for our life together, and to never give up on him, count him worthless, or think that any Godly effort to keep the relationship alive is too much (some days, just harnessing the energy for an apology for my foul mood seems too much).

I'm not saying I manage all the above... I think life would be fantastic with anyone who did... and I think that could well be God's answer to your question. If you strive to live those out in life, you will be loving your spouse.

Just one other thing that occurred to me... get to know this man. Find out what makes him tick. Ask him every question you can think of. Show an interest in who he is. Because you don't know everything there is to know about him. You can't. But you can try. And I bet there's stuff about him you'll at least like

*huggggggggggg* God bless!

 

[InTheFlame]

if you're not in love and you've no reason for being married other than being married, then divorce. most people here will tell you that love doesn't matter in so many words; it is a choice to be in love or not, but your life is first and foremost, yours - not the church's, not your spouse's, and not even god - he gives us choice to be his or not through our choice in believing in him or not. we're only his in that he bore us the bodies and souls, but after that, he has let us free. love should be the most important thing in a relationship, first and foremost, and should that ever be lacking, then what purpose is there to remain married other than selfesh personal gain? everyone always says, no you shouldn't divorce, UNLESS something about their personal lives, in which they think they should have the only exception.

What's your definition of 'in love' and 'love', Billy?

 

[bkg]

if you're not in love and you've no reason for being married other than being married, then divorce. most people here will tell you that love doesn't matter in so many words; it is a choice to be in love or not, but your life is first and foremost, yours - not the church's, not your spouse's, and not even god - he gives us choice to be his or not through our choice in believing in him or not. we're only his in that he bore us the bodies and souls, but after that, he has let us free. love should be the most important thing in a relationship, first and foremost, and should that ever be lacking, then what purpose is there to remain married other than selfesh personal gain? everyone always says, no you shouldn't divorce, UNLESS something about their personal lives, in which they think they should have the only exception.

I sent a PM in response to someone today stating that I simply didn't want to argue anymore... Not about love, divorce, marriage or even doctrine. And I so very much wanted to go to sleep tonight in a peace knowing that all is right with the world.

And then I read this thread. I'd like the poster quoted above to give Scriptural references for the above opinions. If the poster cannot, then I would very much like to see the poster state that this opinion is born out of worldly views and NOT of the views of the Bible, or God himself. Please. Thank you.

Ugh. What a sad world we would live in if we really took the above view. That God bore us, but beyond that has nothing to do with our lives, and that we should take the position that it's "every man for himself"... Hmm.. Seems that's exactly the world we live in, and the one that Christ spoke out against and told us to not follow.

To the OP - love has nothing to do with marriage. Seriously - the feeling of love and marriage are not mutually inclusive. One of my college professors, Dr. Greg Boyd (read "letters from a skeptic" - phenominal) once said in class: Somedays I wake up, look over at my wife and think to myself: "I don't even love this person. Those are the days that I choose to show her love."

We use the term love to describe a feeling. But I'm not convinced that is how Christ used the term at all. Love is about doing, not feeling. As mentioned above, feelings are fleeting; both of love and anger, of happiness and sorrow... feelings are about as reliable as the local weather person.

To anyone who says love isn't a choice, you are correct. Love, infact, is a COMMAND set forth by God. It's not a choice, and it certainly isn't a feeling. Love is about giving, not receiving. It's about spirit, not emotion.

My heart breaks to read posts like this for many reasons. Some are selfish in that I honestly admit to coveting the opportunity that people in this situation have: an opportunity to make their marriage everything they want it to be! But so many choose not to.. Why? Why not choose to make it the most amazing wonderful thing anyone could ever experience? I promise that it's less work than the other options. The other reason my heart breaks is because I am so sad to see how little marriages actually mean to people. I'm not making light of the situation originally mentioned at all - I have no words of wisdom other than Scripture to offer. But to see how quickly CHRISTIANS will offer the option of divorce, something specifically spoken against in the Bible - the words of the God we live for - just breaks me.

Oh if I could give each married person a word, a phrase or an opportunity to feel the heart of a person who longs for his spouse - who wants nothing more than to have the exact opportunity that every married person has but doesn't take advantage of. The only reason the grass seems greener is that you can't see the dog doo-doo from the street!! Marriage is the most amazing, and fragile, gift of God... Treat it as such!

Once again, I've said more than I intended. Some through emotion, other through (hopefully) truth.

To the OP - lay this before God. You will get an answer if you choose to open yourself up and listen. It may not be the answer you want, but if you listen and follow, you will have peace.

I'm going to be now - blessings to all.
bkg

 

[sawthelight]

What's your definition of 'in love' and 'love', Billy?

i love my pillow, i love my bed, i love my computer, i love pepsi, i love my roommates, i loved my ex-girlfriend, i was in love with my ex-girlfriend. and then i found out she was no true christian. she lied to me about her religious beliefs to attempt to poison my mind. and then i fell out of love with her.

i didn't choose to love her. i didn't choose to fall in love with her. it just happened. and when i found out she broke my trust, i didn't choose to fall out of love with her. it just happened. my heart and mind couldn't take it, and the electrical linkage in my brain that produced all the good hormones whenever i thought of her and smiled were broken. falling in love is a good feeling. staying in love is a better feeling. the moment you fall out of love with someone, you need to inform them immediately so they aren't strung along like the fool you want them to be.

do yourself a favor. do them a favor. give the lord something to like you about. be a good christian. loving thy neighbor and lying to your spouse doesn't give you any heaven points.

 

[InTheFlame]

i love my pillow, i love my bed, i love my computer, i love pepsi, i love my roommates, i loved my ex-girlfriend, i was in love with my ex-girlfriend. and then i found out she was no true christian. she lied to me about her religious beliefs to attempt to poison my mind. and then i fell out of love with her.

i didn't choose to love her. i didn't choose to fall in love with her. it just happened. and when i found out she broke my trust, i didn't choose to fall out of love with her. it just happened. my heart and mind couldn't take it, and the electrical linkage in my brain that produced all the good hormones whenever i thought of her and smiled were broken. falling in love is a good feeling. staying in love is a better feeling. the moment you fall out of love with someone, you need to inform them immediately so they aren't strung along like the fool you want them to be.

do yourself a favor. do them a favor. give the lord something to like you about. be a good christian. loving thy neighbor and lying to your spouse doesn't give you any heaven points.

Hrmmm... do I dare guess that you're not married? 'Falling in love' is a choice... it is possible for our minds to rule over our hormones and feelings. Anyone who refuses to do this is bound for a life of heartache and pain, and not enough 'good feelings' to compensate.

 

[alaskamolly]

'Falling in love' is a choice... it is possible for our minds to rule over our hormones and feelings. Anyone who refuses to do this is bound for a life of heartache and pain, and not enough 'good feelings' to compensate.

Amen!



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


To the original poster:

There are seasons of marraige where you have romantic love and seasons where you do not. I can tell you from personal experience that if you choose to meditate on the fact that you do NOT have romantic feelings toward your spouse, you will only CONTINUE to not have any.

It is much like physical pain: if you dwell on the area that hurts, it will only start to hurt worse. If you are occupied in something more important, it is amazing how little the pain will bother you--at times you'll almost forget it! But at night, when you're lying in bed with nothing else to do but relax, all of a sudden the pain will become almost unbearable. Why? Because you have started to dwell on it.

If you dwell on "things that are lovely, things that are of good repute, as we are told to in Scripture," the things that are unlovely start to fade away. If you pray and ask God for a genuine romantic love for your spouse, how can He not bless that prayer? It will probably not happen overnight, but if you pray it often while taking steps to dwell on the things about your spouse that are honorable and good, you will see a gradual change in your viewpoint.


Marraige isn't about whether or not you feel romantic love. It's about glorifying God. You'll notice that while romantic love is a wonderful thing and praised in the Scripture, it is not ONCE listed as a prerequisite for marraige, nor is it ever once listed as a requirement for an existing marraige.

Malachi 2 says that the reason God designed marraige was so that He could have godly seed. I think He meant a godly home growing godly children, literally, but I think that passage also applies to spiritual fruitfulness. You can learn a lot from choosing to obey the Lord even when you don't feel like it. Your spiritual walk can grow LEAPS AND BOUNDS through walking through that dark valley, trust me!

I spend years in Bible College and can quote Greek, but I never really started understanding Yahweh till we started getting down and dirty in places where I didn't want Him to take me. As I made the choice to obey, putting one foot in front of the other because that's all I could do, He became alive to me in ways no Bible college class could ever have done.

I had no feelings for my husband, at one point, but made the choice to love and prefer him despite my cold lack. It was a decision--not an easy one, and certainly painful at first to put into practice....but as I prayed for God to give me a vision of that man, the way that GOD saw him, and as I made those little choices to put my husband before myself, my eyeballs changed...

Or at least, they must have been changed, because the eyes that used to see my husband and feel NOTHING for him, slowly became eyes that saw my husband and wanted to jump him on the spot! They became eyes that saw him and thought how incredible he was, how blessed I was to marry him, how I hope I can be half as good of a partner as he is, how wonderful a man he is...
Just my experience. I hope it helps somewhat.
Blessings,
Molly

 

[fruitrach]

I have suspected for a long time that practically any man and any woman could marry and be happy together, as long as they are both committed to the marriage, and actively love each other.

I agree, ITF, I've been thinking this too.

Many have already said both of these things:

Love is a feeling and love is a choice.

It is both.

The feeling of love, the hormonal rush, the endorphines that make you feel as light as a feather and as if you are exploding inside, the romantic creativity, that feeling inside when you hear your loved-one's voice... all of that is great. It often "just happens" but we can be more in control of it than we'd like to believe. Movies try and convince us that love is more powerful than anything and we have to do whatever it takes to be where our hearts (read hormones) tell us but this isn't the case.

The decision of love is a harder one, but a deeper love. Often, marriages start based on the feeling, which inevitably dies down, leaving two people wondering what they saw in each other and how to move on. This is where the decision of love is crucial. Even when the hormone rush isn't there, I love my husband. I have to choose to see the positive things, I have to choose to be patient, I have to choose to spend time with him.... and every time, however difficult, it is worth it.

My advice for you, original poster, is to stop looking at how bad it is and remembering the lost feelings, and to start looking at how good it is and could be, finding ways to show love to this person. Even if you don't love her, do it as a prophetic act... "I will give flowers to that woman because that's what I would do if I did love her. Lord grow that love" and most importantly, pray. Pray that God will cause love to bloom between you and when it does, I guarantee it'll be better than that first hormonal feeling ever was.

 

[plum]

Ugh. What a sad world we would live in if we really took the above view. That God bore us, but beyond that has nothing to do with our lives, and that we should take the position that it's "every man for himself"... Hmm.. Seems that's exactly the world we live in, and the one that Christ spoke out against and told us to not follow.

To the OP - love has nothing to do with marriage. Seriously - the feeling of love and marriage are not mutually inclusive. One of my college professors, Dr. Greg Boyd (read "letters from a skeptic" - phenominal) once said in class: Somedays I wake up, look over at my wife and think to myself: "I don't even love this person. Those are the days that I choose to show her love."

To anyone who says love isn't a choice, you are correct. Love, infact, is a COMMAND set forth by God. It's not a choice, and it certainly isn't a feeling. Love is about giving, not receiving. It's about spirit, not emotion.
Oh if I could give each married person a word, a phrase or an opportunity to feel the heart of a person who longs for his spouse - who wants nothing more than to have the exact opportunity that every married person has but doesn't take advantage of. The only reason the grass seems greener is that you can't see the dog doo-doo from the street!! Marriage is the most amazing, and fragile, gift of God... Treat it as such!

bkg

(!!!) You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to bkg again.

 

[MrsGnomeCrusher]

(!!!) You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to bkg again.

Hey, I did it for you.

 

[Stringaling]

Brotherly love is a choice, but not romantic love. The kind of love that makes husband and a wife. How can you have a marraige with someone that you only love with a brotherly love? How can you love them with a brotherly love and watch them hurt when you know they can see that you are not in love?

The kind of love you feel foe a mate is very exciting and romantic at the beginning of the realtionship. This changes as the couple are together longer. Ther are times in my own marriage that I do not feel "in love" with my husband, but I know that this is normal. For the longest time i believed that I did not love him at all. I then realized that the love I was expecting to feel was that early relationship infatuation, heart pounding, butterflies in my stomach love. Because of certain situations in our relationship I never got to feel that for long, so I assumed that I did not love him. To truly love someone is a choice. You have to chose to live day to day with that person. You hve to chose what ckind of attitude you are going to have toward that person While IU was in my "don'tlove him" phase our relationship was no so good. I distanced myseslf from him and began to wish we never were. I decided that because we are married and have made the commitment to each other and to the children and to God that I would work on my attitude. I realized that in a deeper way than the "eros" I loved him. Because we, as a society, have come to expect that eros love to last for the duration of the marriage, we get upset and disappointed when the relationship moves into the natural state of familiarity and comfort. the divorce rate is so high because people don't understand why they don't feel the same after two years and they did after two months. I would suggest making an effort to recapture your love for your spouse and if necessary go to marital counseling with your minister or someone of the like. A marriage is not something we should just throw away because we are feeling rather put out with it or disinterested. It is something you have to work on and that is a choice. You chose to work on your marriage or you chose to throw it out.

I hope you can find it in your heart to try to save your relationship. . .