Meditation on marriage part #3 - Love is a choice.

Before I married Michael, I had a half a dozen friends or so really make a point of telling me that marriage was work, that is was not always happy feelings, that sometimes it would be hard, but that part of marriage was making the effort to work through that time, etc. I thought nothing of it at the time. I feel like that was something that I knew. I mean, who here has NOT heard the phrase, "don't go to bed angry."


It seems like the first three years of our marriage contained a lot of arguments, discussions, debates...whatever you want to call them. (I'm pretty sure that most of them were about the cat, but my memory may be fuzzy.) I remember that no matter how upset we got, I was only emotionally drained, but never fearful for our marriage. I always knew that we would be married the next day. Michael, I think, had a initial reaction to flee. I'm not sure if he had to just leave the room, or if he really thought he was walking away from me. I think he just knew that he needed "out," whatever that meant.

One day, about  a  month before our little "retreat" (from meditation #2) he had returned from a conference with an epiphany and could not wait to share it with me. "Love is a CHOICE!" he said excitedly. He had listened to a bunch of homilies on CD on the way home from his trip and one in particular really stuck out with this message. "Love is a CHOICE. Sometimes I do not FEEL like loving you, but I can CHOOSE to show love!"
   To which I responded, "Yes." amazed that he had never thought of this before. I had to ask, "didn't people give you thousands of warnings that marriage was not always lovey-dovey cuddly warm feelings followed by random advise on how to stick through the rough time?"
    "No," he replied.
    "No one? I had a bunch of people tell me this! Maybe they knew women fall into the trap of following their emotions more than the men... maybe they knew who I married and could predict some rough patches... but I had LOTS of people tell me that."
   "Nobody"

That day, the urge to "flee" left Michael. If in conflict, he will look at me and say, "I still love you." I went back and listened to all the homilies that he listened to. I am not sure where  he pulled that message out of the CD, but it was clearly what God had laid on his heart. It has certainly made a difference in our lives.

Love is a choice. Even if you don't feel like loving someone, you can go outside of your feelings and CHOOSE to love them.