What Love Really Is To Me.

Today I was facebook chatting with a friend of mine. He asked me why I had so many bizarre facebook statuses up lately. I was kinda confused at the time by what he meant by that, but he gave me a few examples. One in particular was that I said "I remember years ago someone once told me I should take caution when it comes to love. I did..." I explained to him how I put that up mainly because it is a song lyric that would not get out of my head because it kind of hits home with me. I tend to be cautious with who I let in. Really let in. I still have yet to decide if that has actually helped me or not. He offered some "perspective," and told me how he believed that love does not actually exist. I immediately shot him down and told him how love does indeed exist. He then told me he meant that romantic love does not exist. Now, a huge part of me would love to have disagreed with him, but when he said that I had to think about it for a minute. It made sense. Love is real. I love my family and friends more than anything. I would do just about anything for them, and I hope and pray they would do the same for me if I really needed them. Romantic love, however, seems a little fuzzy in a way.

I feel as though for a romantic relationship to work the best it should be founded on God and friendship more than anything. From the Catholic perspective, marriage is supposed to reflect the relationship between Christ and the Church, so obviously faith has to be the most important part of every relationship. I do want to be able to look at my future husband and know that he is my best friend too. I want to know that I can be my complete self around that person and no matter how frustrated we may be with each other, at the end of the day he is still the person who will be there. Do not get me wrong, I still believe there should be a healthy amount of attraction between a husband and wife, but if it is only based on the attraction factor it will not last very long. "Romantic love" as I see it is really more about the physical side of a relationship. It is not true selfless love. It is selfish love. It is not looking at a person with the perspective of "What can I do to help this other person make it to heaven?" It is asking "What can I do to get what I want from this other person?"

It was a very interesting discussion, and I have to say it did make me think again about how I can help my future spouse make it into heaven. I do not necessarily think about it from that perspective very often.