Good stuff, Gerard.

Personally timely, I think I'm ready.

Oddly enough, I woke up this morning with those very words from "St. James Infirmary" running laps in my head.

This essay is insightful, wise and timely. Thank you.

I think we have been brainwashed by everyone from Shakespeare to Lucille Ball. We may "fall in love" as a noun, but to love somebody requires verbs. Love is not a state. Like liberty, it is a decision, or rather decisions. If you are going to love somebody, whether it is Jesus or your wife, you are going to have to decide that "I die daily." If you refuse to do that, your only hope is to find somebody stupid enough to love you anyway.

Yes, and well said, Mushroom. For my part, I have found that

To know is to love

And

to serve is to love.

However, it is very difficult to adequately do the latter if you haven't done the former, at least a little bit. Too often, I think, people "fall in love" with the object of their desires, only to find the person - the reality - inevitably falls short. Far better to see, as much as possible (for even in the longest lasting, most loving marriage, the persons must remain mysterious to each other to some degree), the person, and try to forgo the object. Though of course, we are human, and that's easier said than done...

"Loretta, I love you. Not like they told you love is, and I didn't know this either, but love don't make things nice - it ruins everything. It breaks your heart. It makes things a mess.

We aren't here to make things perfect. The snowflakes are perfect. The stars are perfect. Not us. Not us!

We are here to ruin ourselves and to break our hearts and love the wrong people and *die*. The storybooks are *bullshit*."

Moonstruck (1987)

You should write like this every single day, Gerard.

I could read pages when your voice smoothes out to a fine purr.

It's not just the words, it's a very wise word, overall, Gerard.

Give it a go. To love is why we are here, after all.

When I think of love, I think repeatedly over the years of what my older sister said to me, when I asked her if she still was seeing Doug. “We have sex once a week, but are seeing others and know we will marry other people.” I hope I can continue to keep a relationship with him. Doug was the best match sexually for her, but not as a life partner. The fact that as a 20 year old, she felt and accepted this still amazes me. I thought one could “have it all”. I think everyone looks to have “it all “in one person for eternity. We think there is a soul match for us. We yearn for completion.
But, we change throughout our life span . Our relationships often don’t weather our personal changes. Longevity in a relationship often means “good, serviceable and steady”, but so does a diesel truck.
Many people “don’t know love”, but if you have, even if it “has gone missing” you had a rare thing.

Miss Havisham. Great Expectations.

There the runaway groom made the smartest move by any character in that novel.

"She's farkin' nuts; flee!"

That bride picture is kind of spooky.

Most men do not seem to be able to give the attention to a wife that they can give to a hobby, a sport or even TV. Women harbor slights.

Love courts the beloved.

I am only physically good for companionship love now.

As I read through your essay this morning, Gerard, I thought of what my Lovely Melis and I refer to as the "Year she didn't like me," eight years into the 22 we've been together, so far. And she most emphatically did not like me that particular year.

I'm thankful that our love did not so much go missing, during that trying year, but rather that our love was tried by fire, hammered and hardened during that year, such that all the travails you note in your essay which can cause love to go missing seem, to us at least, as nothing.

Great essay.

With no pun intended, this is simply lovely. I read things here almost daily and hardly ever comment; however, this has stirred something deep within. Many thanks and kind regards.

hmmm ... I've been thinking/feeling on this topic for some time now and I very much appreciate these thoughts, sieved no doubt from experience. "Let it go..." , "Let it be..." "Trust and truth taken hostage..." I wonder if we hope too high for these vessels of clay. Is it possible to realize something love like w/o trust? Is serviceable ... a fitting chalice for love? I'm not asking from a cynical perspective ... maybe may be a hope filled word. Hope is good. Love must at least merit that.
Good of you to share.

You don't have to like someone to love them. Remember your siblings and parents, the anger, the fights, sometimes the dislike? But you still loved them, unless something had gone horribly wrong.

The problem with modern culture is that its replaced love with like and infatuation. Love goes deeper and is sacrificial, it is self-denying. Love means you want what's best and good and pure and right for the object of your love, even if that means you can't have them.

Infatuation means you need them around constantly and its primarily about how they make you feel and what they do for and to you. Infatuation gives you that wonderful floating feeling of having someone think you're just that wonderful and all that, and it fades.

Like means you appreciate and care about them and what they do, but there's no sacrifice or primary focus on them.

Love goes much deeper, is much more work, and is never about you. Unless its you that you love, that is.

"No, no. You just said you loved her. There's some difference between lovin' and likin'. When I married Jennie's mother (Martha), I-I didn't love her - I liked her... I liked her a lot. I liked Martha for at least three years after we were married and then one day it just dawned on me I loved her. I still do... still do. You see, Sam, when you love a woman without likin' her, the night can be long and cold, and contempt comes up with the sun."

--Charlie Anderson, 1862
(James Stewart, "Shenandoah")

It's all true, and beautifully expressed. But before you toss the smashed vessel that has been glued clumsily back together into the trash because it'll never again be flawless as it was when it first caught your eye, consider Leonard Cohen's thoughts on imperfection:

“Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.”

The primary reason that love has gone missing in our lifetimes is to be found in this link you posted the other day - and which caused very little comment, to my astonishment. "Feminism" has treated men to almost a half-century of hatred and abuse, destroyed our marriages, taken our children away and poisoned their minds against us, and then blamed us for being bad fathers. What it has given the world in return is multiple generations of helpless victims with sky-high self-esteem.:

http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/mallorymillett/marxist-feminisms-ruined-lives/#.VAW9lif7mH8.twitter

It's never been news, at least in the 70 years that I've been alive, that romance is for adolescents and that love grows from liking and mutual respect. Unfortunately, women in their 50's and 60's have grown up in a world where man-hatred has been part of the very air they breathed since before puberty; astonishingly few of them are able even to recognize it. It's become impossible to like and respect somebody who expects and demands special treatment due to her innate victimhood. So yeah, maybe "Love Is All You Need", but I'd bet I'm not the only man who's decided he just can't afford it.

Some say a heart is just like a wheel;
If you bend it, you can't mend it.

@Rob, if I knew the cost perhaps I couldn't afford it either, even after 30 years. You don't get better at this love thing, you just get better at you. And with luck your life mate will too.

"Hand in hand, together we'll stand, on the threshold of a dream."
--MB, 1972

Ghost,

It's good that you acknowledge that, hard work aside, you just got lucky. I've been married, and almost-married, 3 or 4 times, and I've lost my heart, my children, my patience and eventually my desire. Since you've managed to be married for 30 years, I think it only safe to say that I've know a lot more women than you have; it's depressing, and getting worse. Women have largely exhausted my sympathy, which I never would have believed possible. I realize, when a woman starts in about her troubles (and they all do,) that I just don't care.

If you were one of the lucky ones, my hat is off to you. I've seen it work, and believe it can work, and tried to make it work, but you just can't do it by yourself - so I gave it up 20 years ago. Too bad for me, too bad for them.

Tom Wait's sang-"I never heard the melody 'till I needed the song." I needed this today. Thank you!

Hi Brother G!

Fabulous writing! So glad for it!

(Reminds me that it's been a longtime since I saw Nicholson and Streep in "Heartburn." Such a good film.)