The Myth of Romantic Love

Krista Taves (February 8th, 2004)

It is Winter 2003, and Asim Bukhari, a 30 year old single man from Pickering Ontario, is on a plane to Pakistan to find a wife. He will be met by his sisters who still live in Pakistan and they will visit many families who have daughters of marriageable age. He will be interviewed by their fathers, the father will be interviewed by his family, and each will determine whether or not this would be a suitable match. If both families agree, the negotiations begin. The decision will be made based on previous familial relations, income potential, family reputation and status, as well as the character traits of the young people involved.

Flying to Pakistan was a painful choice, especially as Asim had already fallen in love the Western way. He had met a woman at university, they had fallen in love. Both came from Pakistani families steeped the tradition of arranged marriages. They had broken this tradition by their secret dating, and yet they were undaunted. Caught in the middle of two cultures, they chose both. Asim approached his family to ask her family for permission to marry Farah. Her family refused, and the couple decided to honour their family?s choice rather than buck tradition and lose their family support systems. So a heart broken Asim is now on the plane to Pakistan, suitcases stuffed with presents and the suit he will wear on the day of his reception. He plans on coming home a married man.

This story may sound familiar. If you?re a reader of the Toronto Star, you will have undoubtedly seen it, because this story headlined for 8 straight days in the fall of 2003. It followed Asim through the gut wrenching series of interviews with the fathers of prospective brides, it digs deep into the turmoil experienced by those like Asim caught in the middle of two cultures, it moves step by step through the intricate process or betrothal from start to finish, and it delicately presents this true story without judgment, without too much sensationalism and it is an excellent glimpse into a way of life that seems foreign to many of us.

Is this love? Is the elaborate and ritualistic betrothal and marriage process love?

What struck me is the intensely public nature of arranged marriage. Marriage is not considered a private matter, but one involving the entire family. Marriage is not just about two individuals, It is not just the couple that commit to one another, but families who commit to each other. It is assumed that a happy marriage is one that is carefully chosen, conscientiously formed and explicitly supported within an extended network of relations. Every marriage is the responsibility of the entire family. The family created it, the family sustains it.

But is this love? Defenders of arranged marriage say that the mistake in Western society is that we assume that love comes before marriage. They believe that love comes after and that it is more likely that you can love a person your family chooses than one you choose on your own because you cannot possibly take into account all the factors of a relationship. It is your family?s responsibility to take care of you and protect you in the choice of a good marriage partner.

But is this love? It is not love if the definition of love is only a feeling. There is no doubt that there is likely no feeling of love between Asim and his bride at their wedding. But in their actions, there is love. You could say that this is a love-steeped marriage in light of the care taken by both families in arranging the marriage. The traditions and rituals they undertake are the vehicle of their love. This is a very different conception of love, one that has become foreign to us in the west. Love as action rather than feeling, and in this case, the action of love precedes and lays the foundation for the feeling of love that is to come later.

Now my purpose here is not to debate the merits of arranged marriage versus the Western model, but rather to open us up to the possibilities of love, to look at the way we do love with fresh eyes, because you can never really know what you have and what you do until you step out of it, even briefly. What this story of Asim does is both educate us about a different way to do love, and to help us step out of our own skins and to look at the way we do love in a new way, perhaps a more critical way.

Each of us carries a standard that we have set for love. A standard as to what it means to love, when you?re actually experiencing love, and what you do when it?s there. The Pakistani standard for love is love as action. Our society?s standard for love is love as feeling, particularly romantic love, and by romantic love I mean love that is defined by affection, intimacy, sentiment, tenderness, and empathy. Love as an inner drive, as pure feeling. It is a love that is intensely private, highly internal, it is something that works mysteriously and wonderfully, heating our bodies, making our mouths dry, sending our minds spinning into fantasy, settling a rose-coloured hue over a world that previously seemed dry, dull and disappointing, and filling our souls with flowery language that seems almost earth shaking in its power. This is romantic love. It is the standard our society sets for love, it is how we determine when we are feeling love, and it has a profound influence over how we believe we are to express love.

According to this standard, love is experienced when two individuals find each other and feel drawn together. That love is usually monogamous, and until recently, primarily heterosexual. When the love gets to a certain point, you decide to get married. The expectation then, is that through the years, that romantic love continues and you raise your family and grow into deeper and deeper levels of love until death parts you. That is our society?s standard for love. It is the story that we teach our children, and I believe we teach them this story regardless of whether our marriages are successful or not. Despite the high levels of divorce and despite the high rate of cohabitation, romantic love encapsulated within marriage is still the standard in our society.

And yet it is clear that many of us, likely most of us, do not live up to that ideal. Some of us choose singleness, some are forced into it through relationship breakdowns or the death of a spouse. Many of us choose to cohabit, some choose to have multiple partners. Some of us are desperately waiting to meet that person who will be with us for the rest of our lives, and our efforts seem elusive and grasping. Some of us are in long distance relationships and cannot take for granted the daily presence of our loved one in our lives. Many of us are in long-term committed relationships that fall deeply short of the life we expected as married people, and still others have found contentment in their marriages, but it has been hard won, and rests in developing different, more attainable realistic kinds of love. What is clear is that the romantic standard of love rarely corresponds to anything but the first few weeks or months, or perhaps year, of a relationship. After that, something happens. Maybe it?s real life, the rose coloured glasses fall away, the glow dissipates and you realize for all the euphoria that you are still the same person with the same flaws, and that the amazing person who swept you off your feet has a lot of baggage, and that this relationship, if it is going to work, is going to be hard work, an intentional act of love, a process of commitment and recommitment, a life of promises, breaking promises, and renewing promises, a lifetime of forgiveness, and all of this, with no guarantee of permanence.

What is happening to love? How are we loving each other and loving ourselves in the beginning of the 21st century? What is the place of love in your life? How has love disappointed you? How have you disappointed love? Has love lifted you? Made you whole? Sent you out into the unknown, and brought you back again?

Couple therapists D. Merilee Clunis and G. Dorsey Green identify five stages in a relationship, and these stages apply whether it be with a close friend, a partner, or even an institution such as a church. Because I think that the way we conceptualize of love in an intimate partnership has dramatic consequences for how we understand love and commitment in all facets of our lives.

Stage one is the pre-relationship phase. This is the getting to know you phase, and the primary task here is making choices. Is this a person you want to get to know? Is this person worth investing time and energy in? Are there any indicators that this could be the kind of person you would want to love? Can you imagine waking up beside this person or do you already feel like running away at the thought of that possibility? Are they over their ex? Any disturbingly Freudian tendencies regarding parental figures? Is there any chemistry? If you?re here visiting this congregation for the first time, you?re in the pre-relationship phase, you?re checking us out to see who we are, what we stand for, and if there?s anything here for you.

Stage two is the romance phase. If those hormones kick in when you?re asking all those really important questions in step one, and if those important questions suddenly seem entirely irrelevant, you can be pretty assured that step one is over. This is the phase that our society tends to confuse with true love. It?s the phase where the other person gains superhuman qualities and can do nothing wrong. It?s the phase when you feel that this is fated, written in the stars, and you feel absolutely certain that you will be with this person for the rest of your life and it will be perfect. In congregational life, this happens when you?re in that ?Oh my god, I can?t believe this religion exists!? phase. ? Where have you been all my life!? You decide to become a member, you join all kinds of committees, go to all the classes, basking in the glow of this really cool faith that gives you so much freedom and inspiration. What could ever go wrong?

Well, that?s where step 3 comes in. This is the conflict and disillusionment stage. It happens when that glow recedes, and when you begin to see all the flaws in that person and they begin to see yours. You start to notice each other?s differences in values, temperament, goals and lifestyles, many things you may have ignored during the romance phase. In congregational life, this happens when you start to see some of the cracks. You may come up against some of the unspoken rules that nobody told you about, or you start to learn about factions in the congregation and find yourself in one of them, you realize that not all Sunday services are going to shake you down to your foundation, that some people pull their weight more than others, and that some pretty dysfunctional stuff goes on behind the scenes. This is a hard stage as it is the end of the honeymoon. This is the place where most divorces happen, friendships end, and members leave their congregations. The trick here is to come to terms with the fact that the object of your affection can never fully meet your needs. It?s really about seeing others for who they really are and deciding if this relationship is worth the time, effort and personal work it will take to keep it meaningful and growing.

If you survive this phase, you get to move on to the acceptance phase. It?s the calm after the storm, when it starts to look like you are going to find your way. The differences don?t not seem so threatening anymore. Disagreement and discomfort are seen as opportunities rather than bad signs. In congregational life, this happens when you begin to accept that this place cannot be everything you need. Its about accepting that we are bound to both be disappointed and disappointing. We are all flawed beings with our strengths and limitations, and it is in accepting that truth that we find the meaning of love.

In the final phase, the commitment phase, we start to feel more solid and grounded. We start believing that the differences are necessary and that our limitations are our strengths. We feel that the object of our love is worthy of our love, we feel a deep and abiding connection and a clear desire to have a permanent partnership and are willing to do the work it will take. We?re in for the long haul. This is commitment.

Commitment is more than the feeling of love. You could say that in the pre-relationship and romance stages, we?re either moving toward or enthralled in romantic love. It?s in the later stages ? conflict and disillusion, acceptance, and commitment - that we move from pure feeling to action. The feeling of love is the raw matter, but we have to shape, mold and work with that feeling and all the things it teaches us about ourselves, to bring our whole beings into the relationships we are building.

What is happening to love in your life? How has love disappointed you? How have you disappointed love? Has love lifted you? Made you whole? Sent you out into the unknown, and brought you back again? What is your standard for love?

I wonder what stage of the relationship Asim and his wife are in. According to the Star, they had already moved into the romantic stage within days of the wedding, and they were giggling and flirting with ease. It?s been almost a year now, they have likely returned to Canada and are building their new lives as a married couple. Each of is on a journey of love, and on that journey, let us travel alone, and let us travel together, let us reject the standard of romantic love and let us hold onto it for dear life. Let us see love as a private internal thing, and something to be shared amongst vast networks of relatives and friends. It is a frightening and mysterious emotion, it is something we carry with ease. It is what we feel for those closest to us, and it is the many things we do for them. In the raw matter that is the beginning of love, let us shape and mold and build so that we may build our whole selves into the people we are meant to be.

Amen and blessed be.