The modern Western world can seem a cold and frightening place to live. It is a world where spirituality, mystery, religion and living in tune with the seasons have been replaced by scientific explanations and a linear rather than a cyclic way of living.
Hence our deep attraction to the intoxication of love. Love has become our religion – the thing that gives our lives meaning and allows us – at least for a short while – to transcend ourselves and our petty concerns and mundane existence. In addition, because of the increasing isolation and displacement of many of us, our partner must be everything to us. He or she must love everything about us and be both lover, life companion, best friend, family, sounding board and village elder/priest/therapist. Is it any wonder that marriages are weighed down from all those (unrealistic) expectations?
Many of our notions and beliefs about love, such as love being unconditional, eternal and unselfish, comes originally from Christianity but have been transplanted onto romantic love. Talk about high expectations! It may be possible to love God like that but a flawed human being that chronically leaves his dirty socks on the floor – that seems to be asking a lot! Add to that a consumer approach to both life and love where we readily exchange goods or upgrade things when we’re bored with them or they (due to hedonic adaptation when we get used to something) fail to make us happy. That is a lot of pressure and it’s no wonder that many marriages crack under the strain.
The solution may be that we become a little wiser in our approach to love. That we adjust our expectations to be more in line with reality: no, you’re not going to adore absolutely everything about your partner. Some things are downright annoying and often don’t seem to change regardless of how much you point it out to him or her (strangely they often seem to get defensive when you do). Your partner’s ability to get you high on love will wane over time. Sorry, that’s just how the brain is wired. Most things that you fight about will never change (again, sorry, but that’s the research, I didn’t make that up). You will never fully get to know your partner (which I think is a good thing because it would be rather boring if you could predict everything they would do or say). Love itself is not enough – no matter how much pop music wants to convince us otherwise – but rather needs to be nourished and tended to on an ongoing basis. Otherwise you’ll either grow apart without anybody noticing or you become lazy. Nothing worse than a lazy lover.
But…if we’re prepared to let go of the unrealistic Hollywood version of love and work at loving our partner warts and all, a beautiful – yet imperfect – bond can grow between two people. It is much easier to face all the difficulties that life throws at us with someone we love and trust.