Learn the Real Meaning of Love

I. Learn the Real Meaning of Love

You thought you were in love, and no doubt you were. Since then you may have wondered if you were really in love. Were there times when you wondered if you should have married someone else? Maybe it was all a terrible mistake.

Well, love isn't what you thought it was when you were in your teens. It is much, much more, and far more complex. If you want to be loved, you must make yourself lovable - not for a day or a week, but on a permanent basis. This may involve a radical change of attitude on your part. You want your husband to change, of course; undoubtedly there are many areas in which he needs to change. But you will never change him without a mature love. "Love never fails," that is, if you are going to make a success of your marriage, you will do it with mature love, not with demands, criticism or tears.

Love is not adolescent infatuation or even sexual attraction, important as this is. Love is basically love of life, proper love of oneself, love of others, and the expressing of this love in manifold ways. Almost no one ever receives enough love. If you would be loved, learn to give mature love in a form your husband can accept. Some men who grew up in homes where affection was not freely expressed are undemonstrative. A young wife whose parents were demonstrative and affectionate complained that her husband resisted her attempts to express affection.

"He expresses love by buying me things and taking me places, but he won't tell me he loves me, " she complained. "He will do things for me, but why can't he tell me he loves me?" she asked. I explained that his environment had "wired him up" that way and that she would have to accept, for the time being, the fact that he was not demonstrative.

"Give him two or five or ten years, " I said, "and if you are patient, he can learn as an adult what he never learned as a child. Meanwhile try to accept his manner of expressing love."

Love is not just a sentimental feeling, nor is it simply affection. It is also an act of the will - a determination to give love in a form the other can accept. Love can be expressed through patience, tolerance for the failings of your husband, meeting his, and by avoiding criticism. Love does not demand, it gives. Your own need for love can make you unlovable if it is expressed in a demanding or martyred manner.

The Ten Commandments for Wives Series
Cecil G. Osborne, D.D.