Inherently Different

How Deep Is Your Love?

I often laugh at the people who, while holding hands and looking into each other’s eyes, say, “love is a full-time job, it takes work to succeed.”

That is patently ridiculous. Love should be effortless and if it isn’t, chances are the two people involved are incompatible. It doesn’t get any simpler than that. Love should be the one thing in your life that brings you uncompromising joy. Not joy tempered with periods of misery. If you fight with your sig other more than say, once per year, you’re kidding yourself into believing you’re compatible.

I can’t think of anyone who thinks that work is a good thing, so why do these people use work as an analogy for a relationship? Work is the complete opposite of FUN. Who wants to work at having fun? Isn’t that what love should be? Fun?

When I talk to friends and family who express concern over the fact that I am not married, I often point out to them that no marriage ever lasts forever. All marriages end eventually, the only question is whether it will end because you fuck up or because one, or both, of you dies. I’m not sure what your perspective is, but neither of those two options is all that appealing to me.

What is marriage anyway? Is it a legally binding contract between two parties to love, honor, and obey til death do you part? Is that really the romantic notion of love that you want to adhere to? To me, love is simply two people working toward a common goal. If that goal ceases to be important to both parties, then disolving the union is paramount to progress. When you’re married, that disolution can become quite expensive and downright painful. If you’re unmarried, you can shake hands, agree to disagree, and run into the waiting arms of the next victim in line.

Am I the only one who can see this?

12 thoughts on “How Deep Is Your Love?”

  1. i completely agree with ur point of view, but it seems like the only reason u do not agree with marriage is bcoz the dissolution is expensive. But i guess the heart burn involved in breakup is the same wether u are married or not. so then why not just be single and not be a victim urself waiting in someone else’s line.

  2. hahahh! no, the reason I don’t believe in marriage is that it is an outdated institution built to prevent women from being self-actualized… as if they need a man to be complete… which, is a fancy way of saying that I think marriage perpetuates misogynistic myths…

    See, I told you guys I love women! I’m a feminist!

  3. two people should be effortlessly working toward a common goal, the least of which should be loving each other unconditionally…

    how’d i do?

  4. hmm.. I agree that love is effortless but relationships require work. It can’t be puppy love from start to finish. Sometimes yo’ull come across something you both disagree on, it might take an argument or a tense discussion, but thats the result of being human and unique, not because you don’t love one another. If I argue with my husband I dont think either of us love the other any less for it, infact we care enough to be “touchy” that they don’t agree.. if you don’t care then you do what you want to without regard for the others feelings because who cares. Working through the disagreement successfuly makes you more secure and brings you closer together… but that’s just me.

  5. There are a lot of people Im working with at the moment who are rather “effortless” in their endeavours….I’m fidning it rather hard to love them uncoditionally :p

  6. I still believe that relationships shouldn’t be work. You shouldn’t have “fights” with your sig other if your truly care about one another. Occasionally disagreeing is ok, but having regular heated arguments over who is right or wrong is just plain silly. In that case, you are obviously incompatible! There isn’t any grey area here in my opinion.

    Having unique personalities is not a green light to disparage or otherwise aggressively disagree with your partner. Not buying it. There is a way to disagree with someone without turning it into an argument.

    My girlfriend and I disagree on lots of things, but we never fight. I’m emotionally secure enough to know that what is right for me may not be right for her… or you for that matter. All heated arguments take a toll on a relationship, and if the only way you know of to communicate your perception of reality is to have heated discussions, then there is clearly something wrong with your relationship… in my opinion.

    But, I’m not all knowing… if you like hammering each other over your beliefs and it works for you, have at it.

  7. LMAO! Man, let me tell ya…I have been with my hubby for seven years (married for two).

    We are passionate firey people. We bicker, we bitch, and we snap. But, we respect each other. Our love, respect and passion for each other is so intense. Neither of us have ever felt anything like it before, and we still feel that same passion after 7 years. Now, all that said, our love take NO WORK at all. Your absolutely right, love should be effortless. However, it is proper communication that takes work. Communicating is a skill, and some people aren’t always good at it. Sometimes you can be good at it and go through a time when your not so good at it. In my marriage, it is the communication that is the work.

    I do not have a traditional marriage. Marriage to us is more of a spiritual thing, rather than a “you do what I say/you must agree/you must, you must you must” thing. We have our own rules of marriage. We both know what we want out of life, and if anything changes, we fill each other in and hope it works.

  8. That I can undertand. I mean, I have people I bicker with, but the end is that we agree to disagree and move on. Fighting constantly over the same topics is what I consider to be pointless.

  9. Yes and no. marriage exists for the cohesion of a family and the nurturing of offspring for the masses. If you can make it work without that, thumbs up.

  10. Ha ha ha. Ed, your line of thinking is what EVERY male says before they get married and have kids. Can’t wait to welcome you to the club.

  11. “Love should be effortless and if it isn’t, chances are the two people involved are incompatible. It doesn’t get any simpler than that. Love should be the one thing in your life that brings you uncompromising joy. Not joy tempered with periods of misery.”

    I don’t think it’s nearly as simple as you think. People sometimes have to work very hard to love, not because they aren’t compatible, but because each of them brings their own history and emotional baggage to the relationship. You have to be open to feel and show love and that means exposing your heart to risks. If you’ve been hurt before (in any kind of relationship) that can be really challenging.

    Also when people say that you have to ‘work at love’ they are not talking about feeling love necessarily. Often they are talking about showing that love through your actions. In a world that keeps us busy, tired and distracted, putting the time and effort into a relationship that should be there if you truly love someone can be pretty hard. Add kids to that mix (who also deserve love and demand time and effort) and it becomes even harder. That’s the work of love. It’s not that love should feel like work, but that relationships take real effort.

    By the way, I found your blog through The Funky Cowboy’s blog.

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