There is nothing better than true love between a man and a woman.  It was created to be that way.  If you want such love, you should understand what it is.  It is not infatuation.  Now, infatuation is nice: the starry eyes, the meaningful words, the constant thinking of the other.  But it is primarily the anticipation of what is to come.  Just as the search for truth is foolish if you believe that you can never find it, so the search for love is empty if you do not really want to find it.  When true love arrives, infatuation disappears.   The complete swallows up the partial.

Springtime by Cot

  The thing that is the essence of true love is faithfulness.  A person who is truly in love does not want it to end.  What is the greatest danger to that love?  The greatest danger is that another will come between the lovers, and they will be torn apart.  To counteract that greatest danger to true love, there must be faithfulness to the lover.  There must be the stability of knowing that love will last in order for the full happiness of love to be achieved.  That is why the vow of faithfulness is essential to true love.  All true lovers swear to each other that they will never leave each other.

  But the vow of faithfulness cannot be an informal thing, or else it is not taken seriously.  In these days, even a formal vow is not taken as seriously as it should be.  If infatuation or the desire for beauty is the basis for the relationship (and it often is at least part of it), then an informal vow will fade away when the infatuation or beauty does.  And true love will never have the chance to grow and become strong.  The formal vow is called marriage. 

The Betrothed by Godward

  Research has shown that those who live together before marriage are much more likely to divorce as those who do not.  Of women who cohabit before marriage, 27% will be divorced within five years, while only 10% of those who do not cohabit before marriage will be divorced within five years.  Three-fourths of children whose parents are cohabiting will see their parents split, while one-third of children whose parents are married will see such a horror.  Researchers believe that cohabitation erodes the ability of people to really commit to each other.

  The complete intimacy of love belongs inside the security of the vow, or else it is often doomed to die.   If the joy of sex (certainly a necessary part of true love) is gotten without commitment, a person (especially a man) learns, wrongly, that commitment is not necessary.   Sex and marriage belong together.  That is why God, in His goodness, teaches us that sex outside of marriage is wrong (harmful).

  True love is not easy to achieve.  Our short lifetimes are barely enough in this difficult world.  No one is perfect, and beauty fades.  Why do you think that patience is such an important virtue of love?   Without the formal vow enforced by society impatience will often win, and love will not have a chance.  There are plenty of times that lovers will want to find someone else.  Unless they are faithful people, they will.  As many as a fourth of people will be unfaithful even in marriage (of course, more than three-fourths will not be unfaithful, and only about two percent will be unfaithful more than once).  But those who endure receive the first prize of true love--the loving cup.

Faithfulness requires self-discipline.  The beginning of the self-discipline of true love is chastity.  Self-discipline is saying "no" to something you desire--at least until the time is right.  It is important to practice that chastity before marriage, and it is crucial to practice it during marriage.  (Chaste means innocent of unrighteous sexual activity).   Chastity is something that can be recovered even when lost, by the grace of God.   But it requires real self-control (especially if you have once fallen) and not just a vague wishing.

Innocence by Bougereau

So, in the end, love endures and becomes better and better, if it is patiently worked at.  We all get old, and we all need friends, and we all hate loneliness.  When your spouse is your best friend, you can grow old in peace, with a supporter and a constant lover.  Then you will have learned what true love is, if you have worked at it.

May God bless your love!

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