Red or Blue
Go or Stay?
Snack or wait?
Decisions decisions...
There are actually a few decisions that are disguised as feelings. Love is a feeling. It is something you fall into. Something you feel in your soul, and heart. Something you get butterflies over. It is uncovered when you find your soulmate. I am suggesting today that love is not a feeling at all. It is a decision.
I have been married for 26 years. 27 in May. We met at college in Nashville, TN. He was from Georgia, I was from Nashville. It was love at first sight. I told my roommate after I met him that I had just met the man I was going to marry. There were butterflies. There was giddiness and laughing. There was excitement to see him. It was the same on his end. We dated. We loved. We had fun. We got married. What if I had gone to school at Texas A&M? Would I have found this man I married? hmmmm
No. I would have married someone who was in my pool of eligibles at the time I was ready to get married. This does not minimize my love and adoration for my husband, it just means that I picked him out of the pool of eligibles within proximity to where I was at the time I wanted to get married. THIS, my friends, is why so many marriages are failing nowadays. People think that love is a feeling. Something they fall into, and as time passes they fall out of. Do I feel butterflies when I see my husband now, 26 years later? hmmm no. Am I glad to see him? yes. Do I miss him when he is gone? absolutely. But do I burn with passion for him? no. Did I? yes. You see, love is a decision.
When butterflies go away in time and it's kids and bills and commitments, you don't burn with passion anymore, Yes, desire is still there, but more of a comfortable desire and the desire may not be for the dude who passes gas on the couch. People give up here. They divorce here. Because they saw the secretary at work and felt butterflies for her. They saw the dude at the local honkytonk that gave them giddiness and rumbly tummy. It's fun to feel that way. But that isn't love. That is temporary endorphins that make you feel good for the moment. It passes. Even with the secretary or the dude at the honkeytonk it will pass. Feelings are temporary. Love is forever.
Love is a decision to commit to your husband even when he is undesirable. Love is a decision to stick with your wife even though she went and got her entire arm tattooed because she wanted to. Love is a decision to accept your husband even when he was too hard on the children or you don't agree on which house to buy. Love is commitment even when your husband blew through $5000 at the poker table. There are no butterflies in these situations. No desire. Just a decision. A decision to love even when you are unlovable. A comfortable commitment in sickness and health. Butterflies are temporary, love is eternal.
When you wife breaks her arm and leg and you have to serve her and put her shoes on for her and snap her bra on her because she can't do anything for herself, you choose to love. There are no butterflies or giddiness in this situation. Just love. A decision to put someone else's needs above your own.
Love is a decision to place someone else's needs above your own.
We love our children but when they draw all over the white couch with sharpie marker do we adore and get giddy over how cute they are? NO. We decide to love them anyway and purchase a couch cover. We don't divorce our children or put them up for adoption and make another one that won't do that. So why are we throwing away our marriages? Because the world has taught us that love is a feeling. And when we fall out of it, we throw in the towel and find someone who makes us feel alive again. Love isn't something we fall into or out of. It isn't some out of control feeling that lasts forever. It is a decision. A decision to love when he plans the most amazing anniversary getaway ever and also to love when he forgets your birthday.
Love is a decision to place someone else's needs above your own.
Share my blog with anyone you think needs to read this. I hope it touches your heart.
Have the Best Day EVER!
Jennifer
