MO AND PHINDI | Love is not all you need for a successful, life-long marriage

John Lennon wrote All You Need is Love back in 1967, and the popularity of the title became a worldwide cliché. However, what was less publicised was his physical abuse of both of his wives, abandoning one of his children, his abusive behaviour of his gay Jewish manager with homophobic and anti-semitic slurs.

He knew that love isn’t really all you need. But his mythical cliché is still embraced by many in romantic relationships. Nevertheless the truth is, intense romance – often what people call “love” – has an expiry date. No long-term relationship can maintain the initial chemistry that brought two people together forever. And that’s okay.

It would be hard to lead a normal life if we constantly felt overwhelmed with those magical, “falling-in-love” feelings! As such, you can’t marry someone just because you’re in love with them, in as much as you can’t divorce someone just because you’re no longer in love with them.

A proper understanding of this alone can save so many marriages of misery and ultimately, divorce. People will be a lot happier, just with that understanding alone. The change in the intensity of our feelings is a natural process in marriage.

It is normal to be head over heels for someone when you are falling for them. You have rose-coloured glasses on, and they can almost do no wrong in your eyes. But the longer you are with them, the more you start to see their flaws as the intensity of feelings lessens.

But it doesn’t mean the love is gone. By the way, what’s love got to do with it anyway? What’s authentic love got to do with your feelings? Because these two are different. One is authentic, and the other is situation-dependent.

Feelings-driven or romantic love fizzles out with time, while true love is strengthened by time, commitment, and shared life experiences. True love is sober and is a conscious choice made in spite of your circumstances. To sustain a marriage, feelings must evolve from romantic love to authentic love.

What makes you stay together when real life stressors come into play? It’s when you become students of one another. When one partner takes time to consciously study the other to gain knowledge about how they want to be loved.

It also when you consciously choose to be with each other even when some of the romance and passion disappears. And because you think your life is better with this person in it than not having them in your life at all.

In this way, love becomes a choice more than a feeling. Society ’s obsession with romantic love as the basis for marriage has a definite downside. The downside is the fleeting nature of the feelings upon which it is often based. Healthy marriages are formed on the strong foundation of common purpose, shared values and similar maturity levels.

When you’ve successfully established your compatibility in these three key areas – mission and life goals; personal values as well as your character and maturity levels – you can get married.

With this as a foundation, your marriage has a very firm foundation to build on .But never forget it, marriage does not begin with love, nor is it sustained by love. Marriage begins with a covenant – a binding oath or promise to remain committed to one another for better or worse.

It is sustained by wisdom, understanding and knowledge. Love, and we mean, authentic love, only enters the scene years later. Great marriages don’t happen by luck or by accident– nor are they built on romantic love or fleetin ghappiness. Healthy marriages are cultivated and maintained, like anything else you wish to keep alive.

So don’t throw in the towel. Put in the work. Be one another’s students. And living with knowledge and understanding together is the only basis for you to treat one another with honour and consideration.

Do you know who you’re married to? We ask that because, again, you can’t love them the way they need to be loved if you don’t. And the foundation upon which you build will be very weak if it’s in ignorance of who they are, and what value you each bring to one another’s lives.