A Relationship Needs More Than Love to Work
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What are you willing to do for love?
A college friend named Tom was young and in love. He thought if he could just marry his sweetheart, it wouldn't much matter if he had to make a living shoveling manure—as long as it put food on the table.
Ponder that for a moment. (No, don't.)
Anyway, he wasn't lucky enough to get a job in manure—which felt clean, healthy, and natural compared to where he worked—which was on an assembly line in a factory. The atmosphere was oppressive to him. Hard rock, which he despised, screamed through the speakers all day. His co-workers swore freely and talked trash.
Worst of all, he had a crippling sense that he was not using either his brain or his brawn to its real potential.
Eight hours a day at this—for life?
He realized that the day-to-day grind can deeply affect your love and passion.
It got him to realize that love—no matter how grand—was not enough. You need prudence too.
Prudence. She seems like such a dry little virtue. Maybe it's the word "prude" that makes people dismiss her. Love, they think, should be all about feelings of ecstasy.
I'm not saying love should not be ecstatic. Pity the poor grinch who says, "Meh, just wait. You're in love now but when real life hits, you'll get over it!" Love should be ecstatic. That's one of its trademarks. It means you have been granted an inside look at your loved one. You have seen their worth—almost the way God sees the person.
The beauty of the loved one appears in front of us, but with no illusion; his beauty is not a fruit of wishful thinking, but a real vision—as on Mount Tabor—that the lover will have to remain faithful to, to hold on to when the vision is inevitably dimmed by the dullness of everyday duties.
Dr. Alice von Hildebrand in her book, Letters to a Young Bride.
God didn't make us just to love, but to love prudently.
But as beautiful as love is, she is not meant to walk alone. She always has prudence by her side.
Prudence will tell you that how you spend the greater part of your waking hours is going to have a deep impact upon your love.
As Dr. von Hildebrand says above, everyday duties inevitably dim your ecstatic vision of your beloved. There are unavoidable stresses, endless task, and heavy responsibilities that come with marriage. Without prudence, those things will sap your strength and weaken your ability to sustain your commitment to love.
Many young people, like my friend above, have never known what it is to go without, never had to worry about money while living in their parents' home, and never realized how much effort it takes to pay the bills. They have never lacked energy or health so they might imagine that they could easily handle school, a job, or a family.
But how about juggling all three at once? It would be tough even under the best conditions. But conditions within family life are subject to change without notice.
One week you could be successfully tag teaming to keep the baby out of day care and still both work to pay off student loans and save for a house. The next, Mom could be throwing up with a new pregnancy, Dad could be called into work unexpectedly, and the baby could be sleepless and teething. Imagine all of the above with no relatives around to babysit and a master's degree in progress with a paper due at 11 PM.
Prudence can save the day when things don't feel quite so lovely anymore.
Prudence says, "Do a little advance planning, Sonny."
You want to pre-empt some of that craziness so that it does not wear you out. Start by asking yourself a few basic questions:
- What are my career goals? How realistic are they? How long will it take to reach them? Do I have a plan? What is the next step?
- If I need schooling to meet my career goals, how much of it can I reasonably put behind me before I get married?
- How much hard work can I take? How about my significant other?
- Do we have relatives around who would support us as we found our new family?
Ultimately, marriage isn't about a feeling of love. It's about a lasting love.
Because marriage is not just about the two of you. It is also about the children you will have. You will need to be able to support that family so that it can flourish.
Because that's what you hope for when you get married, isn't it? You want your family to be happy. You want it to be a success. You are in love and you want it to last.
Love is beautiful and she's such a flirt—it's no wonder she gets all the attention.
But if you want true love to come and dance at your wedding, make sure you invite good old prudence to the marriage too.
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