Can You Help Who You Fall in Love With?

Remember that 90's romantic comedy, Look Who's Talking? Kristie Alley plays Mollie, a single mom who conceives a baby with a married guy. She doesn't want anyone to know about the affair, but she also doesn't want to admit she was wrong.

At one point, she tells her mother, Rosie: "You can't control who you fall in love with." But Rosie isn't buying it.

Rosie: Why not?

Mollie: You just can't!

Rosie: Listen. Listen, take your father here. What's his favorite food?

Together: Cheesecake.

Rosie: What did Dr. Slocum tell him?

Mollie: Cut back on cholesterol.

Rosie: So, now he doesn't eat cheesecake. It's the same exact thing.

So...can you help falling in love?

So what do you think? Are you with Rosie—love is like cheesecake. You can take it or leave it.

Or do you side with Mollie—love is a powerful, mysterious force, like magnetism or gravity. You can no more help falling in love than you can help tripping and falling. It comes on suddenly. You don't always see it coming. You can't stop it.

"You fall in love with who you fall in love with; you can never choose," Liam Hemsworth said speaking in Men's Fitness of his former engagement to Miley Cyrus.

Nope. Love is like cheesecake.

I'm with Rosie. (Hey, I'm a grandmother.) To prove she's right, let's switch it around.

Say you are the one who is married. Your spouse meets someone else, falls in love, and leaves you. Would you blame them?

You know you would.

What if they claimed they couldn't help it. It was simply out of their control. Would you buy it?

You know you wouldn't. No matter what you protest that love is a mysterious force, deep down you know you can help who you fall in love with. What you can't help is attraction. At first.

Whether to stay attracted comes after a series of choices. Count them.

How the drama unfolds.

You see the cheesecake. You think, Wow. You walk over and get a closer look. It's beautiful but dangerous. Just your type. Hey, cheesecake—me and you, tonight.

You put it in the cart and head back to the kale aisle. Yeah, I probably should put this back. I can't just leave it here though... That would be rude.

You buy it and bring it home. I can walk away any time. See? I'll taste it and prove it! You eat the whole thing.

Your wife comes home, notices the crumbs on your collar and you say, I couldn't help it!

So it is when you fall in love. It feels like a powerful, mysterious force indeed. You can't imagine your life with anyone else. But that comes about after you've already made a series of choices to be with the person.

But what if you can't walk away?

I know someone is going to ask—what if you can't stop seeing the person? What if, say, there is someone attractive who is married, at work? The person is physically present every day and you can't do a thing about it.

Yes, you can. You can mentally walk away.

Keep conversation to business. And nothing else. No personal conversations. Stay busy. Don't be alone with the person, especially if it appears that person is attracted to you too.

If the person flirts with you, consider belching. If you find yourself thinking about this person, imagine them with their spouse and kids. Pray for them as a family.

These are all choices you can make to guard your own heart.

The one step could make all the difference

People who are happily married for the long term didn't get to that point because no one else happened to walk by looking sooo fine. Other attractive people have come in and out of their lives. Perhaps they've turned their heads and flattered their egos too. Perhaps they even enjoyed the feeling and basked in it for a moment. But then they remembered their promise to love the person they married. They thought about what they'd be throwing away if they went just one step further and sought for more.

Just because you're attracted to cheesecake doesn't mean you have to let it kill you.

The only people who say you can't control who you fall in love with are those who know deep down that they have fallen in love with someone they shouldn't.