Staying Realistic About Romance in an Unrealistic Culture

We are what we consume.

That doesn’t just go for food. It also applies to the music to which we listen, the shows that we watch, and the things that we read. These all impact the way we view ourselves, the world, and even romantic relationships. In today’s culture, unfortunately, that impact is often negative.

There’s an episode of the popular show The Office where a character named Pam asks her fiancé, Jim, to talk with her father. Her parents have been fighting, and she hopes that Jim can affect a reconciliation. Jim talks with Pam’s father. After the conversation, Pam’s father tells her mother that he’s moving out.

Shocked, Pam approaches her father about what happened. She learns what led to his decision and later tells Jim: “He said that you told him how you feel when I walk in a room, and how you’ve never doubted for a second that I’m the woman you want to spend the rest of your life with. Apparently, he’s never felt that way about my mom, even at their best.” This story arc is concluded by Pam saying with a smile: “As a kid, you just assume your parents are soul mates…my kids are going to be right.”

It’s a cute moment. And it’s a horrible message.

The idea expressed here is that love is a romantic feeling that another person gives you; that this feeling never wanes, and if it does, it means you and your spouse were never really meant for each other, and you can leave each other.

As Christians, of course, we know that love isn’t just a feeling. We are all probably familiar with the passage from St. Paul: “Love is patient, love is kind…it does not seek its own interests…it bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” (1 Corinithians 13:4-7) We know that loving others means wanting what is good for them.

However, we need to ask ourselves whether our expectations of romantic love are at all contaminated by the ideas we encounter in our entertainment.

After all, it is possible to desire the good of the person we are dating, but simultaneously want too much from them. We might expect a certain level of excitement to accompany the romance for longer than is feasible. We might unconsciously see the person we are dating—and our desire to be married—as the source of our happiness, as being “our whole world”.

Emotions don't matter as much as you think they should.

The problem with this is that the excitement only lasts so long, and only God can make us truly happy. If we seek marriage with the expectation that our spouse is going to be our ultimate happiness, then we are going to be disappointed when they don’t give us what God alone can give.

This isn’t to deny that we should enjoy the romantic feelings that are experienced in a relationship; it also isn’t to deny that in marriage, couples should try to foster warm feelings and romantic affection for each other. But it is to recognize that when we do get married, these emotional accessories to marriage may not always be as intense as we might wish.

It is also to recognize that in discerning marriage, our number one goal shouldn’t be to find someone who makes us feel a certain way; rather, it should be to find the person with whom we can best live out the Sacrament of Matrimony and attain salvation.

Focus on what matters most.

As we do discern marriage, then, let us be on guard for any wrong ideas that may seep into our souls from the culture around us, and let us meditate on these words from Pius XI:

“The love, then, of which We are speaking is not that based on the passing lust of the moment nor does it consist in pleasing words only, but in the deep attachment of the heart which is expressed in action, since love is proved by deeds. This outward expression of love…must have as its primary purpose that man and wife help each other day by day in forming and perfecting themselves in the interior life, so that…they may advance ever more and more in virtue, and above all that they may grow in true love toward God and their neighbour, on which indeed ‘dependeth the whole Law and the Prophets.’”

Casti Connubii (December 31, 1930) | PIUS XI (vatican.va)