On Loving and Being Loved

Source: 3194556/Pixabay

The couple who entered my office were nervous, unsure of what to expect. Immaculately groomed, they were deliberate in their movements. They carefully avoided touching as they sat down next to each other on my sofa, ignoring the separate chairs they could have chosen.

“Welcome,” I began. “What brings you here today?”

The man took the lead, his authority underscored by his words and the tone with which he spoke them: “After more than 40 years of marriage, we have concluded we have irreconcilable differences.”

His wife nodded in enthusiastic agreement.

“Can you tell me a bit more?” I prodded.

“She likes opera, and I prefer chamber music.”

Hmmm, I thought. This argument is no more about music than food fights are about the merits of vegetables versus meats or intimate dinners for two or four versus large parties.

His wife chimed in. “It’s like that Kahlil Gibran passage I’ve always admired:

“Love one another, but make not a bond of love.
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other's cup, but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread, but eat not from the same loaf.
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone.”

She paused, then added: “And, he insists on being in charge.”

Hmm, again. Was this about power? Control? Or unresolved conflicts brought from living in or observing their families of origin? What beliefs did they each have about the meaning of love, of marriage? After pausing, I feigned innocence as I tossed out my first bombshell of a question: “When do you feel most loved?”

They both startled. She answered first. “When he donates to causes I care about. Or when he accompanies me to church. Which is far too rarely.”

I turned toward her and continued, “And when do you feel you are best expressing love to him?”

She reflected, then responded quietly: “When I make a beautiful dinner party for him.”

He seemed upset and confused. Dinner parties were one of the last things he could remember enjoying.

I turned to him.

“And when do you feel most loved?”

“When I feel she wants to make love with me.”

“And most loving?”

“When I buy her jewelry. She likes pretty things.”

Now it was her turn to react with surprise.

Ways in which people show and experience love vary. Each Sunday throughout 2017 I published (in this blog) a different essay in the series “Fifty-two Ways to Show I Love You.” Back then, I was busy completing my memoir about my own middle-aged love story and had never even heard of Gary Chapman’s The Five Love Languages, which was published the year before my own book was printed. But, by then, my own clients and life lessons had taught me that a couple’s relationship most regularly derailed when the ways the individuals thought they were expressing love were not the ways their partner wanted to be shown love. Similarly, their relationship fell off track when what one wanted from their partner was not what they received.

Source: StockSnap/Pixabay

Ten years before, John Gottman had begun publishing his well-supported research on couple dynamics that led to happy marriages or divorce. I was living my own love story, so I found his work particularly interesting, even compelling. One of his most important takeaways was that a couple needs to have five positive interactions to counterbalance the detrimental impact of a single negative one. My head, filled with Gottman’s data and ideas along with Bob Sternberg’s theoretical analyses of love helped me understand what was happening as my lover and I crafted our seemingly impossible trans-Atlantic romance. We both were busy brainstorming and experimenting with countless ways of trying to show love. Twenty years later, I wanted to offer those ideas to my readers.

Exploring all the ways in which we express and experience love, the most popular essays centered around the importance of

• Touch: Skin-to-skin contact in all its forms has been a hallmark of loving since ancient times. Sex was only one form of it. Recently, an article in The Washington Post applauded the health benefits of hand-holding.
• Sharing: Going through life’s experiences—positive and negative, beautiful and ugly, harmonious and dissonant, as they might be—with presence signals authentic connection. Susan Cain’s recent book, Bittersweet, describes the impact of such presence.
• Showing up: A specific form of sharing, showing up for a loved one at moments that are meaningful to them (sharing) or providing specific support (caring and caregiving) expresses love in a silent but unmistakable way.
• Silence: Like touch, quiet can speak louder than words in expressing love. When sent with consciousness and intention to engage in communion, a unique intimacy thrives.

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Whatever expressions of love two people value—both in their giving and their receiving—allow them to communicate their love effectively. As for my Client couple, once they realized that their differences could bring more benefits and effective teamwork to their marriage rather than discord and divisiveness, they began to appreciate each other as they had when they were in their 20s. She playfully engaged in touch far more often; he understood that interest in what she cared about brought her great pleasure. New horizons opened up, they both again grew from being together, and the joys of being life partners again nourished their marriage.