Love is a Decision

What is love?

Love is a word that gets tossed around quite a bit. How often have you said or heard the words “I love you”? But have you ever tried to sit down and pencil an actual definition of what is meant by the word “love”? You may find it challenging.

One can assert that love is a feeling. A dictionary definition of love is “an intense feeling of deep affection.” 

You may have noticed, however, that what we assume is love can rapidly pivot into something one might reasonably label as hate, or at least, contempt. I have certainly noticed that in my seat as a divorce mediator. Often I’ve sat with couples who, having previously vowed before their community to love one another for life, and perhaps after experiencing some years of feeling like they were in love, can now barely carry on a conversation without casting poisonous barbs at one another. 

I have personally experienced being in a room with my wife, whom I have claimed to love on countless occasions, and suddenly finding myself filled with anger and resentment toward her based on something she said or did that triggered me. String enough of those incidents together without examination or questioning, and you will likely end up in front of someone like me (a divorce professional), wondering how you could ever have imagined that the person in the other chair could have elicited your love.

I was struck some time ago when I heard Arthur Brooks assert that love is not a feeling… it is a decision. It is a decision that we must make every day, many times a day. He goes on to quote St. Thomas Aquinas: “Love is to will the good of the other as other.” Full stop.

Based on personal experience, I have come to believe this assertion is true.

I have written elsewhere that the inescapable calculus of intimate relationships is as follows: 

You will be attracted to, and you will attract, an intimate partner whose unresolved issues and characteristics will perfectly interlock with yours, in such a way that you will both be confronted with those issues in an unmistakable and unavoidable way. 

I also believe this to be true, based on my own relationship history and the recounted history of many other couples whom I’ve known and spoken to.

True or not, if you’ve been in an intimate relationship for any length of time, you will almost certainly find that once the initial attraction hormones wear off, you will start to discover things about your partner that you would prefer were different. Quite often, if not almost universally, some of those characteristics that you would like to change will trigger you, sometimes with an intensity that can be shocking. 

You may have also noticed that you have arguments with your intimate partner that would appear insane if they happened with a non-romantic friend. And yet, the screaming matches, the terrible curses, the things that are said that you would prefer no one else to ever know about, are accepted as commonplace in marriages and other intimate relationships.

What I have discerned in my own experience with these kinds of arguments is that when I get really triggered, it can usually be traced to some kind of “justice issue” in my mind. Some version of “how can she possibly think that ____ is OK when ____ is clearly true/right/appropriate?” 

Sound familiar?

What I have also found is that my attempts to force my partner to change in the ways that I think comport with justice are usually met with resistance. Argument. A Counter-Justice Argument. Usually these arguments are exhausting and lead to nowhere, especially if I come in with a strong sense of righteousness and rigidity.

What I’ve come to realize after lengthy experimentation is that love doesn’t come from finding the “right” person who will meet my expectations in all the ways I believe they should be met. No one can possibly meet all of my expectations or desires, any more than I can possibly meet anyone else’s every expectation and desire. Instead, beyond finding someone who shares core values and meets a baseline set of characteristics that I need from an intimate partner (e.g. honesty, a certain level of emotional intelligence, a commitment to listening, learning and growth, a sense of humor), love comes from making the decision to love. Over and over.

You may have heard of Byron Katie’s four questions, otherwise known as The Work. They can be applied to most any imagined justice issue that comes up in the course of your relationship. 

Ms. Katie makes the radical assertion that suffering is not based on “reality” (external conditions), but rather, on the stories we tell ourselves. Her system for freeing ourselves of the suffering that comes from believing these stories is to ask yourself the following four questions:

Question 1: Is (the story) true?

Be still and ask yourself if the justice issue you’ve planted your stake in is true.

Question 2: Can you absolutely know it’s true?

Your reflexive answer to the previous question may well have been a resounding “YES!” However, this second question asks you to go deeper, all the way down, to the absolute. Can you absolutely know it to be true?

Question 3: How do you react—what happens—when you believe that story or thought?

This question brings you to the core of what is causing you to suffer in fact (as opposed to the behavior of your partner). You will likely find that when you believe the justice story, it causes a deep disturbance in you–which can range from mild discomfort to fear or panic. Ask yourself: How do you treat the person (or the situation) you’ve applied the story to? How does believing the story cause you to behave? How does it cause you to feel?

Question 4: Who would you be without the story or thought?

Imagine yourself as a person who doesn’t believe the justice story you’ve made up. Realize there is a universe in which another person might not have the same story, or any story at all. Which feels kinder, more peaceful?

The Turnaround

Finally, Katie invites you to turn the story around: to experience the opposite of what you’ve made up. See if you can find instances in your life where that turnaround story is actually true.

A more pointed question you can also ask yourself is always: Would you rather be at peace or be right?

I vividly remember a moment when I looked over at my wife Laurie and asked myself, with a real sense of seriousness: 

“What would it be like if I devoted myself to cherishing this person, to the best of my ability, at all times?” 

What I imagined first is that I would experience a lot more of what people refer to as love. I went on to imagine that I would experience a lot less resentment, judgment, fear and anger. It then occurred to me that I very much enjoy the experience of love. And it dawned on me that I don’t have a very good time when I’m experiencing those other feelings. It logically followed that the answer to this question I was posing to myself was, on a very basic level, a no brainer.

This all of course begs the question of course: Can it really be that simple?

Yes, I believe it is. In theory. But the execution usually requires some deconditioning.

Most of us are conditioned to believe that happiness, peace and love are outcomes of external conditions: we feel happy because good things happen to us, and when bad things don’t happen. We feel love when we find someone who behaves lovably.

But most of us find that life, and relationships, don’t square up to this belief. In fact, when we hold those beliefs, we are virtually guaranteed disappointment, as well as the opposite of those experiences.

Circle back then, to The Decision: Could it be that we will experience love more consistently, deeply and fully when we commit to deciding to love, again and again?

Like most things that matter and are truly rewarding, this deeper experience of love is the outcome of practice: practicing the decision to love your partner, for who they are; choosing to call to mind the many reasons you came to love them in the first place; choosing to encounter your partner as a whole person, with traits you adore and traits you would, if you had your preference, have be different; choosing to question your habitual interpretation of your partner, to encounter him or her as fresh and new, an unknown, unexplored territory; making these choices again and again, day after day, moment after moment.

This all may appear on the surface as trite or cliche. I believe, on the contrary, that it is a profound and deeply counterintuitive practice. Because, as discussed above, it requires us to shatter deeply conditioned and often unexamined beliefs about how love and happiness come into being. The radical shift is in moving from expecting your partner to create love in you through his or her behavior, and instead sourcing that love within yourself. By making a decision. Again and again.

If you find you can’t make that decision, you may need to face the reality that it is time to exit the relationship. Just acknowledge that you will face the same decision in any relationships that follow.

The question you might start with is this: What have you got to lose by giving this practice a try? You may find you have much to gain, and much suffering to leave behind.