Falling in Love

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Jeffrey Thayne

Holding hands
Do we decide who we fall in love with?

Today, I would like to talk about love. Of course, we often differentiate between the kind of love we ought have for everyone, and the kind of love we have for the special someone in our lives. I’m not convinced the distinction is as clear as we often make it, but if we must distinguish, I am going talk about the kind of love we often associate with dating, romance, and marriage. Particularly, I would like to address the question: “Fall in love or choose to love?”

“Falling in Love”

Often, we talk about romantic love as if it is something that happens to us. In other words, when we “fall in love,” we cannot help but love the other person. According to Wikipedia, the metaphorical verb fall implies not only that “the process may have been in some way inevitable or uncontrollable,” but also “irreversible.”

I can see very flattering components in this account of love. Basically, it says, “I had no choice in the matter. You are just too attractive, too much fun to be around, too special for me not to love you.” It places the burden entirely on the shoulders of the other person in a way that compliments them.

Some Wacky Comparisons

Let’s imagine for a moment that you meet someone who is exceptionally kind to you. She regularly sacrifices her own wants in order to serve you in significant ways. Naturally, you are flattered by this attention. She apparently thinks highly of you (or at least cares deeply about you). This commendable behavior earns your respect, and you speak highly of this person when with others.

One day, you discover a shocking, disturbing secret. This person has had a computer chip implanted in her brain, and is being controlled from a remote location by either extra-terrestrials or secret government agents. Although this person is fully conscious and fully herself around others, when she is around you, her regular habits and actions are hijacked by this computer chip, and she acts particularly kind around you through no volition of her own. Around others, however, she isn’t particularly kind or generous.

The respect you had for her is likely to diminish. Because she didn’t voluntarily choose to act as she did, the credit does not belong to her. No longer do you see her actions as the product of genuine love or consideration. Because she couldn’t have done otherwise, there is no moral virtue in and nothing particularly praiseworthy about the fact that she did it. The situation is the same if you are the one holding the remote control.

Here is another example. Imagine that a good friend came to a performance of yours, and you were genuinely pleased that he came. However, you find out later that he didn’t want to come, but had to in order to complete a school assignment. There is nothing morally wrong with this—you might still be glad he came. However, you no longer feel genuinely complimented in the same way you would have been had he chosen to come only because he wanted to see you perform. Or, imagine that you discovered that your music is like that of the pied piper or a siren’s call—it hijacks the normal decision-making capabilities of the hearer, making them want to hear it and to come when you perform. Thus, your friend came because he couldn’t help it. Again, the effect would be similar: he no longer came out of a genuine desire to see you perform.

In each of these examples, there is a common thread: whenever the decision-making capabilities of a person is superseded, any subsequent kind or loving action becomes (1) less genuine, and (2) less complimentary to those around them.

Choice

Let’s rewrite one of the scenarios above. Imagine that your friend came to your performance, and you were pleased that he was there. Later, you discover that there was another activity that he had been invited to, but which he turned down in order to come to your performance. Suddenly, his actions mean a whole lot more to you. His attendance is both (1) more genuine, and (2) more complimentary to you.

It is a happy fact that choice seems to make every action more meaningful and more genuine. Consider how meaningful it is for someone to say, “I could have chosen to date and marry any number of different people. However, I chose you. It was a choice freely made, un-coerced, and genuine. My decision-making capacities were perfectly intact.” For me, this doesn’t at all mean, “You had nothing to do with it.” For me, it is the purest and most genuine kind of love. Consider the thoughts of Dr. Gantt (which I have included here after he posted them as a comment):

I don’t think the issue … is whether one chooses to love another, but rather the reasons that are given for having so chosen to love them. For example, in my own marriage, I have often told my wife that I chose to love her . . . because of her goodness, her beauty, her grace and nobility, her joyfulness, her maturity, her spirituality, her work ethic, and because not only does she love me back (despite the many reasons I have given her in our long life together to dump me) she also makes me want to be a better man. None of those things caused me to fall in love with her, or cause me to stay in love with her, but they do provide the necessary context for understanding why I would choose to love her. My wife has shared with me that it is many of the same characteristics in me that grounded her choice to fall in love with me and to stay in love with me.

In the end, the thing that makes her choice to love me so important and meaningful to me is that despite all the reasons I give her to love me, I also give her plenty of reasons not to — and vice versa. Thus, in spite of all the reasons there are for her to not love me or to fall out of love with me, she keeps choosing to love me. She chooses to do so when she might just as well chose not to (and for some good reasons) — and that makes our relationship special: she doesn’t have to love me, but she does. I don’t have to love her, but I do.

Elder Robbins’ Remarks

Elder Lynn G. Robbins of the Seventy wrote an Ensign article on this topic. He said,

Somewhere in the history of the English language the expression “fall in love” began to be used to describe the sublime experience of finding someone to love. While it is a beautiful idiom, there was inherent risk involved in selecting the verb fall because it mostly means accidental, involuntary, with no choice involved. And subtly, it has also led to the use of its distressing corollary, “We fell out of love,” an all-too-common phrase heard nowadays as an excuse for a failed marriage. “Falling in love” and “falling out of love” sound as if love were something that cannot be controlled.

If the experience of romantic love is outside of our control, then so is the experience of diminishing love towards our significant other. This is an implication that I refuse to accept. Elder Robbins continued,

We know that any commandment by God involves agency. We can obey or disobey, but there is always a choice. Therefore, in Matthew 22, verses 37 and 39, when the Lord says, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind,” and “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,” [Matt. 22:37, 39] He is not saying, “I hope you ‘fall in love’ with your neighbor.” The command is a directive, an appeal to the mind to make a conscious choice, involving the mind in reasoning and decision making. …

Too many believe that love is a condition, a feeling that involves 100 percent of the heart, something that happens to you. They disassociate love from the mind and, therefore, from agency. In commanding us to love, the Lord refers to something much deeper than romance—a love that is the most profound form of loyalty. He is teaching us that love is something more than feelings of the heart; it is also a covenant we keep with soul and mind. …

What about love between spouses, which involves the additional elements of romance and intimacy? Does this principle of agency and love, or the command to love, apply to marriage as well?

Once again, the Lord uses the command form of the verb love in “Thou shalt love thy wife with all thy heart, and shalt cleave unto her and none else” (D&C 42:22). It doesn’t require any guesswork here to discern that the Lord is giving us a directive with a presupposition of agency. …

While it is obvious that agency is a factor in the character traits listed by the Apostle Paul, it will be impossible to develop these attributes without the Lord’s help. Therefore, the Lord instructs us through Mormon to “pray unto the Father with all the energy of heart, that ye may be filled with this love, which he hath bestowed upon all who are true followers of his Son, Jesus Christ” (Moro. 7:48).

This is the love that is to be applied in marriages, in families, and with our fellowmen. A marriage based on this kind of love becomes the most romantic of all, generating eternal tender feelings between a husband and a wife. … Thus we have seen that while a person may “fall in love” with a spouse by emotion, the husband or wife progresses and blossoms in love by decision.

“Love by decision” is, as I explained above, a much more meaningful form of love, because it implies that the love isn’t something that the lover had no choice but to experience, nor is it something that he just allowed to happen because he wasn’t paying attention to his thoughts and habits.

The 100-Hour Board

Thumper while he is twitterpated
Is romantic love a choice, or are we just helplessly twitterpated beyond our control?

Early in January, a reader of the BYU 100-Hour Board (also a friend/roommate of mine) asked, “Which is greater, to ‘fall’ in love or to choose to love?” A thoughtful writer for the 100-Hour Board with the pseudonym “Waldorf” responded:

I think God gives us Infatuation as … a little bonus. You might consider it an interpersonal lubricant, like alcohol. It makes us more apt to be charitable, to serve, and to forgive as well as to go through the romantic but otherwise troublesome acts of courtship, proposals, weddings, and marriage. It’s the icing on the love cake. However, we don’t always feel Infatuation, and it changes with time. So if you haven’t previously made the choice to love the party in question and feelings of romance fade for temporary or permanent reasons, your relationship is going to be no more.

In other words, Choice makes it substantial; Infatuation makes it fun. We fallen mortal types need both.

I really like this person’s answer. Choice is what makes love substantial and meaningful. While Infatuation makes it fun, and can act as an interpersonal lubricant, it isn’t love itself, because true love will endure when circumstances change (such as when a spouse/loved one is ill, or paralyzed, or disfigured, etc., or simply when people grow old). The choice to love and care for another person in extenuating circumstances is at the heart of true, genuine love. Elder Robbins explains:

It is almost humorous to observe a young unmarried couple in love. After spending an entire day together, they are back together again on the phone that same night. It’s sheer torture for them to be separated. Even in their thoughts they can hardly focus on anything else. Love begins to disrupt their studies or work. Everything else in life becomes a nuisance and an interruption that keeps them apart until they can be together again. In their minds there was never, in the history of the world, a truer love than theirs. We call this level of premarriage intensity “infatuation.”

After they marry, this intensity tapers off. Living under the same roof, they each begin to discover a few peculiar idiosyncracies in the other that they had not seen before. Some of these are irritating. The infatuation begins to fade. Those who have confused infatuation for love begin to worry and wonder if they are falling out of love. “Where is that level of passion, the fire I had during courtship?” they may ask themselves. Their relationship is passing through a common stage and is at an important crossroad. If they believe they have fallen out of love, they may begin to drift apart.

This is when a dose of true love is needed to rekindle a relationship that is being tested. True love may not restore the same emotional intensity of early courtship, but it will help love remain alive and blooming. Forty years later, Grandpa can go fishing, love Grandma dearly, but more easily endure a short absence from her than he could at a youthful age when smitten with infatuation. Their love is stronger, more mature, and still blossoming.

It seems clear that the decision to love another person is lasts much longer and endures more hardship than any kind of love that we imagine “just happens to us.”

The Myth

I do not wish at all to claim that Love is a choice and that Infatuation isn’t. What is Infatuation but the process of habitually wanting to be with another person, of thinking about them when they are not around, of wanting to please them when they are around? Are our thoughts and desires not within the scope of our control? So much of what we want and think we simply do without forethought or deliberation, and we therefore create an illusion that there is no choice in what we think or want. Consider, though: we don’t often think about where our feet land when we walk, or how our hands move when we write or drive, but we can’t claim that there is no choice in these matters.

Agentic action does not require conscious deliberation—it only requires the possibility that we could have done otherwise than we did. Thus, while there is a distinction between Infatuation and Love, I would claim that neither falls in the category of “falling in love,” and I would also claim that the entire idea behind “falling in love”—that there is an irresistible, irreversible, inevitable attraction between two people—is a myth. Thoughts, desires, and actions are not things that happen to us, they are things that we do, even if we don’t take the time to deliberate on our thoughts, desires, and actions. In summary, I agree with Elder Robbins when he said that

because love is as much a verb as it is a noun, the phrase “I love you” is much more a promise of behavior and commitment than it is an expression of feeling. … Scripturally, the Lord is very clear with us on this doctrine—you can’t “fall out of love,” because love is something you decide. Agency plays a fundamental role in our relationships with one another. This being true, we must make the conscious decision that we will love our spouse and family with all our heart, soul, and mind; that we will build, not “fall into,” strong, loving marriages and families.

In other words, not only is love a choice, but the fact that love is a choice makes it more meaningful. In our examples above, we saw how in situations in which overridden, a person’s actions are less meaningful and, in many ways, less sincere. Agency is a crucial element of all meaningful human action; in order for our actions to mean anything, we need to always have the capacity or potential to do differently than we do. Anyways, I hope this post was as interesting to read as it was for me to write. I’d love to hear your feedback!

19 comments

  1. I fully believe that loving is a choice and that I could choose anyone and learn to love them. However, I also believe that when something like eternity is involved, I have the right as a daughter of God striving to be happy to be a bit picky and to choose someone who makes it the easiest for me to love because of compatibility. And infatuation is a lovely plus. Thanks for the ideas. Very interesting.

  2. You have to be careful with this. I once told my spouse that I chose to love them, based on God’s confirmation that we should marry, thinking it would be an ultimate compliment. Instead, it contributed to the end of my marriage.

    So, while I completely agree with you, it is important to realize that not everyone sees it this way.

  3. I think we decide who we stay in love with, not who we fall in love with. There’s a difference.

  4. that’s true. I went to a gorgeous catholic wedding once, and the priest gave his homily all about that distinction–‘falling in love and then standing in love,’ he called it. it was really wonderful. it ties in with all those vows. falling in love is the easy part. staying there means making promises.

  5. Anonymous: You have to be careful with this. I once told my spouse that I chose to love them, based on God’s confirmation that we should marry, thinking it would be an ultimate compliment. Instead, it contributed to the end of my marriage.

    Based on what you have written here — and I’m sure there is far more to the story — it sounds like what you told your spouse (or, at least, what they may have heard) was: I chose to love you because I had to because God told me we should marry. The implication that might be taken up there is that you only chose to love your spouse because you had to and you might not have chosen to love him/her if you didn’t feel it was a duty imposed on you by God. (Note: I’m not saying this is what you meant or what you said or felt, only that given what you worte above someone could certainly take you to have meant this — and, maybe, did.)

    I don’t think the issue in such a case is whether one chooses to love another, but rather the reasons that are given for having so chosen to love them. For example, in my own marriage, I have often told my wife that I chose to love her . . . because of her goodness, her beauty, her grace and nobility, her joyfulness, her maturity, her spirituality, her work ethic, and because not only does she love me back (despite the many reasons I have given her in our long life together to dump me) she also makes me want to be a better man. None of those things caused me to fall in love with her, or cause me to stay in love with her, but they do provide the necessary context for understanding why I would choose to love her. My wife has shared with me that it is many of the same characteristics in me that grounded her choice to fall in love with me and to stay in love with me.

    In the end, the thing that makes her choice to love me so important and meaningful to me is that despite all the reasons I give her to love me, I also give her plenty of reasons not to — and vice versa. Thus, in spite of all the reasons there are for her to not love me or to fall out of love with me, she keeps choosing to love me. She chooses to do so when she might just as well chose not to (and for some good reasons) — and that makes our relationship special: she doesn’t have to love me, but she does. I don’t have to love her, but I do.

  6. Great article Jeff, I enjoyed reading it. I particularly like Waldorf’s inclusion of how our mortality plays a factor in this whole decision. I will agree that in the end, the substance of a relationship is choice; that is clear.
    What do you think about the commonly said (usually by the older generation) idea that any good Mormon boy and girl could marry each other and have a healthy, successful marriage? I personally do not agree with it, I believe there are other factors that play into it, but I’m curious as to your thoughts, and anyone else’s.

  7. What do you think about the commonly said (usually by the older generation) idea that any good Mormon boy and girl could marry each other and have a healthy, successful marriage? I personally do not agree with it, I believe there are other factors that play into it, but I’m curious as to your thoughts, and anyone else’s.

    I suspect if the Mormon couple in question lived in Medieval Europe (or any of a number of other places and times), then they could probably have pulled it off — if they were both committed to the gospel of Christ and the success of the marriage and family. Our modern culture, however, is too infused with individualizing concepts of love and marriage, too heavily romanticist, to make this a likely possibility (perhaps, it could be accomplished, but the likelihood has to be incredibly small).

    In the medieval world, marriage, its meaning and purpose, was understood very differently from how we understand it today. I think such a couple would have started with the assumption that their marriage was an economic arrangement that had been chosen for them when they were very young for the purpose of strengthening families, communities, and social, political, and economic ties, and that the success of the marriage depended on how well each of them did their particular part to ensure all of these purposes were achieved. They wouldn’t have thought, as so many of us today do, in terms of personal fulfillment, soul mates, true love, and that sort of thing. Granted, some of those modern ideas have their roots in late medieval romances and notions of Chivalric love, but our world (and relationships) are today very different than those of the past. The historical record is full of examples of couples whose marriages were arranged for social, economic, and political reasons, but who over time came to love and care very deeply for one another. (The opposite is quite true also.)

    I suspect that most ancient marriages (e.g., those mentioned in ancient scripture) were of this sort.

  8. Nathan Money: What do you think about the commonly said (usually by the older generation) idea that any good Mormon boy and girl could marry each other and have a healthy, successful marriage?

    That idea comes from a talk by President Kimball that you can find quoted in various conference talks and Church manuals:

    While marriage is difficult, and discordant and frustrated marriages are common, yet real, lasting happiness is possible, and marriage can be more an exultant ecstasy than the human mind can conceive. This is within the reach of every couple, every person. “Soul mates” are fiction and an illusion; and while every young man and young woman will seek with all diligence and prayerfulness to find a mate with whom life can be most compatible and beautiful, yet it is certain that almost any good man and any good woman can have happiness and a successful marriage if both are willing to pay the price.

    I think President Kimball’s point is that the ingredients to real, genuine joy are always within the realm of willingness and choice. There are other nice things in life, granted, that don’t come by choice. To give a trivial example, my wife would probably like it if I were taller than her, but I can’t choose to do that. That fact about height also makes it something unrelated to real joy and happiness. But still, it would make us look better on the dance floor. 🙂

    I agree that having a lot in common—interests, economic background, religion, ethnicity, personality—certainly makes marriage easier and minimizes areas of potential conflict. In fact, that’s why President Kimball recommends looking for those commonalities when finding a spouse.

    And when there are fewer commonalities, I agree with Ed that it helps to be surrounded by a culture that sees marriage as important for so many different reasons and thus supported by general attitudes. That is a lot more lacking today, as people see marriage more as an arrangement of convenience for “as long as our love shall last.” In moments of doubt or difficulty, there used to be a lot stronger social netting to help you stay married; nowadays the best friend, the TV personality, and the psychologist are all more likely to say, “Just divorce, it’s better that way.”

    I still think what President Kimball says is true. Having a happy marriage is still in the realm of choice. Granted, if one or both people grew up with the attitude of “married as long as it’s relatively painless and enjoyable,” then they will have a steeper learning curve before they see the truth of President Kimball’s statement. But I still think it’s well within everyone’s agency to “pay the price.”

    (Just to be clear, I’m also aware that there are exceptional situations; President Kimball does use the qualifier “almost.” Elder Faust described some conditions in which divorce was appropriate. But they always emphasize how rare those situations are, contrasted with how frequent the rest of society seems to think they are.)

  9. Nathan M.,

    I agree with Nathan’s assessment of President Kimball’s remarks. I think that President Kimball is right in theory. The challenge, however, is the qualifications that President Kimball puts on the statement: any good man and any good woman who are willing to pay the price. I can’t claim to be righteous all the time. I frequently have times where I bicker with others, where I find fault with those around me. I frequently am not willing to sacrifice my own pride to preserve and strengthen relationships with those I care about. Because I am not perfectly righteous all the time, I will sometimes experience interpersonal conflicts with others.

    However, I suspect that you’ll agree that any two Christ-like people who are willing to put aside personal differences and build a relationship can succeed in doing so. The challenge is that few of us are perfectly Christ-like all the time. That’s because we are mortal. And, in light of that fact, we must try to find someone that we are willing to pay the price to build a relationship with. In other words, it is only because we are mortal and imperfect that the idea becomes (to some degree) impractical. Therefore, we must adapt our dating habits accordingly. However, I do like Nathan’s comment that those factors over which we have no control cannot also be deciding factors in love and happiness. Otherwise, love and happiness are also, to some degree, outside of our control.

  10. I wonder if we could compare marriage to a ward. A person can always have a fulfilling experience at church if they go there with the intent to worship. Granted, it’s a lot easier if the youth are reverent and well-mannered in the chapel. It’s a lot more enjoyable if you have similar interests with other ward members your age, and they are friendly and banter with you. It’s a lot more painless it people don’t gossip, back-bite, or judge unrighteously. But even if none of those conditions are present, a person can still truly worship during the sacrament and feel the Spirit.

    They might have to practice constant mental forgiveness, but it seems to me that no external condition can prevent them from being receptive to the Spirit if they choose to set their heart aright. Because of my weaknesses, I won’t always feel that way. But like Jeff said, in theory, I could as often as I was willing to soften my heart.

    By the way, I like Elder Robbins’s alternative to “fall in love”—we could “build love” or “grow in love.” Sometimes the phrase “fall in love” makes it sound like something you stepped in. 😀 “Oh, don’t mind me. I just fell in some love back there. It’ll wash out.” 🙂

  11. I know that this article wasn’t meant to add to the homosexuality series, but I think that as a man who is attracted to other men, my love for my wife does have some bearing on the matter at hand.

    I had a BYU-I communications professor who believed that a Romantic Relationship took four steps

    (1) Fall in Lust–This is the initial attraction to a person (not necessarily physical) that makes you want to pursue a romantic relationship with them.

    (2) Fall in Love–This is the whole Infatuation stage you talk about. According to him this is the time you are dating and really enjoy dating. He said that this kind of love is really a function of the natural man. Remember that the natural man is not always evil. The natural man consists of all our natural desires, wants, passions, and lusts. These are not always evil, but the Natural Man is one who allows these things to control his actions

    (3) Fall out of Love–This was a very controversial subject. All of the single BYU-I girls in the class were very hurt and shocked that this professor would suggest that all true relationships would have a falling out of love phase. He was very insistent that they do. He said, though, that this isn’t necessarily the big deal that people get divorced over. It’s realizing that “loving” someone isn’t really natural. Eventually the newness of the relationship wears off and the natural man wants to move on to the next exciting relationship.

    (4) Learning to Love–This is where it really counts. After you realize that the relationship isn’t always easy and natural, you have to make a conscious effort to behave (act) in a loving manner regardless of how you feel. Over time that behavior becomes natural, in fact it becomes part of our character. Then it is easy to be loving, kind, unselfish, patient because it is simply who we are. I like a definition that I heard for true love “True love means being more concerned about another’s happiness than your own pleasure.”

    I believe that this principle applies to all of our passions, desires, and feelings. They come to us as part of the package deal of mortality. We cannot control whether or when they come to us, but we CAN choose how we are going to act in response to them. With the help of the Atonement, obedience to correct principles eventually yields a fundamental change in our natures. This change is the mighty change of heart Benjamin and Alma talk about. As Elder Christofferson said, it is one of the primary purposes of mortality. He also said that it may be a life-long process.

    Anyway, It’s kind of funny that in my relationship with my wife I skipped the first three steps. I wasn’t attracted to women. I liked hanging out with them as friends. I felt safer around women than I did around guys. We became really good friends and eventually she told me that she liked me. I was terrified. Then the spirit opened my eyes and I realized that I had grown to love her as a best friend. I wanted to spend a lot of time with her. She made me want to be a better man. The thought came to me: “What more could you want in a relationship?” Sexual attraction came to mind, but I found that as I grew in love for her, as I learned to love her, I became sexually attracted to her as well. It didn’t cure me–other women don’t do it for me. But this pattern of an emotional love forming before physical attraction is pretty common among my SSA friends. I’m not quite sure how it relates to “Falling in love” per se. I guess I don’t have any personal experience in that field. I just know that I learned to love and that love means everything to me.

  12. Kevin, those phases your teacher came up with seem really accurate descriptions to me. I had a Home and Family Living teacher who drew a chart outlining a similar path: Euphoria –> Mundane –> Joy v. Quiet Desperation. He said every marriage, including the best marriages, go through a stage where you realize that your spouse is not flawless, and that you do not always feel pitter-patter about them every second. At that point you can choose between three possibilities—Joy (which means selflessness and more real expectations), Divorce, or Quiet Desperation (where you stay married “just because” but don’t get any joy out of it).

    He said this process can take vastly different lengths of time—forty years for some couples, two weeks for others. He said he and his wife hit the choice at about 15 years. Until then, their marriage was fine, OK. But after they realized all this and changed their expectations, they hit joy—real joy.

    The most encouraging point he made is that EVERY marriage goes through this. Presidents of the Church with the most ideal marriages … go through this process. There’s nothing wrong with it—it’s part of becoming wiser and happier.

  13. Ed:
    I can see what you mean. That is, in fact, the way my spouse took it, despite it not being at all what I meant. I never felt I had to marry the person in question, I only had had a good feeling when I asked God if they were a person I should pursue a marriage relationship with. However, no matter how much apology and explanation I gave, it did not matter, which is why I say “be careful”. Most people have a rather overly romantic view of love, in my opinion. Most think it romantic that a person “couldn’t help” it. I have always found the notion rather uncomfortable, and have only been proven the truth of my feelings by the fact that my spouse, who “couldn’t help” falling in love with me has found ample reason to find fault with me once I no longer stood upon the pedestal which was made for me.

    I would much rather start a life with someone whose eyes are open to my imperfections, and marries me anyways.

    Or, perhaps as I have thought more about this, I would rather marry someone with the capacity to forgive. Both people in my marriage made mistakes, but one person cannot do all the forgiving in any marriage. Both have to choose joy over despair, and both have to recognize and focus on their own fault.

  14. I’ve noticed another problem that accompanies the “fall in love” paradigm. If the reason I fell in love with and married my spouse is that they are just hopelessly attractive and I couldn’t help but be compelled to marry them, it affects how we are able to talk about each other’s past relationships. In a way, it makes it impossible to acknowledge that you have ever been attracted to other girls before you met your wife. You have to pretend, “You’re the only one I’ve ever loved, honey. I don’t even think other girls are pretty.”

    Sometimes one person in a marriage is very uncomfortable with the spouse ever mentioning past relationships. To me, this seems to be related to the idea that “My spouse married me because he was hopelessly attracted to me in a completely irresistible and unique way.” So the idea of them feeling similar feelings toward any other human seems to threaten their marriage.

    In reality, I don’t think it matters that a person has felt that strong attraction with several people before, because in spite of having emotional feelings for multiple people, they are committed to me. Marriage is more an acknowledgment of commitment, not feelings.

  15. I just fell upon this site and very interesting article. I do not believe in Elder Robbins’ interpretation ‘thall shalt love God and the neighbors.” People forget that the commandments and the bible were both written in another time. Vocabulary and meanings evolve over the years and so do standards. I think perhaps the “love” that is required is more about respect than our current meaning of love.

  16. I don’t understand what part of Elder Robbins’ remark you disagree with. Do you mean, you disagree with the idea that loving someone is a volitional choice? Or are you saying that when God says “Love your neighbor,” he means something different than when he says “Love your spouse”?

  17. I agree that loving is a choice. However, I think “love” means something different now than it did when “God” commanded it. I mean, we can’t take everything from the Bible as the definite answer and I think the “love your neighbor” and “love your spouse” is one of those things that has evolved over the years.
    Perhaps I didn’t read it correctly, as going back now, I can’t find what I was talking about… but I just think there is a huge difference between “love” now. If love is a choice, what kind of choice do we have when we are commanded to love? Am I breaking a commandment everyday of my life because I don’t respect my neighbors? I just don’t get it.

  18. If love is a choice, what kind of choice do we have when we are commanded to love?

    Well, the way I see it, the fact that we are commanded to do something doesn’t mean we no longer have any choice about it. We can choose to obey or disobey every commandment.

    But it also helps me to think of the commandments as instructions. I think Heavenly Father is the wisest, happiest person in the universe. He knows the secrets to living with joy, and he tells us how to do it as well. His instructions on how to live joyfully are called “commandments.” If we choose to follow them, we will be happy too.

    Am I breaking a commandment everyday of my life because I don’t respect my neighbors?

    Honestly, yes. And I break that commandment just about every day, too.

    What Heavenly Father is trying to teach us is that the results of not loving are going to make us miserable, sooner or later. I don’t think that misery is an artificial consequence that he applies because he just likes controlling us; misery is the natural outcome of not loving. So he gives us a heads-up beforehand by way of his commandments. “Hey children, choosing to love makes you happy, and not doing so makes you miserable. Often those results are slow in coming, but by the time you realize it, you’ve already built a habit. So I’m telling you now so you can nip it in the bud.”

    And of course, there’s no need to balk at acknowledging that we sin. The Savior has taken care of it. That’s what his atonement is for—to make up for our weaknesses and help us receive eternal joy in spite of them. Does that make sense?

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