Last evening Diane and I attended an event on campus for the St. Louis Symphony and had a good time. When our table conversation turned to marriage, I said Diane has had 7 happy years. 5 minutes here, 10 minutes there, it adds up! Diane showed her long-suffering smile; he tells the same joke over and over.
Yesterday in the New York Times, psychology professor Sonja Lyubomirsky wrote, “American and European researchers tracked 1, 761 people who got married and stayed married over the course of 15 years. The findings were clear: newlyweds enjoy a big happiness boost that lasts, on average for just two years. Then the special joy wears off and they are back where they started, at least in terms of happiness…. When love is new, we have the rare capacity to experience great happiness while being stuck in traffic or getting our teeth cleaned. We are in the throes of what researches call passionate love, a state of intense longing, desire and attraction. In time, this love generally morphs into companionate love, a less impassioned blend of deep affection and connection.” (December 2; Sunday Review, 1)
Genesis 2:18 – “The Lord God said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.’”
C. S. Lewis put it this way. “Being in love is a good thing, but it is not the best thing. There are many things below it, but there are also things above it. You cannot make it the basis of a whole life. It is a noble feeling, but it is still a feeling. Now no feeling can be relied on to last in its full intensity, or even to last at all. Knowledge can last, principles can last, habits can last; but feelings come and go. And in fact, whatever people say, the state called ‘being in love’ usually does not last….
“But of course, ceasing to be ‘in love’ need not mean ceasing to love. Love in this second sense—love as distinct from ‘being in love’ is not merely a feeling. It is a deep unity, maintained by the will and deliberately strengthened by habit; reinforced by (in Christian marriages) the grace which both parents ask, and receive, from God. They can have this love for each other even at those moments when they do not like each other; as you love yourself even when you do not like yourself. They can retain this love even when each would easily, if they allowed themselves, be ‘in love’ with someone else. ‘Being in love’ first moved them to promise fidelity: this quieter love enables them to keep the promise. It is on this love that the engine of marriage is run: being in love was the explosion that started it.” (From Mere Christianity, quoted in For All the Saints I, 271f.)
Diane and I have had more than 7 happy years, going on 40. What’s happy and happening this Monday? She’s cleaning the house and I’m cleaning the gutters.
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