Love is a Choice

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I have quite a few female friends, most of whom are married and have been for some time. In the past few years, I’ve heard from more than one of my married friends only to find out that they and their husbands have split. And more than half of the time, the split has been precipitated (notice I did not say ’caused’) by the husband first saying he’s ‘unhappy’ or ‘disatisfied’ or ‘going through something’, and then in the end it turns out he’s found someone else. Sometimes the wife has known said woman because she was ‘just a friend’ or ’someone I work with’ and other times it’s been a shock completely out of the blue. And once ‘the other woman’ enters the picture, things deteriorate rapidly.

I do realise, of course, that some relationships need to end. I think most times that’s down to the individuals, but you can reach a point where there is nowhere left to go, or else there are so many things wrong in the relationship (especially where something like abuse is concerned) that the relationship needs to end.

I have no problem with that. What bothers me is when a person, still in a relationship, decides to ’stray’ with another person. They create a new relationship before their current one is finished, and generally one person doesn’t know what’s going on and ends up feeling really stupid, betrayed and angry as a result.

Now I’m not naieve enough to believe that these people were in perfect relationships (Oh dear, I had trouble even typing that phrase, as I don’t believe ‘perfect relationships’ even exist!) that rapidly fell apart once ‘the other woman’ entered the scene. In fact, situations like this always make me think of a very apt line from the film When Harry Met Sally: “Marriages don’t break up on account of infidelity. It’s just a symptom that something else is wrong.”

While I do believe that infidelity is an outcome, rather than a cause, I find myself asking why so many people, and especially so many men (at least that seems to be the case), attempt to solve their relationship problems by finding a new relationship.

One big reason I think this avenue is so tempting is because it gives a feeling of control. If your most central relationship is threatened, you really feel it. When you find yourself constantly arguing with your partner, or else growing very distant and maybe having nothing to say to each other, it can feel very scary. For a lot of reasons. Somewhere down inside you feel a failure when you can’t make your relationship work. You can also feel afraid of the future, afraid of the unknown, out of control. You may even start to feel worthless.

On the flip side, we all know how it feels to be in a new relationship. You feel good about yourself, desired, attractive, and if you do lose control, it’s in a fun, total emotional ‘rush‘ kind of way. If you’re feeling your relationship with your partner is breaking down, if you feel undesirable to your partner, or if you feel as if everything you do is ‘wrong’, that ‘rush’ can be a powerful temptation. Why work on old issues or bother with confrontation when you can just have a ‘clean slate’ with a new person who thinks you’re wonderful?

Why indeed. And many people seem to think this way.

That brings me back to a book I read a very long time ago, The Road Less Traveled by M. Scott Peck. Of all the valuable things in it (It’s a fascinating take on life and what makes it worth living, what things we need to do in order to become a person who lives a truly fulfilling life.) the one that stuck with me the most was about love. In a nutshell, Peck believed that real love is a choice. Attraction is biological, as is infatuation. Feelings are important — you don’t want to be with someone you don’t even find attractive! No one should be that self-sacrificing — but they are not the be-all, end-all. They are just the starting point. To truly love someone, you have to commit, you have to choose to be there. You choose to do what it takes to make that relationship work.

The benefits of that choice, that commitment, can be amazing. When you’ve been through real life with someone else, worked on your issues, found your strengths, been a support to that person and been supported by them, that’s a real relationship. You have a friend, a partner, someone to laugh and cry with, someone who really knows you — both the good and the bad — and chooses to still be with you. That is something worthwhile.

Of course, anything worthwhile comes with a price. And, in this case, that price can be hard work, at least some of the time.

There are always rough patches in a relationship, times when you make each other more angry than you thought possible, times when you cannot seem to get through a day without a shouting match. To get past those points can require real work: copious discussion, true listening, compromise, sacrifice, being honest with yourself, sometimes painful things. It definitely isn’t easy sometimes.

So is it worth it? I think so. A lot of my friends and family agree.

But there will always be some who take a different path, the ‘easy’ path if you will. Much easier to just call it quits and start again. More exciting? Yes. More fun? Probably. Better than commiting to your relationship and working through the obstacles? Not to me, that’s for sure.

I guess, like Peck and the poet Robert Frost I believe:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

(from The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost)