This is a personal opinion but it seems to me that the most successful and happiest marriages are ones that exemplify three types of love: love of your spouse, the love of Love, and the love of God. When all three are present in a marriage, and shown by each partner, their relationship continues to grow and persevere. As for me, I am young, have little personal experience with love, and have never been married. I am not afraid to admit that I could be wrong and I would understand if you quickly dismissed my opinions based on my lack of personal experience. In this essay I am strictly giving my opinions and am in no way asserting that what I say must be fact. I would just like to give my perspective on this issue. It will be hard for me to keep the three types of love spate because there is definitely overlap. I apologize now for any confusion I lead you into when reading this essay.
I will start with the easiest type of love to define, and that is a love for your spouse. This really does not require much explanation. I do not think anyone would deny that the first requirement for a successful marriage would be for both parties to love each other. This love inclines one to want to do whatever it takes to make the other happy. They will want to get to know each other, they will want to have fun with each other, and will be willing to make sacrifices to make the other happy. The last part was the key to defining love and to differentiating the three types of love. To exemplify the love of a spouse is to make sacrifices to help your spouse reach their final goal. Whether that’s turning off the TV to talk about what your spouse wants to talk about or letting your mother-in-law live at your place to make your spouse happy. Their happiness is their goal and you will sacrifice to help them attain that goal. But love an emotions are funny things. They have this mirroring effect. Laws of physics prevent the creation of something from nothing (conservation of matter) and prevent mechanisms from creating more energy than was put into them (conservation of energy). But love and happiness do not follow such rules. Love and happiness can come from seemingly nowhere and can easily produce more happiness without added work. Seeing your spouse happy makes you happy. And this is the magic of love. Even though it takes a lot of work/energy to sacrifice your wants, you do it because you want your spouse to be happy. But sometimes, just that thought is not enough, even though it should be. Sometimes you question yourself, “Was everything I just did worth it?” But then, once you see your spouse’s eyes light up and see how big their smile is, you suddenly know that it was truly worth it. Their happiness becomes contagious and you catch the biggest and most effective virus (or should I say “love bug”) ever and immediately begin to smile as your heart overflows with joy. Out of the exhausted and doubting pit in your mind comes a rush of bliss, seemingly out of nowhere and with no work or effort put forth. This love of your spouse is only the first part of a beautiful marriage.
Moving on I would like to explain the love of Love. I have heard a lot of people say, “I love love.” So this idea of the love of Love cannot seem too foreign. Continuing with my opinionated definitions, I see the love of Love as one being willing to sacrifice to reach Love’s final goal. Love’s final goal is to have the purest form of happiness and joy bestowed upon both parties of the relationship. This is also a layer above the love of a spouse. When our love for our spouse is not enough to get us to sacrifice we depend on our love of Love to be the motivation. We all have an idea of the concept of Love; what true Love looks like, what Love requires of us, what Love’s outcome is, and the like. We also see love as this overarching good. Something that is pure and should be attained by all. If we attain this feeling of Love we will be eternally happy. And our best way to attain this Love and to become controlled by it is to perform the tasks demanded by Love. If we want to have our lives match the beautiful painting of Love we must work at it. We love the concept of a couple that is head-over-heels in love with each other. So, when a situation arises, or more hopefully in every area/decision, we ask ourselves, “What would Love do?” “What does love require us to do?” In this way we hope to choose the path that leads towards Love. Not only is the cause Love, but the effect is also Love. We use Love as a means to an end, with the end being the concept of Love. If we continue to strive towards the ultimate goal of love our relationship will be headed in the direction of stability and longevity. If we look at this idea of Love as an idea, concept, goal, or intrinsic good that is on a pedestal above the love of a human, we can use this as a reason or purpose that is greater than ourselves. Yes, I am creating a hierarchy here. The first level is the love of another. The second level is the love of Love. When we put this love of Love as something greater than humanity everything else is put in its place. Love exists without humanity and is our final goal. It is therefore separate from humanity and greater than it. When we strive for something greater than ourselves we are more likely to act in accordance with what the greater thing demands of us. That is why, as we strive to meet something greater than ourselves, we ask ourselves, “What would Love do?”
Lastly, there is the love of God. This is the highest good. If the love of your spouse and the love of Love are not enough to get you to sacrifice your wants for something else then you can trust in this type of love to be enough. The love of God is also greater than humanity. God easily exists with humanity and since he created us, he deserves our love and praise. To parallel the other two types of love, to love God is to sacrifice our wants in order to please God. This should be our ultimate goal. If we make it our primary responsibility to please Him, then we will do what He wants. And when it comes to marriage He wants us to love and care for our spouse. We are to treat others as we want to be treated. Would a perfect and loving God want us to hit our spouse? No. Would god want us to cheat on our spouse, even if the spouse never found out? No. Would God want us to think about cheating on our spouse, even if we never acted on it? No. With these 3 questions you can see how three types of love are needed to have the most successful marriage. Let’s refresh the questions to say: “Should we hit our spouse?” “Should we cheat on our spouse, even if they never found out?” “Should we think about cheating, even if we never act on it?” The first question can be answered by asking ourselves, “What would someone who loved their spouse do?” It can also be answered by the 2 higher levels of love. The second question cannot be answered by asking, “What would someone who loved their spouse do?” because the event would not affect the spouse (assuming they never found out about it). The second question must then be answered by a higher level, “What would someone who loved Love do?” An affair would destroy a relationship grounded in Love. Love does no harm and an affair would go against the principles established by Love. The third question cannot be answered by the first two types of love. If you just thought about cheating, without acting on it, then the spouse would certainly not be affected. Also, the concept or goal of a perfect Love would not be affected because no action was taken that would prevent you from that love. So, we must ask, “What would someone who loved God do?” They would not have these impure thoughts. To even look at another with lust in your heart is to commit adultery. God can see your thoughts and thoughts of sin or immorality do not please Him. We must put away thoughts of sexual immorality if we are to practice loving God. And remember: God is Love.
A possible fourth type of love is the love of your children. I am not sure where this love would fall in the hierarchy. I also have refrained from adding this love because not all couples have children and I do not believe you must have children to have the most successful marriage possible; although it can help. Regardless, I hope I was able to explain my thoughts in a clear way and that I didn’t confuse you too much. “And now abideth faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”
