Is love always “forever”?

[Tim]

I am speaking of the romantic kind of love that exists between a husband and wife. Hopefully I have been clear in my writing and you all can see what I am getting at. After this thread, I think I may have to start one on guns or heavy machinery or something like that.

If I say to a woman, “I love you,” am I not committing myself to loving her forever? If she returns with “I love you too,” then we have therefore both made commitments to love each other and really ought to get married. Our vows will then be to love each other until “death do us part”.

However, if she does not love me in return, and we part ways, am I bound to love her still? If I eventually marry someone else, must I still love the first woman? It would seem so, because love is forever and unconditional. Certainly, I could not say, “I loved you before but I now love you no longer”. However, something seems wrong about this because I would have to continue to love the first woman even though I married the second woman (and must now love her too).

On the other hand, if I am free to withhold my love for her, then love is conditional and I can give or withhold as I please. This also seems wrong.

What are the commitments involved in loving someone else?

Eph 5:25 Husbands, love [agape] your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it (KJV)

Col 3:19 Husbands, love [agape] your wives, and be not bitter against them (KJV)

1Co 13:8 Charity [agape] never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away (KJV)

1Co 13:8 Love [agape] never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away (ESV)

I find myself wondering if I am guilty of eisegesis in my use of 1 Co 13:8 – perhaps this verse is comparing love to some of the more temporary aspects of the Christian life, rather than defining love itself.

Thoughts?

 

[kvanlaan]

Here's an off-the-cuff that may be way off base. I would say that a true "I love you" never dies - but that an emotional "I love you" never lasts. One is a teary conversion at the "anxious bench" and one is a work begun by our Lord who will then finish it. Or take it as a fig tree; one that is dug about and dung about with the true and constant love of a spouse should show real fruit, while one that is nurtured only with sweet nothings or a facade of care will die/be cut down.

That being said, the above is said all in the context of two people walking with the Lord. Outside of that, anything can happen.

Again, just my $.02

 

[BJClark]

Tim;

If I say to a woman, “I love you,” am I not committing myself to loving her forever? If she returns with “I love you too,” then we have therefore both made commitments to love each other and really ought to get married. Our vows will then be to love each other until “death do us part”.

However, if she does not love me in return, and we part ways, am I bound to love her still? If I eventually marry someone else, must I still love the first woman? It would seem so, because love is forever and unconditional. Certainly, I could not say, “I loved you before but I now love you no longer”. However, something seems wrong about this because I would have to continue to love the first woman even though I married the second woman (and must now love her too).

On the other hand, if I am free to withhold my love for her, then love is conditional and I can give or withhold as I please. This also seems wrong.

What are the commitments involved in loving someone else?

We are to love our enemies, but that does not mean we are to share a romantic intimacies with them.


People tend to misunderstand the various types of love, I can love someone, but not be intimately involved with them. There is no requirement to show romantic love to anyone, except a spouse.

So while you should still love the former woman as a friend (even as in loving our enemies or our neighbors), you are not required to have an intimate loving relationship with her..

But I must ask, why do think loving someone means you have to be in a relationship with them?

 

[TimV]

If I say to a woman, “I love you,” am I not committing myself to loving her forever?

I'll let you off the hook. You meant eros, not agape. So don't worry about breaking any vows

 

[JohnGill]

Romantic love is an emotional reaction to certain behavioral patterns. It never lasts forever, but instead goes through cycles. I forget who did it, but a study was done on the physiological effects of romantic love upon the brain. It was concluded that romantic love, if it lasted too long, don't remember the length, would cause brain damage due to the release of certain chemicals. Apparently the brain was not designed for extended periods of romantic love. These chemicals may be the reason for the "grass is greener on the other side" belief.

Another difference would be that feelings of romantic love are not made as a conscious choice, but biblical love that we are to show must be a conscious choice regardless of the behavior of the person who is the object of love. The difference boils down to a feeling versus a biblical command. Technically, I say again technically, you can truthfully tell a woman you no longer love her (romantic love) and yet still love her (biblical love). However I wouldn't recommend it. Kind of hard to explain the semantics while being beat with a frying pan. Or so my dad says.

 

[BJClark]

JohnGill;

Technically, I say again technically, you can truthfully tell a woman you no longer love her (romantic love) and yet still love her (biblical love). However I wouldn't recommend it. Kind of hard to explain the semantics while being beat with a frying pan. Or so my dad says.

the only way to explain it is in knowing and understanding the various types of love, something that has been lost over the years..and knowing that love doesn't not necessarily ALWAYS equal romantic/sexual intimacy.

Something I stress to my children is that there are different types of love, friendship, familial, and romantic and you don't love everyone the same, and that just because you 'feel' love for another person does not mean you should be romantically/physically/intimately involved with them.

Which is also why I stress to them that sexual intimacy is reserved for marriage, because those initial romantic feelings change over time, even within the confines of marriage, those feelings are supposed to be deeper than the physical..because if they don't and a person gains weight or is in an accident and their appearance changes in anyway--the other person will stop 'loving' them --no longer desire to be sexually intimate with them.

Marital love is not eros, though it includes eros--
it is not philia--though it includes philia
it is not Agape--though it include agape
it is not storge--though it includes storge
it is not Thelema--though it includes Thelema

and it is within the various types of love that marriages grow...

These chemicals may be the reason for the \"grass is greener on the other side\" belief.

Those feelings typically last up to a year: Chemical basis

Love - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[FenderPriest]

To give a historical picture, here are Jonathan Edwards' last words to his wife in a letter:

dear Lucy it seems to me to be the Will of God that I must shortly leave you & therefore give my kindest Love to my dear Wife & tell her, that the uncommon Union that has so long subsisted between us has been of such a Nature as I trust is Spiritual and therefore will continue forever: and I hope she will be suppor- ted under so great a trial & submit chearfully to the Will of God; And as to my Children you are now like to be left Fatherless which I hope will be an Inducement to you all to seek a Father who will never fail you;

 

[Theognome]

In regards to earthly relationships, love is oft treated as a willful action which can be commanded as opposed to an emotion (Husbands, love your wives...). Between a man and woman pursuing a relationship, I don't know of a commandment to continue in love where no covenant between them exists. A simple declaration of love is not in of itself a covenant.

Theognome

 

[Tim]

So while you should still love the former woman as a friend (even as in loving our enemies or our neighbors), you are not required to have an intimate loving relationship with her..

Okay. Good point and distinction.

But I must ask, why do think loving someone means you have to be in a relationship with them?

I see now that this was one of my errors in thinking.

If I say to a woman, “I love you,” am I not committing myself to loving her forever?

I'll let you off the hook. You meant eros, not agape. So don't worry about breaking any vows

Thank-you, sir. Very true. I am happy to be corrected.

Marital love is not eros, though it includes eros--
it is not philia--though it includes philia
it is not Agape--though it include agape
it is not storge--though it includes storge
it is not Thelema--though it includes Thelema

Good points. This is helpful.

In regards to earthly relationships, love is oft treated as a willful action which can be commanded as opposed to an emotion (Husbands, love your wives...). Between a man and woman pursuing a relationship, I don't know of a commandment to continue in love where no covenant between them exists. A simple declaration of love is not in of itself a covenant.

Good point. I am seeing now more clearly the difference between declaration and covenant; feeling and action.