“From the crib to the grave, we all reach out to someone to love us and for someone we can love. Indeed, love is necessary for survival. Without it, we lose the will to live; our mental and physical vitality lessons; resistance lowers; and fatal illnesses can result. When we experience love, we glow with a radiance that affects us physically, mentally, socially and spiritually.”
Man and woman were created to be physically attracted to each other, irrespective of their looks, stature, colour or other qualities that differentiate one person from another. What causes attraction between the opposite sex is in-built in man (man and woman) from creation. This is why couples fall in love with each other and later get married – just as it was intended by God, the Creator.
However, “many couples fall in love, marry, and assume that the job is completed. They believe that everything else will work out automatically.” This is far from the truth. A successful relationship does not come by chance. It has to be worked for in love by the couples concerned.
“The cure for all the ills and wrongs, the cares, the sorrow and the crimes of humanity, all lies in one word – ‘love’. It is the divine vitality that everywhere produces and restores life. To each and every one of us, it gives the power of working miracles if we will.”
According to Nancy Van Pelt, “thousands commit suicide each year, multitude flock to the courts for divorce while many are in mental hospitals, all for the lack of love and human affection”.
Dr. Smiley Blanton in his book, Love or Perish, says “For more than forty years I have sat in my office and listened while people of all ages and classes told me of their hopes and fears…. As I look back over the long, full years, one truth emerges clearly in my mind – the universal need for love …. They cannot survive without love: they must have it or they will perish.”
When love fails, relationships fall into ruins and impossible frustrations deluge those involved and those around them. Such emotional pressure may result in juvenile delinquency, adult crime, alcoholism and various forms of drug addiction.
You need to love your spouse. “It is love that spins the universe, and when we fail to use love properly, all of life suffers.” – Dante. The truth is that we all need love in huge quantities. Love is the single most important force contributing to our total well-being. With love in your relationship, you can forge ahead through life’s most bitter moments and also withstand insults and cruelty.
A word of caution is necessary here. Do not expect unconditional love from your spouse all the time! This is humanly impossible. You must recognize that your spouse demands a certain standard of behaviour from you before he or she will be able to love you more.
Love – the Woman’s Perspective
Love is necessary for human survival, and women have great capacity for love and capacity to be loved. A woman’s love is seen in the home when she prepares the family meal, when she washes her spouse’s and children’s clothes, when she cares for the children in a variety of other ways. A woman’s love is expressed when she speaks to or discusses with her husband. When she rises early to prepare the children for school, her love shines through. Her fervent prayers for the man’s success speak of her love. Her warm greetings as the man leaves in the morning and when she arrives home at night evidence her great love (for the man).
A woman’s capacity to love can bring out the very best from a man. Her love can keep a man from a life of crime. Her love can spark hope and renewed trust in a man – making him feel wanted and important. When a man’s hopes and dreams are shattered, her love can comfort him. When discouragement sets in and dreams crumble, the woman can help him build new ones.
The world needs the gentle, loving, affectionate touch of a woman, and the love within her merely awaits the right man to tap its fountain of love and affection.
Women also have enormous capacity for love. Not only do they have to share affection, they also have large capacity to absorb love in return.
Often when a young man woos a young woman, he persists all day with sweet words and kind deeds. This suddenly stops as soon as the young man has won the young woman over, forgetting the woman’s intense need to feel loved on a daily basis for the rest of her life.
Because of her capacity for affection, daily expressions of romantic love are vital to a woman’s existence. It is the key to her self-worth, her satisfaction with married life, and her sexual responsiveness. By consistently and thoughtfully expressing romantic love, many men could melt even the most frigid woman.
A story was told of a man who provided his wife with all her needs and wants, but the wife was still very miserable. The man did not realise that his wife valued affectionate words from him more than every material thing he had provided. Many men are unaware of a woman’s need for romantic love. This is because for centuries, the focus was on women meeting the sexual needs of their husband.
But a word of caution for women is necessary here. Some women expect too much attention from their husband. The mass media have often portrayed a distorted picture of the realities involved in a relationship. Most women expect the things seen on the television to happen in their marriage/relationship. They compare their husband to the here seen on the screen. Some women live in a dream world and imagine that one can live on love alone.
While love and romance is sweet and play an important role in a relationship, it may be reasonable to conclude here that love alone is not enough. “A cake made from nothing but sugar would soon dissolve.”
Love – the Man’s Perspective