Pursuing a Lasting Love: Some Advice
Did you know it’s National Marriage Week? The theme for this year is “pursuing a lasting love.” As someone who’s been married for nearly 30 years (which is shocking since I’ve never aged past age 35…in my head, that is) I have some thoughts about that. That phrase, pursuing a lasting love, makes it seem like pursuing is the active part, but I’d argue that love is just as active. Maybe it’s even where the real action is.
As one who’s been married for a long time, I’d like to share one piece of advice about how love requires action. Although this nugget wasn’t my idea, as soon as I heard it I knew it was solid GOLD. It is this: if your spouse wants to share something that is important to them but not so important to you, focus on your spouse being what’s important rather than the topic, and listen anyway. Actively listen - don’t phone it in, don’t glaze over like a donut.
Let me give you an example. My husband loves tennis. I have neutral feelings towards tennis - I don’t dislike it, but I don’t particularly love it either. My husband is also Italian. If you follow tennis at all, you can imagine how ecstatic he was when Jannick Sinner became the top tennis player in the world, the first Italian ever to do so. At our house, we watch every one of Sinner’s matches, we watch the recaps, I get to hear about his training regime, all the things. I think you get the picture. It would be really tempting for me to sneak glances at my phone under the table while I hear all about Jannick’s speech after his latest grand slam victory. But I don’t. I listen. Why? Because if it’s that important to Angelo, it becomes important to me. And he does the same for me too.
Let’s be real - we try to do this. A lot of the time we succeed, but not always. But the good thing is even if we only get it right one time out of ten, that’s already better than nothing. At least we’re trying. We’re a work in progress, just like every other married couple.
We haven’t always been this nice to each other. We got married when we were really young and immature, despite our opinions to the contrary. But by recognizing the need for active participation in love, we’re working on pursuing that lasting love, just like the theme of this year’s celebration.
Happy National Marriage Week, y’all.