Haven't posted in a while. Guess it's appropriate that my resurrection post is on a topic that is rather dear to my heart--love.
Now, don't get me wrong: I am not at all lovey dovey (though I will admit that A Walk to Remember did make me cry because that was legitimately love, not crappy infatuation like The Notebook or Titanic), I don't have a dream wedding planned, and I am not at college to find "the one"; I have a very strict view of love which is why I'm so harsh on people about their so called relationships.
I do not believe we are halves of a whole person, only made whole through that soul mate connection. (That's just stupid rationale in my opinion. I mean, why the heck would God create us just to find each other? Dumb.) Heck, I barely believe in soul mates. (I'm of the opinion that God will bring you the exact person that fits your "list" of specifications, but I also believe--thanks to a Bible professor--that we are perfectly able to choose from an exclusive group of people which meet our basic standards.)
I'm not a huge fan of dating, which may contradict my soul mate theory, but I'm not anti-finding-your-chemistry-matches either, though I do believe too much dating creates too much baggage for your final choice in marriage (and sex in those relationships is a GIANT NO for the same devastating reasons).
That's another thing- marriage is permanent. End of discussion. No divorces because of finances, none because "you don't love each other anymore" (total b.s. for the record since love is a choice and action, not just a feeling). There is only one exception which cannot be created or imagined or nitpicked just so you have an excuse to divorce: abuse (which also includes cheating since that could be sexual/emotional abuse). I am a firm believer in therapy, so that will always be my first recommendation. If therapy doesn't work, then it seems to me that you have a legitimate reason to dissolve the marriage.
Which brings me to the actual point I wanted to make in this post.
I watched the movie A Beautiful Mind a couple of hours ago. The movie's about this math whiz who is eventually diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. The big issue is he has been living in illusions for most of his life because of this disorder. The one constant, however, seems to be his wife. Now, I hate love interests. A lot. Because they are never ever interesting or moral or pertinent to the plot. So when I saw the initial interactions between the main dude and his student (yes, he was a college professor, and she was in his class; creepy, I know, but I guess it's not illegal) I rolled my eyes. Their following encounters were super awkward because he is socially awkward, and she seems like a skank to me. Eventually they get married, and he's diagnosed with this mental disorder. He gets medication which makes him unresponsive to any of his wife's advances and unresponsive to his own child. He stops taking the meds which bring the illusions back; one such illusion causes him to shove his wife and child against the wall (he was trying to protect them from the guy who turned out to be an illusion, but the wife tripped out). Flash forward to, what, thirty years later, and this dude has basically conquered his disorder, and he tells his wife he could not have done it without her.
I gave this love interest serious props for staying with him through this degenerative disease, especially since she could almost call her husband's actions abuse (if she were squinting for a loophole to get out of the marriage). Of course, it helps that the main guy finally realized that one of the people he'd been imagining must have been an illusion because she never aged. This realization drives him out to his wife's car just before she takes off down the road, and it convinces her that he wants help.
I don't know if she would've turned the car around had he not had this revelation. All I know is that she did, and she stuck with him. That is the love I'm talking about.
At the same time, something doesn't quite sit right with me. Maybe because their relationship really was flashing red flags for potential abuse, and a lot could've changed, and in that case, I definitely would root for her to get herself and her child the heck out of the house.
I guess I say all this to say that marriage and love are cut and dry, but only you can make the final decision to push through or call it quits when love stops acting and becomes twisted.
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