Copyright (c) 1999 by Benjamin Devey. All rights reserved.

As I write this, today is my wedding anniversary. I would like to dedicate this article to my love, my wife.

Rodney Dangerfield once said, "My wife and I were happy for 20 years. Then we met." Another wit quips, "Marriage is the triumph of imagination over intelligence." Lots of punch lines take a grim view of marriage, as if all the hope and dreaming of a happily-ever-after were for nothing.

Teen emergence is a time of crushed fantasy, a time when many youths realize the world doesn't revolve around them. For many, this is a time of surrogate fantasies, when they begin to paint their own pictures of love. Since the most readily available source of information comes from media influences, many of the pictures come out misshapen and distorted. Imaginations of young women soar to the strains of "Someday my prince will come," while young men begin looking for the perfect "10" with whom to spend the rest of their life.

I don't mean to discredit imagination. It has its place. Every person hopes for a good ending for his or her own life's picture. But our imagination is limited to our life's experience. In youthful fantasy, we picture an ideal future, devoid of trials, challenges and conflict. If life were to turn out according to our projections, we would float into a world of providence and blissful happiness, living in a happily-ever-after story-book ending. What could be wrong with that?

What's missing is the growth and character that come from facing challenges, surmounting difficulties and dealing with life's real challenges. With all of its ups and downs and unexpected twists, reality serves a far greater purpose than fantasy.

In The Art of Loving, Erich Fromm distinguishes infatuation from love. "Sentimental love," he explains, "is experienced only in fantasy and not in the here-and-now relationship to another person who is real." People live in past and future hopes, investing half-effort in the present. And when real life doesn't measure up to the fantasy, the blame is misplaced on lack of chemistry.

We are refined by our challenges. Our character grows as we successfully surmount conflicts and difficulties. To bypass these growing experiences would be to forgo growth. We become whole by overcoming whatever challenges we might encounter.

Another mistaken assumption is that love cannot coexist with conflict. Love, experience and growth all go hand-in-hand. Fromm explains that disillusioned people see struggles as destructive interchanges, rather than opportunities to gain deeper insights. The way we successfully resolve conflict brings a catharsis from which both individuals can emerge with more knowledge and strength.

Love isn't about two halves fitting together. It's possible only if each individual completely gives of him- or herself, out of wholeness. Love is a constant challenge. Fromm says, "It is not a resting place, but a moving, growing, working together." The point is not whether there is harmony or conflict, joy or sadness. What matters is the fundamental fact that two people experience themselves from the essence of their existence, that they are one with each other by being one with themselves--not fleeing from themselves. Fromm concludes, "There is only one proof for the presence of love: the depth of the relationship, and the aliveness and strength in each person concerned; this is the fruit by which love is recognized."

By going through love, with all of life's challenges and difficulties, we can emerge with the abundant experience that makes true love possible. Out of that fullness, then, we can give love more fully.

Books

I actually read Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People, before I finished the Bible for the first time. My impression was, "Nice tips and tricks, but if I really want to know how to handle relationships, isn't God's word sufficient?" So I thought I ought to learn what I could from scriptures.

Several years later, I read The Art of Loving and found it had valuable insights to add. It got me thinking about love. It launched me on a second odyssey to learn from good books all I could about love.

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