This is in response to several posts I have read on the "shidduch" (dating) oriented blogs I have been drawn into. It is another opinion piece which many people, myself included, may feel I have no credentials to write, and therefore is should be just a jumping off piece to your own critical thinking - and yet, I feel it very, very deeply, so please do take this view into consideration, and feel free to share.
People who have been (or feel they have been, or are told they have been) looking to get married for a LONG time without success may come to believe that they are looking for the unattainable if they resolve to look for "love". Isn't it enough to like the prospective partner, if you share commonalities, have a common plan for the future? Won't love grow out of these? Isn't the perception of "love" during dating just a chemical reaction, that in reality clouds your ability to judge the "true" characteristics of the other person?
To paraphrase the Dowager Countess of Downton Abbey, marriage is, hopefully, for a very long time.
Even if you think you have shared goals, situations can change which make you sharply re-evaluate and change your goals. Even if you have shared interests, people change, new possibilities present, and change a person's focus. Troubles AND joys come which can throw a relationship hard, or slowly erode as surely as gentle streams of water erode mountains. For two people to stay together through this is a miracle! - how many times have you heard this vort? There must be something supernatural to keep two people together through a lifetime.
And so there is love. The love between a parent and child is a given - as clear as the chemical lust between young lovers. If you haven't been there yet, believe me. When my last one was born, I finally made it the whole delivery without any anesthetic, but plenty of pitocin, so I was damn tired and relieved at the end - and then I saw him. And within two seconds I went from feeling just glad to have that "thing" out of my body TO "the baby, oh look at the baby, oh my baby" gush of love and protection and devotion and love. Love between a couple is not a biological rush in the same way, and so the question of when it resolves is an open argument.
When I realized engagement to the wasband was imminent, I asked a friend, not a close friend but someone who knew me pretty well, "Do you think it is more important, for the success of a marriage, that the prospective couple be ready for marriage, or that they both love one another?" I obviously felt I fit only one of these criteria - the fact is that I fit neither, but anyway... My friend, also just a college kid didn't have an answer.
Well, I came to my answer fairly quickly - they both need to love the other. I went to stay with a very close college friend, after I had been married maybe a year or so. She was talking with me and another older (not old, don't get angry at me, just older than we, already married many years, with children, etc) woman very close to her. My friend told us about a man she had seen several times, told us he was very nice, they got along well, he had good future plans, etc. "...And, so I know that love doesn't just happen, that it is more important to look at his character, and see if we are compatible, and then love will come later. Wanting to fall crazy-in-love is a foolish thing, I'm going to be sensible..." We two married ladies jumped, "No, don't, WAIT! There must be an element of love. Compatibility is a must, but in isolation, it can only carry you so far before you are left feeling disappointed and dissatisfied. Look for love." She found her true b'shert in the next man she met, and both were obviously in love.
So that is what I leave you with: Look for love. Yes, be careful not to be blinded by lust. Yes, love alone is insufficient. Yes, even "love" takes a lot of hard work. But for G-d's sake - He created love for us. Love is good. Look for love.
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