True love is virtues-based and virtues-driven and a reflection of God’s love.
True love is not selfish, but centered on others. It is principled, serving, sacrificial and without conditions.
It is unchanging, unique, faithful, obedient and forgiving.
True love is the fuel of all good relationships. This is even more true in marriage because it is intimate and within close quarters.
1. Other-Centered
Reverend Moon defines true love as living for the sake of others.
Living for the sake of the spouse is the overarching principle of love in marriage.
Dr. Larry Crabbe, author and marriage counselor, concluded that virtually all marital problems boil down to one being self-centered.
Dr. Scott M. Stanley, a prominent marriage researcher explains, “Love is that which will require you at some point to put aside self-interest in favor of the good of the other and the relationship.”
True love is to act for the sake of another.
Dr. Judith Wallerstein found through her study that couples who were happy “were not envious of what they gave to the other.
They did not dole out kindness with the expectation of immediate reimbursement. They did not weigh their gifts or keep records.
“Supporting and encouraging the other was a given. They accepted this major task not only as fair but as necessary to make the marriage succeed.”
Former First Lady Nancy Reagan revealed to how she had a successful fifty years with Ronald Regan in a BBC interview with Katie Couric.
She mentioned that he was never self-centered, not egotistical and didn’t bring up himself or his stardom, or accomplishments.
Instead, it was each of their selflessness that made their marriage a joy year in and year out.
2. Serving and Sacrificial
Of course it is easy to love when the other loves you back, but it still requires maturity and strength in character to deal with the times when one the emotions are not returned.
This is called sacrifice.
It is a valuable goal when one can love when the personal benefit is not immediately felt. Such a person hones the art of loving for the sake of the partnership. This quality is absolutely necessary for growing in love.
Researcher Stanley said, “Love is not remotely possible without sacrifice.”
Mrs. Reagan noted in her interview that giving based on 50-50 or a ’give and take’ relationship is not a realistic option. She said that there are times when one has to give more to the other in order to carry the marriage.
This kind of sacrificial giving in a marriage is needed to develop the spirit and the realtionship through the practice of virtues
Giving to the other should not negate the self or bring about a loss of autonomy.
Nor should giving cause you to become someone’s doormat.
When one can give of themselves it means that one has a self from which to give.
A true love relationship does not exhibit dependency upon the other or codependency. Rather it is a relationship between two people who are already developed and developing their relationship with God.
Therefore, such people are capable of sacrificing for the other without losing their identity or dignity in the process.
Through this right kind of giving, people become bigger, better and more whole.
Further, they serve and sacrifice to bring down God’s abundance of love.
Reverend Moon says, “God is creator and the originator of the two basic principles of service and sacrifice.”
When a person can sacrifice and give up themselves, he or she attracts the love and energy of God to anything, including marriage, he or she engaged in.
3. Forgiving
Forgiveness is an important part of love.
It is necessary for us to forgive as God forgives because all people fall short of one another’s needs and expectations.
It is inevitable that a spouse will hurt and neglect the other at one point in the marriage, be unable to answer the other’s needs or desires, or fail to live up to the other’s expectations.
If one is not able to forgive, the marriage becomes one full of hurts, grievances and accusations.
Forgiveness is based on the other person’s situation and difficulties and placing oneself “in the other’s shoes.”
Having the sense to forgive arises from empathy.
It may be easier for a spouse to forgive if they can see the reasons behind the other’s less-than-perfect behavior.
One who is humble about their own faults and failings which need to be forgiven as well makes spouses more prone to forgive their erring partners.
4. Unchanging
Even the most stable marriages will enter into turbulent times. A marriage that is based solely on changeable romantic love feelings alone will not be able to have the foundation to weather the up and downs of marriage.
Every marriage experiences times when the partners need to persevere through the challenges that arise.
Only couples who have a steadfast commitment will be able to persevere when they no longer ‘feel’ like going on, when the disillusionment of marriage sets in - when conflicts are hard to resolve.
Unchanging love is the determination to remain truly loving no matter what, taking responsibility for what one puts into the marriage, good or bad, and seeking to enrich the love within the marriage by following God’s ways.
When one deserts their spouse for selfish reasons, in essence, they also desert God and the blessing and grace that becomes available through such a sacrament.
The major religions of the world condemn those who break their marital covenant.
“I hate divorce . . . do not break faith,” declares the Creator through the prophet Malachi (2.16).
Muhammad said about divorce as “the lawful thing that God hates most” (Hadith of Abu Dawud).
Jesus also said that God allowed those to divorce because their hearts were hardened but it was not part of His original plan from the beginning. Matthew 19.8
Genesis 2.24 states that, “for this reason a man will leave father and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” Then he added, “What God has joined together, let man not separate” (Matthew 19.5-6).
It may be necessary for a couple to separate or divorce, but some couples plainly just give up for far simpler matter than desertion or adultery.
The vast majority of marriages can and should be saved.
Contrary to popular belief, researchers have found that unsatisfactory marriages do not poorly affect children. The only cases where children are harshly affected was in high-conflict marriages.
Children thrive best when both their parents’ mutual presence are in their lives regardless of how dissatisfied the parents feel.
Children that were raised in high-conflict homes closely resembled children who came from broken homes.
This does not mean that such a couple should divorce for the sake of their children. On the other hand, they should work to amicably solve their conflicts and possibly seek professional help if needed.
Couples at risk, should arrange times to discuss their problems when the children are not around or in hearing distance.
Gallagher and Waite have shown in their research that many marriages which started out unhappy later their marriages had changed after five years of sticking it out.
Some marriages that started out in conflict were much happier through their commitment. They were rewarded with satisfactory marriages worth waiting for.
In order to have a committed marriage, it requires each individual to give to the marriage, the partner.
In today’s fast-paced society, there are many ways to find an escape in the marriage such as through the Internet, television, having a preoccupation with work or children or through other hobbies.
These are ways for people to avoid facing the difficult emotions or to avoid intimacy itself which is threatening to many people. Finding an escape from the hard times of being married may bring only temporary joy, but will not bring long-lasting marital satisfaction.
Sometimes, a couple may not invest in the marriage out of sheer inertia.
For a couple to stay faithful, it requires for them to invest in their relationship, including sexually and save energy in order to face one another on a constant basis.
A relationship thrives when it is built on an unchanging, steadfast love that will provide an emotional safety net.
Commitment soothes relational fears and opens the way for intimacy.
When the other partner makes a true commitment, it will soothe any fears of abandonment other partner may have.
Such a relationship will gradually make one feel secure and the partner will thrive within the marital bond.
Commitment allows for freedom—the freedom to let go and explore new horizons because the home base is secure.
In order for the couple to grow together, they need to have an unchanging devotion to one another.
Marital therapist Harville Hendrix says, “I want couples to know that, in order to obtain maximum psychological and spiritual growth, they need to stay together not for three months or three years or even three decades, but for all of their remaining years.”
Commitment is the ground that marital love needs in order to blossom.
5. Faithful
Sex is unique to the marital relationship.
Out of all the relationships one has, sex is added to the picture in marital relationships. Therefore, faithfulness takes on a new dimension of meaning and significance.
To attain oneness, men and women need to be sexually faithful to one another.
The sexual act causes two to become ‘one flesh’.
This establishes a bond between a man and a woman, therefore, one cannot become one with one person, then one with another, then one with another without physically tearing themselves apart psychically.
Catherine Wallace, author of For Fidelity, maintains that a deep psychological and emotional union is physically enacted in sexual intercourse.
Not only the body is involved. “We cannot split ourselves into parts,” she says. “Body and heart or soul are one.”
A person’s deep emotions and psychological being simply cannot be revealed to anyone other than the spouse.
A person’s sexuality should only be revealed to a person’s spouse because it symbolizes and embodies the intimacy of marriage.
“With my body I thee worship,” say the Anglican wedding vows, putting sexuality in marriage within a framework of worship and holiness. Indeed, Reverend Moon sees the sexual organs of husband and wife as representing the Holy of Holies in the Jewish tradition (Hebrews 9.3).
One’s marital partner is the only “high priest” or “priestess” who is qualified to come worship in the temple of one’s body.
The sexual act is such a bonding between two people that has no place outside of holy matrimony.
Theologian Derrick Sherwin Bailey calls sexual intercourse “the psychophysical seal” of marriage.
He maintains that when sex is not under the guise of marriage, the seal is irrevocably made. Even though the two may not have any intentions of fulfilling the other portions that require one to become one, sex bonds two people.
This ‘false’ bond with the wrong person will interfere down the road with their ability to truly become one with the person they eventually choose to share their life with.
God has stringent laws for sexual intercourse because when it is entered with anyone besides one’s lawfully wedded spouse, either before or after marriage, it results in entanglements of soul and psyche and possible interferes with having a clear, godly lineage.
Only if the marriage bed is inviolate can two vulnerable beings meet and become one.
People long for intimacy with another and oneness, but it is only available on the foundation of deep and abiding trust.
Trust is built upon the virtues inherent in true love, other-centeredness, service, sacrifice, being able to forgive and an unchanging commitment to one another despite any circumstances.
Return for Tomorrow's Post: Redemption Through Marriage
This post was rewritten and derived from the religious textbook, "Educating for True Love" written by a team of writers to explain Reverend Moon's philosophy on love and marriage.
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