Valentine's Day Isn't Over

Okay guys, let’s talk about love. We don’t mention love very much in the Survival Guide and in fact we may seem to have skirted around the whole emotional issue altogether. There are two very good reasons for this omission. First of all, we men are not really good at articulating our feelings. In fact we tend as a group to be more or less binary in our description of feelings altogether, brilliantly listing our state as good or bad and turned on or turned off! Of course we all know that we experience more emotions than just those, but our use of emotional vocabulary is not only limited by our culture and our genes, it is because emotions, for the most part, are generally puzzling and confusing territory. The second reason we have tiptoed around the emotional garden is that the actual state of being (of love or being in love) is so widely varied that any attempt to describe it is bound to be inaccurate or inadequate for most if not all readers.

But being the adventurous explorers that we are, and given the holiday of love is upon us, we are hereby taking it on. Let’s start with a pretty hefty assertion: Love is the most powerful emotion that there is. We men often think of hate and anger and the array of darker emotions as stronger, but the bulk of evidence is that love, in fact, does conquer all! Every major wise man from the ancient Chinese philosophers, to the Buddha, to Joshua (aka Jesus) and Mohammed and (the list is quite large) have all stated that the only two states that have transformative powers are extreme suffering and unconditional love. Hey we can’t make this up – go do your own research. Love actually has the power to “transform” both the lover and the beloved.

If that is the case, we might ask why we men do not practice the art of loving more often. We certainly are adept at dealing with suffering. Many of us have experienced the transformative affects of pain and suffering. We go on vision quests, and seek out coaches and mentors who put us to the test. But we don’t often read accounts of training in the art of loving. Why? Do we actually think it is that easy? Bullshit! Not the kind of love that is transformative – unconditional love. We simply are not disciplined at being totally unconditional. In fact we might venture to say that we (men) are conditional as hell! And that goes double for our women. We love them if and when they are cute, fit and in shape (but what happens if she gets fat?) We love them when and if we get outrageous sex (but what happens when that well dries up?) We love them because they care for us (but what happens when she gets needy?) Oh, yea, we are pretty conditional bastards!

So the truth of the matter is that it is extremely difficult to learn and practice unconditional love. And yet that is exactly what we have to opportunity to do when we enter a committed marriage. It is perhaps the only regularly available training ground for learning the art of unconditionality. Maybe that is why many religions list marriage as a sacred state or sacrament. Now we cite many examples in the Survival Guide of how your wife’s job is to test you and how that testing makes you stronger. But our challenge this Valentine’s Day is to take on the practice and discipline of loving in your marriage – proactively! So we are throwing down the gauntlet – we are challenging you to see if you are man enough to take this on.

Here is the challenge: For the next 90 days, do these two things. One, do at least one thing each day just for her – no matter how big or small, just make it something you do for her without regard to receiving ANYTHING in return for doing it. And, two, look at her for a whole minute (when she is not noticing you doing it) while holding the thought of how wonderful she is. You might have to recall the things she did when you were dating, or dig deeply for some memory at first, but you have to look at her as her lover. Again, you must do this without expecting anything in return and in fact without her noticing you doing it. Then after 90 days see who has transformed! Not only will your wife start looking more radiant to you, the real value is that you will have totally transformed yourself. Tell us how it went - write us at marriagesurvival@gmail.com

Happy Valentine’s Day, Loverboy!