I love a lot of people just because they make me smile, make me think, do something I respect. I can articulate it and just this morning told a friend I love her. I am just a channel in some cases. I understand why though but it’s too long to go into.
This is going to sound sappy, but… you know the part in Winnie the Pooh where Tigger looks in the mirror and days “I’ve found someone else just like me. I thought I was the only one”? Well, that’s how I felt when I met my wife, at age 40. I was beginning to wonder if she was ever going to show up.
We are not identical – there are some marked differences. But we have so much in common … I see some other couples who have to work to adapt to each other and find common ground … we don’t have to do that – we’re already there. Being with her is being home.
There’s lots more besides that, but that’s what I think of as the foundation.
Sadly, no.
Anyway, the question wasn’t “Why do you love your spouse?” It was “Can you articulate why you love the people you love?” I just didn’t want to cut off discussion needlessly.
You are awesome. That’s why I love you.
:: prepares stalking kit ::
I love my wife because she believes in me.
~Santa
But will you ever know just what she sees in thee?
Time to go back to your room and take your medicine, Mr. Rogers.
I don’t think I could put into words why I love my wife. I can make lists of her qualities, and explain why I find them endearing, but such lists always seem to miss something at the core. I can tell stories of our life together, but they’re fragments of the whole. I could analyze this old emotion until the cows come home, but I don’t believe I’d find all of its roots. “She seems to fit,” my sister said the first time my wife met my extended family. It’s not sufficient, but it’s certainly true.
I know what I feel when I see her picture on my desk. I know that even in our darkest moments or harshest fights that that feeling is still there. It’s the rope that I cling to, the well that fills me. I do not truly know why it is, just that it is.
It may not read like it, but I’m not a romantic, or a believer in true love. We laid the foundation of our life together with care and deliberateness, and with an understanding that we would grow and change in ways that we could not then understand. I’m not sure how, but we managed to keep that foundation together and adapt it when it no longer fit who we were. I still don’t really know why, just that we did.
I’ve spent the last decade and a half trying to understand why we love each other, and I’m fairly certain it’ll take more than twice that long before I’ve found all of my half.
Well, there are quite a few people who I love, so which one do I pick?
I’ll have to say my youngest niece. I’m not sure what it is about her, but it’s like we have this secret language, and we’re the only two with the decoder rings.
Communication.
Communication is aided by the use of complete sentences.
-She has an incredible brain, and a heart the size of all outdoors.
-She can watch the same movie 50 times, and still get sad when things appear to be going badly for the hero.
-She wants to help, and is devastated when she can’t.
-She absolutely will not walk away while a friend of hers is upset.
-She loves to learn and her eyes light up when she doesn’t understand something.
-She almost never cries, and when she does, it’s usually over someone else’s pain.
-She lets me help her - except when she doesn’t - and then she’d rather do without than admit she can’t do it herself.
She’ll be three years old next month, and getting to know her has been one happy surprise after another.
Ditto for my own little girl. She’s just my little menace, always was, always will be. Can’t imagine how she can be any cuter, then next time I see her, she’s cuter again.
You know, I don’t think I could articulate why I love my family and friends. My loved ones are wonderful people, and I could rattle on for an eye-glazingly long time about all their sterling qualities that I love.
But the things I love about them are not why I love them. It’s two totally different concepts, and damned if I could begin to explain what, exactly, the difference is. I just know that there is a difference.
She is somehow classy and silly at the same time.
she…
- can talk about music, art and culture
- can point out design and architectural details most people miss
- knows the fancy stuff but is satisfied with grilled meat over an open fire
- and never misses a good “that’s what she said!” opportunity.
I am in awe at her resourcefulness and ingenuity.
Can cook, garden and grow actual food, make jam, etc…
She always giving and rarely demanding.
But most importantly, she knows who she is in a way that makes me really enjoy being an adult.
P.S. and looking darn good doesn’t hurt a bit either.
My godmother passed away last Sunday and I wrote a blog post trying to capture who she was, why she had been such a big part of my life, and why I loved her, but nothing I came up with seemed adequate. How can you capture a person in a few paragraphs? How can you explain everything they’ve done for you, every memory? How can you explain to someone else the joy of just sitting and having a conversation?
Each person we love is different, the way we love two different people is entirely different, and the way that two of us here experience love - even if it’s the same kind of love, whether romantic or familial or friendship - is different. So even though we’re all talking about the same thing and trying to explain the same thing to each other, I don’t think it’s possible for someone else to know exactly what it’s like to be me and to experience the love for my family and friends exactly the way I do.
And words are certainly an inadequate means of trying to convey those experiences.
Fair enough. The ability to communicate is the backbone of a relationship and is therefore the metric by which it is measured.
Good communication involves a high level of trust which translates into the ability to share the most intimate of feelings and information. Great communication means you don’t have to use complete sentences. The simplest of facial expressions can say what words cannot.
I read something way back about how couples have been shown to be extremely good nonverbal communicators. So much so that scientists often don’t understand what they’re talking about.
I believe it. It seems of half of my interactions with my husband consist of nonsense words, weird sounds and exaggerated facial expressions.
We have excellent communication… probably to a rather nauseating extent. However, if there is some research to suggest that lack of communication isn’t a significant cause of marital conflict. That’s what John Gottman claims, anyway. He is well-respected in the field, but his research methodology has not gone unchallenged.
When I think of my family, I really can’t explain why I love them. Except to say “Because they’re my parents, because he’s my brother and because she’s my little sister … Duh.” I can’t come up with anything resembling an actual reason. They’re just my people. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t love them or imagine a time when I’ll stop. They’re part of who I am.
With the people I ‘chose’ to love, it’s a little easier. Or a little more difficult, since I don’t have a “just because” to fall back on. I could write pages and pages of things I love about my best friend (we have great arguments, he makes me laugh, we’re opposites in a lot of interesting ways and eerily similar in others, he’s kind and geeky and brimming with enthusiasm about the most mundane things) but even when I add all these things together, I don’t think they get to the why at the heart of it.
Beautiful posts, olivesmarch4th!