The love that exists in the world

Maybe it’s because yesterday was Mother’s Day. Or maybe it’s because I have become accustomed to being single.

But I have a new little theory about love.

We have been fooled if we think we only get it in a romantic relationship.

There is love from friends, and there is love from family that, when you are lucky to come from a happy one, is the most constant and often the longest-lasting.

I, like many, bolted out of my family in adolescence to find my way, which included getting into a marriage by the time I was 24. I was fully into the vanity of youth. And the love I felt for my husband was big and more consequential than the love I had from my parents. (At least, that’s how I felt.) He was choosing to love me, to share his life with me, after all. My parents didn’t have the same choice. A child is a parent’s obligation, a responsibility.And he could know me in ways they could not – my innermost thoughts; my body.

And so, I thought that I had embarked on the Big Love, partly I think because that is what we are sold on wanting and on getting. You are to marry. You are to find your soulmate.

Then, with a failed marriage, you learn the limitations of love. And you think, was the love – the real kind, the genuine, unconditional kind – really there in the first place? Or was your connection with your then-spouse something different? Some strong psychological bond that you needed as you emerged from childhood? Or was it all about some girlhood fantasy?

I was talking to a friend on Saturday night – a pretty woman in her mid-forties who is divorced. She said that she always had a dream that she would marry a doctor or a lawyer, have a nice house, a garden, two kids. And lo and behold, she fulfilled that dream. She married a lawyer. She had two beautiful children. And then she was standing in the garden outside of her gorgeous house one day, and she thought, “My husband is not very nice to me. In fact, he is mean. Everyone wonders why I am married to him. I am not happy.”

Now, as a single woman, she is trying to figure out what she wants, and she knows that when and if she gets married again, it will be for a real love, not a projected one, not a fantasy one.

Movies sell us on the importance of finding a romantic partner. Books do, too. The world does, really. Happy endings almost always involve finding a love match.

And it’s not that we shouldn’t want it or look for it. It is lovely and can be wonderfully fulfilling. But why put all our eggs in one basket? And why think that if you don’t have that, you have nothing?

I have found that the world is full of love, and that there is enough of it for everyone to get a piece, in different ways.

The love I feel for my friends is more unconditional often than the love I have felt for a boyfriend. Now maybe that’s because everyday friends are not so intimate, not in your life every second, not in your bed and your shower and your kitchen, so you can find relief from them. And with a boyfriend, that can be a little harder. Still, there is a loyalty in friendship that is often lost in a love relationship. We make deal-breakers with our love interests. But that is an oxymoron, isn’t it? How can you have conditions set for something that is supposed to be unconditional? With friends, I love them – or have great affection for them, if you want to put it that way – even when they do something really stupid. I love them for their limitations. And I rarely break up with them.

And the love for and from children…well, say no more. I know that much of my happiness at this point comes from knowing my children, all grown, who are remarkable people and so loyal and so loving. I heard from all of them yesterday – and the one who is in town took me to brunch. (The other two are students, currently in Europe.) Any parent knows how the love for one’s children opens the chambers of the heart in ways that you didn’t think were possible.

You love them no matter what. And that kind of love is a lesson – it is what we are supposed to feel, I always think. It is the way love should be – but often isn’t.

I have also come to see that the love from my parents – now in their seventies – has been the most important in many ways. They saw me through difficult times, and remain the same, always, in their stability, their certainty about family. I feel lucky to have that. It is far stronger than anything I got from my ex, who was more about control than anything, more concerned with his own needs than mine.

I also have several siblings, and I am finding now, when I think about them, how much of a through-line they are in my life as I am in theirs.  I remember having baths with my sister when we were young; playing with my brother. They, too, have known me longer than my ex. And they have been more consistent in my life than many of my friends.

Sibling love is under-rated.

Love comes in many forms, and if we can see that the romantic kind is only one sliver of what is possible to feel, well, I think we would be happier, less lonely.

We could see that the pursuit of romance is fun, a pastime and possibly even an amusing distraction. It is something we would like to have, but it is not necessary. And not everyone will get it, just like not everyone will have a perfect job or a beautiful child or a fantastic parent.

We are simply to be happy with the love we are lucky enough to have, in whatever way it comes to us.