I spend great amounts of time thinking about things. I can drive for hours contemplating deep things and come to some very profound conclusions. I've always prided myself on being quite the "thinker". I've given hours of thought to love, my marriage, and how best to fulfill my role as a husband and a father. I've even considered writing a book on the subject. I was, after all, the very image of husbandly perfection.
I'd heard people say that they had "fallen out of love" with their spouses. Mark's wife had said this. I gave this a lot of thought, and came to a profound conclusion I was happy to share with others. People simply failed to understand the nature of love. It begins as an act of nature. That warm fuzzy feeling we experience early in our relationship is the result of a biological response in our brain. It's due, in simple terms, to a chemical imbalance. We would be silly to expect that feeling to last forever. It passes with time as our brains return to normal. For love to last forever, it requires something permanent. It requires love to grow into an act of will. We must begin our days by looking at our partner and deciding that we will love them today. We will put their needs ahead of our own. By making this commitment every day, we can ensure that our marriage will last, and that our spouse will feel secure and loved. I made a personal commitment to make this promise anew every day. For the most part, I kept that promise. Every morning I would look at Anne, and tell myself that I was going to love her today. I was going to put her needs ahead of my own, and love her. I was going to be a good husband.
One day, I was in a store, and an attractive woman flirted with me. I felt flirted with anyway. It felt really nice. It told me I "still had it". I spent the rest of the day thinking about this. Once again, I came to some very profound conclusions. Everyone needs to feel attractive. Everyone wants to be reminded that they "still have it". The problem for married couples is, over time, they begin to distrust their partners in this. "She has to tell me I'm good looking, she's my wife". As we begin to distrust what we hear from our spouse, our self image can suffer. We begin to feel less desirable, and that leads us to feel less desire. A vicious cycle begins. It is crucial for married couples to recognize this need for "external validation" as natural, and to find ways of satisfying that need in a safe and healthy way. Anne and I discussed this a great deal as she and Dick were having daily conversations. It's ok to enjoy some attention, just set proper boundaries, and no one gets hurt. We've discussed this post impact, and have agreed that getting this attention from anyone we have an address and phone number for is too dangerous. It can only be allowed to come from anonymous sources, and the good feeling it produces needs to be taken back home to benefit the other. It was one of our first truly positive steps toward ensuring this never happens again.
If you have found yourself nodding in agreement with these "profound conclusions", be warned…they are the ravings of a fool. That warm feeling I got when Anne walked in a room didn't go anywhere until Christmas night. It had become so normal for me I stopped noticing it…until it was gone. There are times when love must be sustained as an act of will. It wasn't a warm fuzzy feeling that brought me home and lead me to try to work through this. It was an act of will. I have that warm fuzzy feeling again. I can't say it's stronger than it was before, but I am far more aware and appreciative of it today. I still start every day with my promise, but now I let Anne know I've made it. How can a silent promise make someone feel loved? I was a fool.
As for my "external validation" theory; it wasn't a need for external validation that got us in trouble. It was an utter absence of internal validation that caused Anne to come to me that night begging me to help her feel loved. The more we have talked, the clearer it becomes that we weren't talking before. Sure I thought about Anne twenty times a day, but I almost never let her know I was thinking of her. She could "turn my crank" with a glance, but I almost never told her that or acted on it. Of course it feels good to get flirted with by a stranger. There's nothing wrong with feeling good in those moments, but it feels a whole lot better to get flirted with by the one who loves you.
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