Passage 3

During my 25 years as a marital therapist, I have seen hundreds of people disappointed over unfulfilling relationships. I have seen passion turn to poison. I have grieved with patients for the love they lost or never found.

“We seemed to love so much, but now it's gone,” one woman lamented to me. “Why do I feel so lonely every night even when he is right there beside me? Why can't marriage be more than this?”

It can. I was once invited to the 60th anniversary celebration of a remarkable couple. I asked the husband, Peter, if he ever felt lonely and wondered where the love between him and Lita had gone. Peter laughed and said, “If you wonder where your love went, you forgot that you are the one who makes it. Love is not out there; it's in here between Lita and me.”

I know we can love deeply, tenderly and lastingly. I have seen such love, and I have felt such love myself. Here are the laws I have discovered for such lasting and loving relationships:

Put time where love is. A fulfilling marriage begins when two people make time together their No. 1 priority. If we hope to find love, we must first find time for loving.

Unfortunately, current psychology rests on the model of the independent ego. To make a lasting marriage we have to overcome self-centeredness. We must go beyond what psychologist Abraham Maslow called “self-actualization” to “us-actualization”. We have to learn to put time where love is.

Many couples have experienced a tragic moment that taught them to value the time together. One husband related how he sat trapped in his car after a crash. His wife was outside, crying and banging on the window. “I thought I was going to die before we'd had enough time together,” he told me. “Right then I promised to make the time to love my wife. Our time is our own now, and those hours are sacred.”

In crisis, they become as one. Just after a couple left my office one evening, I heard what sounded like a gunshot. I looked out the window and saw the couple backing toward their car, and the shadow of a large figure near a street light. Clinging together, the husband and wife kept backing away. The figure quickened his pace toward them, and the couple joined hands and ran to their car.

As I dialed security, the figure came closer, and I saw it was one of our guards. I later discovered that the “shot” was a noise that has nothing to do with my couple, but they didn't know that. Like herd animals, they had reacted to danger by coming together, in a “couple caution circle”. Threatened, they had become one.

When I was struggling with cancer a few years ago, my wife and I formed our own “couple caution circle”. Anytime a doctor came with news of my progress, my wife would join with me in a mutual embrace. The reports were seldom good during the early phases of my illness, and one day a doctor brought particularly frightening news. Gazing at his clipboard, he murmured, “It doesn't look like you're going to make it.”

Before I could ask a question of this doomsayer, my wife stood up, handed me my robe, adjusted the tubes attached to my body and said, “Let's get out of here. This man is a risk to your health.” As she helped me struggle to the door, the doctor approached us. “Stay back,” demanded my wife. “Stay away from us.”

As we walked together down the hall, the doctor attempted to catch up with us. “Keep going,” said my wife, pushing the intravenous stand. “We're going to talk to someone who really knows what is going on.” Then she held up her hand to the doctor. “Don't come any closer to us.”

The two of us moved as one. We fled to the safety and hope of a doctor who did not confuse diagnosis with verdict. I could never have made that walk toward wellness alone.

A couple who wonder where their love has gone probably ________.

What is the most important thing a couple is supposed to do to have a fulfilling marriage?

What has the husband trapped in a car accident learned about love?

Which of the following best explains “couple caution circle”?

After hearing the doctor's comment, the author's wife ________.