A mature kind of love makes a person continue loving his/her partner no matter what they go through

Dear Eppy,

I very much enjoy your column. However, in your March 5, 2013 issue, I would have to say that I disagree with you on one point.  I know a couple who’s more in love now after 12 years of marriage than they were before.  Not all marriages turn sour once the pressure of work, money or kids takes its toll.  Sometimes, it makes couples stay closer because of the difficulties they went through together.  My husband and I have shared losing jobs, being saddled with bills and the death of one of our children.  Yet the past 12 years have seen us grow even more in love with each other.  We fell in love in college, and young love it was, too.  But it evolved into a mature love built on mutual respect and trust. And just to prove a point, even sex is better now.

Happy Wife 

Dear Happy Wife, 

To help other readers understand what you’re referring to, allow me to summarize the article:  Young Love is a 23-year-old male student who fell in love with a 35-year-old married woman with children.  He is confused about continuing a relationship with this woman.  He feels neglected because the woman cannot give him more time.  Yet, he feels the love of the woman because of the gifts this woman gives him and her verbalized expressions of love.  My response to him was informing him that in time the feeling of being in love would wane like all couples.  The physiological explanation is that there is a hormone that makes us obsess towards the person we fall in love with.  However, in time, this hormone stops working and we end up not obsessing anymore.  This is why there are a lot of people who divorce and separate from each other after a while.

It seems to me that the couple you refer to who’s still in love after 12 years is you and your husband.  I agree that not all relationships fail.  I understand that you are reacting to the point I raised that eventually people will fall out of love.  You are right that there is a “mature” kind of love that makes people continue loving another human being no matter what they go through.  But there is a process for that.   

Before the feeling of being “in love” starts to wane, as a mature individual you can decide to choose to love your present partner for the rest of your life.  When you choose to love that partner, then you must remind yourself of your choice continually.  No matter what idiosyncrasy you discover about your partner, you will have to accept that.  Well, of course, it is a different story if your partner has a personality disorder.

Young Love has not decided to trust this woman the way you and your husband trust each other.  As I said earlier, it is best that Young Love is not encouraged to make that decision because he seems to be in love with an immature woman.  He is relating with a woman who does not think of the consequences of her choices.  There are many people affected by her choice to relate with Young Love.  These people are: her children, her husband, and Young Love himself.  Her choices are about her pleasure, her convenience, and her comfort.  It’s always about her. 

Don’t get me wrong, I am not judging the partner of Young Love.  I am just saying Young Love is a young man who is just about to start his life.  If he enjoys relating with an older woman, then he deserves an older woman who has time for him. 

At the moment, the woman he is with is teaching him that if you have a “crappy” husband or partner, then it’s acceptable to play around with other people.  In time, Young Love will have a wife, and will discover that she has a quirk or an idiosyncrasy like all of us.  Through this older woman, he will think that it is acceptable to play around with other women because he has a “crappy wife.”   

He deserves more than this woman.  He deserves someone like you who decided to love and stay with her husband no matter what his quirks were.  He deserves someone capable of choosing to love completely, not half-heartedly. 

It is very clear to me that your letter is not about my response to Young Love.  It is to let me know how proud you are of your relationship with your husband.  And you should be proud of your relationship with your husband and you should write me about it because nowadays, it is seldom you hear about successful relationships.  More people should share about their successful relationships so others can benefit from them.  This letter will benefit Young Love.  Thank you for that, Happy Wife. Eppy                                                       

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E-mail:  eppygochangco@gmail.com.