Twenty-seven years ago. There is a knock at my door. It’s my friend Jeffery. He comes to talk about his beloved, Carol. They’ve been in a serious relationship for quite a while now. Both licensed therapists, they have started a practice together. They have already stared down a ton of challenges that would have ended a lesser romance.
Twenty-seven years ago. There is a knock at my door. It’s my friend Jeffery. He comes to talk about his beloved, Carol. They’ve been in a serious relationship for quite a while now. Both licensed therapists, they have started a practice together. They have already stared down a ton of challenges that would have ended a lesser romance.
Jeffery has dropped by to say, in as many words, that the relationship stands at a crossroads. That it feels to him like it’s time to take the next step forward or end the relationship. Or watch it atrophy for want of the next step, which would surely eventually end it just the same.
The next step forward, of course, is to symbolize radical, lifetime commitment. In our culture, most often this symbol is marriage or at least some kind of ceremony that speaks a covenant into being. See, only covenants are covenants. Only marriage is marriage. People are welcome to say “I’m just as committed as any married person,” but it won’t be true. If a covenant promise is what you intend and what you have to offer, then only the spoken words of the covenant will get you there.
Jeffery lays out the sacrifices this marriage would entail. He inventories the complexities of their difference in age, blended family issues, looming health issues, etc. He weighs and measures while I listen.
If someone asked me to list the crucial ingredients in a thriving life partnership, one thing above all shoots to the top of my list. It is singularly the ingredient without which you’re dead in the water no matter what else you do. No matter who else you are.
The single most important cog in the wheelhouse of a great life partnership: that the participants have chosen one another with their entire heart and soul.
Easy? Think again.
I shake my head at the frequency with which I meet couples who have been together for years but somehow missed the necessary task of making a categorical commitment. And I don’t mean merely a commitment not to have sex with other people. That part of commitment is actually pretty simple and straightforward. No, I mean a wholesale, radical embrace of your partner in The We. A decision that, from this day forth, your “I” will stand strong, but will nonetheless be tucked in deference under the banner of We.
To choose someone, really choose them — there is no dancing around this. Nor can we much aid the decision with our mental machinations of pros and cons, pluses and minuses. Because, in the end, it doesn’t matter much why you did choose or did not choose. All that matters is that you did. Or that you didn’t. When you choose someone with your whole heart, the pros and cons instantly shape-shift from deal-breakers to your life’s work of love. When you say “no” to radical commitment, the pros and cons offer an illusory solace and the appearance of explanation.
I’m saying that, when it’s all said and done, great love can only be realized by a radical “yes.” Without commitment, love is only ethereal, existential vapor. Perhaps a big feeling. A profound idea. But … unrealized. More like a winning lottery ticket in your pocket upon which you often cast an admiring gaze.
But, inexplicably, you never cash it in.
Jeffery takes a breath, sets his jaw and says, “I guess it’s time for me to make a commitment.”
“Or not,” I say. “It really might be that simple.”
A few months later, I presided at their wedding in a small Methodist chapel.
I remember all of this because Jeffery and Carol called recently. We hadn’t talked in a long time. Among other topics, they had just celebrated their 27th wedding anniversary. Unbelievable. How is this possible?
It was made possible because two people chose each other in radical commitment.
Once upon a time you stood before an altar/ And you promised not to leave/ You held each other’s hand and dreamed a sweet forever/ Love drove angels to their knees.
Oh, the days they do fly by/ Count the tears that you have cried/ Count the laughter and the lies/ Count your love and times love died.
And here you stand together, battle-scarred and torn/ The locks of fairy tales have fallen, long since shorn/ Love has chosen you, blessed you, crucified you/ See what you’ve become/ Love’s Purple Heart is won.
Steven Kalas is a behavioral health consultant and counselor at Las Vegas Psychiatry and the author of “Human Matters: Wise and Witty Counsel on Relationships, Parenting, Grief and Doing the Right Thing” (Stephens Press). Contact him at skalas@reviewjournal.com.