English
EspañolTo love is to love someone singular, concrete, different. To love is to know, embrace and respect the other person in their diversity. Without this real beloved, the person who loves directs it towards himself. There is no authentic, loving relationship.
Text
“Love always has an aspect of deep compassion that leads to accepting the other person as part of this world, even when he or she acts differently than I would like.” (The Joy of Love, n.92)
Commentary
The desire to dominate the other, even the one we say we love, is a mistaken tendency that can nestle in our opinion regarding love. In genuine love, the beloved, with his or her different personality, is not a “somebody to use, to dominate, to engulf.” Quite the contrary: the beloved is the person whose difference we love and respect.
The pretension of molding the other to our image and likeness, according to our shortcomings, needs, or interests, can be, from the beginning, a radical manipulation and an expression of domination. To have someone serve us, use them as a means, is not love. It is a modality of power and the desire to have servants.
This tendency to “mold” the other, without letting him be who he is, can be disguised as “good” intentions: “if you love me, you have to be as I tell you,” “I do it for your own good,” “if you loved me you would not be the way you are,” “you must abandon those preferences, which are manias, I do not share them, and I dislike them,” “either your change or I leave you.” The other person is not an extension of our being, created to please us. The meaning of our beloved´s life, that for which he was born, is not to be our slave or servant, with an eternal smile on his mouth like someone who has won the lottery.
His individuality, his concrete personality, and his freedom constitute a gift. Yes, a gift meant to be embraced. If we truly love him, we will love his difference and peculiarities, even if they do not coincide with our own. Why? Because they are his, those of the person I love. Therefore, to love is to respect. Moreover, respect is not aloofness and indifference, but esteem for what is unique and different in the loved one.
Whoever wants nothing more than to sculpt the other to his own convenience, and accepts him as merely submissive and subservient, probably does not love him, but instead loves himself and needs a servant to adore and obey him.
If we do not like someone´s manners and personality, we have a precious opportunity to get to know them and choose it freely. Let us not waste it, gripped by fears or dependencies. It is necessary to know how to stop and end things at the right time before marriage. If we meet someone whose way of being and acting violates our integrity, moral convictions, and conscience, we should not open or pursue a pathway that will lead us to mutual destruction. We should not choose what will be impossible to embrace without harming ourselves.
