English
EspañolLove is a dialogue of trust among intimacies. What is the topic of this dialogue? Everything that has happened to us, as the union we are, and to our love in everyday life.
To love one another is to converse, tell each other things, open one´s intimacy, honor and be loyal to what each confides in the other, listen intently to understand one another, ensure a welcoming embrace, and pay attention and respect each other´s differences. These are the ways in which the gift of oneself and embrace of the beloved are materialized. These are experiences of predilection for one another. They generate trust and intimate companionship.
Text
“Show affection and concern for the other person. Love surmounts even the worst barriers. When we love someone, or when we feel loved by them, we can better understand what they are trying to communicate. Fearing the other person as a kind of “rival” is a sign of weakness and needs to be overcome. It is very important to base one’s position on solid choices, beliefs or values, and not on the need to win an argument or to be proved right.” (The Joy of Love, n.140)
Commentary
To love each other wholly and sincerely, until death, entails a labored and relentless struggle to improve ourselves in order to provide our spouse with the greatest plus of our being, which transcends what we justly owe them; and to embrace them in such a kind and profound way that my partner realizes the importance he has in my life and feels recognized.
Those who love each other communicate their love to one another. They do not only talk about external things. They also talk about what occurs daily to their love project and intimate union. This frequent, deep, and trusting dialogue between spouses contributes to the growth of their communion. It makes them better able to recognize each other´s reality and guess their needs and shortcomings to meet them better and satisfy them.
There are infallible symptoms of danger. It is enough to ask oneself: How long has it been since the last time we talked about intimate things, about our love and union? Does the thought of opening my intimacy to my loved one, of exposing how much I have lacked affection, of confiding in them my unmet expectations cause fear, distrust, and hopelessness? Do we avoid dealing with our intimacy and love? Do we avoid it through trivial conversations, external topics, courtesies about the weather, or through silence? If we border on some personal or intimate matter, do we fall into discussion and recriminations? Am I truly willing to give them what I am asking for, what I lack and reproach them, and give it generously, with renewed joy, warm tenderness, and without reproaches, justifications, or stinginess?
May those who are free from danger, alien to the clay of which human nature is made, raise their hand! Attention! If there are already pockets of fire, both of you should grab the fire extinguishers. If you work to extinguish the fire together, you are still in time. Working together might entail one moving into action before the other or dragging the other along; however, it is both of you together in the end. And that makes it worthwhile.
The consolidation of mutual love demands that both manifest themselves openly, without fears, rivalries, and complexes, alone and at the right time. Perhaps, nighttime was invented for spouses. When trust between the two of us is practiced and becomes lived life, when we take care of it with loyal fidelity to prevent it from crumbling, when we do not let the night pass without repairing the frictions and scratches of the day, when we both embrace each other, instead of turning our backs clinging to our particular reasons, when we show each other that, despite so many defects, we live the commitment to keep our love alive and neither one stubbornly allows himself to jeopardize it, then intimate communication flows easily, becoming receptive allows us to breaks routines, fascinating scenarios of complicity are created, and mutual companionship becomes deep and strong. Both feel that they “have” each other, that they belong to each other. That is the intimate trust and companionship of the spousal union.
