Marriage isn’t about you, but Love is.

I’m writing this as a response to a blog article that went viral recently entitled Marriage isn’t for you. Click the title to go over and read the blog post. You will understand my post better if you read that first.  You should. It is good, it is well written. I agree with a lot of the things he has to say. But there is one thing that I don’t agree with, and it is when he says, “No, a true marriage (and true love) is never about you.” Never? I agree to a certain extent that marriage isn’t for you, but to say true love is never about you. I disagree. I believe Love, and true love, is most definitely for you. Don’t get me wrong, it’s about the others too, but please, don’t tell me it’s never about me.

It is this point where I felt compelled to write a response, because I think our culture is really messed up. I’m really messed up. I don’t think it has anything to do with the fact that I do not love others enough, I think it has to do with the fact that I do not love myself enough, and I think it’s because I don’t know how. I don’t think I’m alone in this.

I’m not talking about selfishness. Let’s be clear on that.

I’m talking about genuinely loving ourselves so that we can love others.

Many of you might say to me, “Well, duh Joe, I think that is implied. We all know that you have to love yourself before you can love others.” I’m here to tell you that I, specifically, do not know that. Because I’m depressed.  I don’t think a lot of other people know it either. Nowhere in that blog does it ever say that it is ok. It specifically says that love is all about the other person. This needs to change. I’m not saying we shouldn’t forget the idea of loving others, I’m simply asking to include loving yourself.

We live in a culture that constantly attaches this stigma of selfishness to any action that is done for us and not others. But just because you do something for yourself does not mean you are selfish.

This type of thinking has been ingrained in us ever since we were kids. We were taught to share, to include other kids, to help others even when we don’t want to. We are taught in church and Sunday school that God died for us, we need to show that selflessness to others. There is even a bible verse in 1^st Corinthians that says Love does not insist in its own way. This is all great, and I think we need to be taught this. But where during our development, our childhood, our adulthood, were we ever taught to love ourselves? Again, it’s implied right?

Sure people say, “It’s what’s on the inside that counts, you are perfect just the way you are. Be confident in yourself.” We get all the messages, but let’s face it, talk is cheap. When did or do we ever get the chance to practice this advice? I don’t ever remember my parents telling me to just do something for myself. I was told to believe in myself, but how can we believe if we never know how to actually do it? How can we do it if we are constantly told that the actual act of doing things for ourselves is selfish? All that does is build up one thing.

Guilt.

I think we all know that word. It’s a big word. A heavy word.

I like to imagine that the love in our basket looks like this

It’s a word that gets in the way of us actually doing things for ourselves.It’s like the metaphor that we all have a basket of love.
We give and give all of this love out to other people. We get depressed because we forget that we also need to give ourselves some of this love too. Now according to the other blog post, when we truly give our love we will then receive it from other people. That should really take care of the problem of us not giving any to ourselves right?

I’m here to tell you that is a false idea. Here is why.

Not giving ourselves love has nothing to do with us giving it to other people, but has everything to do with the fact that we feel like we don’t deserve it. So even if other people give us that love in return, we are not taking it, not sustaining our bodies with it. If your basket is empty, you can’t give any to yourself, and you can’t accept it from other people. If you do happen to get some more in your basket, when you try to give it to yourself, you feel guilty about it, and instead of giving it to others, you just throw it away. When people see that you are not giving it to others the automatically assume you are taking it. Maybe you do take a bite of that apple, that love. But just because you take a bite doesn’t mean you swallow it. It usually means you spit it out, because you feel like you don’t deserve it. I don’t deserve it. That is what guilt does.

It’s a vicious cycle.

Again, I’m not saying we shouldn’t love others. But we need to figure out a way to practice self love first, because I’m tired of walking around on empty. Walking around without any love in my basket. To tell you the truth, I don’t feel like I even have a basket anymore. I gave that away too. Maybe others feel like me. I think so.

So what do we do about it?

I don’t know. And I wish I could write it more eloquently. I just know that something needs to change. And it won’t change if the only articles that are going viral are articles that tell people that true love is only about someone else. It won’t change when people celebrate it as they re post it. We need to read that true love is about loving yourself too. Deep down I think that the author of that other blog is not saying to not love yourself. I don’t think he is saying that. But that’s the problem; he isn’t saying anything about it at all.

Again, you think its implied right? That you should love yourself? Well it doesn’t say that. That article doesn’t say that. What people get taught is not about loving yourself. People get taught not to be selfish. We don’t ever get taught to distinguish between being selfish and taking care of ourselves. That’s a problem. It’s time to stop implying. We need to say it’s ok. Not only do we need to say it we need to hear it. We need to practice it, and that might mean that we might actually indulge in some selfish acts for ourselves. I don’t know if its a solution, but I’m willing to give it a try, because there are too many people who are losing right now. Too many people are getting divorces. Too many people breaking promises they can’t keep. Too many people hurting others and themselves. Too many people attempting suicide. Too many people committing suicide. It’s not their fault. It’s no one’s fault. It just has to change.

Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova wrote a song called, “Falling Slowly,” and there are some lyrics in it that apply pretty well to this. They say, “You have suffered enough, and warred with yourself, it’s time that you won.”

I’m here to tell you that true love IS for yourself. Believe it. Act on it. Because I believe that true love isn’t ONLY about other people. It is time. It’s time that YOU won. Not someone else. I want to win. I WANT to win. I just don’t know how.