Episode 8. What’s Love Got to Do With It? Exploring Love in Marriage
Have you ever wondered what love in marriage really means? We tackle this slippery topic in today's episode of our Marriage IQ podcast. We kick things off with a fun story about our longtime neighbors Bob and Betty. Married over 50 years but "happily" only the last 8! Gets you thinking about whether longevity equates to love. Then we dive deeper into the meaning of love, from the Beatles to research by marriage therapists like Harville Hendrix. Turns out love is hard to define! But we try anyway, touching on commitment, sacrifice, respect, forgiveness, and more. The big takeaway? Love is an action, not a feeling. It's an unconditional commitment to nurture spiritual growth in yourself and your partner. We share practical tips like mindfulness practices and Gottman Card Decks, listening to favorite songs together or talking about special memories.
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Welcome to Marriage IQ, the podcast for the intelligent spouse. I'm Dr. Heidi Hastings. And I'm Dr. Heidi Hastings. We are two doctors, two researchers, two spouses, two lovers, and two incredibly different human beings coming together for one purpose, to transform the stinky parts of your marriage into scintillating ones, using intelligence mixed with a little fun.00:00:34
Welcome back, lovers, all you intelligent spouses out there, to another scintillating episode of Marriage IQ. Scintillating. Do you remember what scintillating means? It means hearing bells.00:00:53
It means bright, shiny, exciting. I love that. That was really cool. Yeah. All right, so last week we asked the question, what is the four letter word that evokes more powerful emotion than anything else?00:01:10
Ooh. For all of those who know me, I affectionately call this the Beatles doctrine. Yes. So the Beatles doctrine. I have to unpack this a little bit.00:01:27
Okay. And I know you. Yeah. So, they have a song that is entitled all you need is love. Love.00:01:38
The most non intelligent, seemingly lyrics in any song ever written. Yes. Either they were tripping on LSD when they wrote the lyrics to the song, or they really did have a transcendent experience, because the more I think about it and the more I get, like, really deep into this, they're right. They're pretty right. They're brilliant, brilliant geniuses in their own way, in their own time, and they didn't know it.00:02:10
That's right. But we'll get into that later. Some of you may ask, why isn't love one of your cornerstones? Like, isn't love fundamental to a healthy, thriving relationship? Absolutely.00:02:28
Why isn't love on there? You have to love your spouse. Right. Yeah. That's a good point.00:02:33
And be in love. I'm glad you asked. So there's a. Some people say, well, my husband doesn't, quote, love me anymore. My wife doesn't love me anymore.00:02:48
I don't think I'm in love with my spouse anymore. And all those are pretty distressing. I love my spouse, but I don't like them very much. If my spouse loves me, why do they do things that hurt me? If we don't have any romance in our relationship, does that mean there isn't any love either?00:03:08
Those are some questions I think a lot of people ask. So, why isn't love one of our four cornerstones? Good question. So, it's, first of all, it doesn't start with I. So it didn't make the cut.00:03:21
It didn't make the cut. But seriously, love is something that is hard to define in a group setting. Okay, like, what love means to you may be different for me, for someone else, so it's really hard to pin down. It's necessary. It's absolutely necessary.00:03:45
Perhaps the cement that goes between the bricks on the walls. I like you. I'm glad you liked it. I like you and I like that. Perhaps the cement, not the cornerstones, but the cement that goes between the bricks.00:04:00
Right. That makes me kind of think of our old neighbors, Bob and Betty. Tell me, what about Bob and Betty? They were great neighbors. They were, what would you say, in their seventies?00:04:11
Yeah, probably in their seventies, maybe even eighties at that point. And shortly after we moved in, Bob came over. We were pretty young. Yeah, Bob came over and introduced himself and I said, oh, how long have you and Betty been married? And he said, well, we've been happily married for eight years.00:04:26
And I said, oh, Scott and I have been married a lot longer than you. We've been happily married for, it was probably ten years at that point. Ten years, maybe 15 years, I can't remember, but it was definitely longer than them. I said, oh, is this a second marriage for both of you? And he said, no, we've been married 50 years, but we've only been happily married for eight of those.00:04:53
You're loving that. That's great. I discovered this on our little podcast machine. All right, so did they love each other? Probably, or they wouldn't have stayed together for over 50 years, but they didn't have a lot of happiness during a lot of those years.00:05:10
So love doesn't necessarily equate to being happy. Love in our early relationship was perhaps seen by spending every minute together. We loved to sing together. I especially love to hear you sing. We felt intense passion for each other.00:05:30
Whenever you would play the piano, I would just ogle over you. Like, I would just feel these deep emotions of, in fact, I remember saying, do you feel what I feel deep inside every time you play the piano? I now know that's oxytocin. Now we know. So is love really oxytocin?00:05:49
But love has kind of shifted later in our relationship to be things like working together, experiencing new and adventurous experiences. So love requires change then, right? Right? Is that what you're saying? Right.00:06:07
It would have to. We feel like as you age, as you grow older, we experience things together, creating, not just experiencing, but creating romantic moments together. Correct. So, intentionally good. Crying together, solving problems together, parenting together, those were all hard things, but when we did them together, we felt more intense love for each other.00:06:30
How do you intentionally cry with each other? That doesn't take intention, okay? But what takes intention is learning to sit through it and work together. I like it. Yeah.00:06:41
Sacrificing for each other. And then I see this shift in my own parents. Dad has pretty significant Alzheimer's or dementia, and everything has shifted. He doesn't even know my mom's name, and yet she loves him so dearly that she sacrifices for her entire life for him. She doesn't have a lot of interaction with other people.00:07:07
Her whole life is surrounding caring for him, feeding him, or getting the help that she needs with him, to care for his every need during the day. And even things that are really, really, really hard to do for a partner, even if there's no reward for anything that she does for him. Okay. Cause anyone can sacrifice for someone else. I can do something for you and have no feelings for you or even despise you while I'm doing them for you.00:07:41
Is that love? That's a good question. I don't know the answer to that. But it's not deep love, because we can. It could be, I guess, part of love, right?00:07:50
We can do things for those we love out of the expectation of reward or an expectation of a desired response, or we can do it out of pure love. And I think the more mature we get or the more experienced in life we get, or. I don't know even. I think parents with a disabled child are able to do it out of that deep sacrificial love. Maybe moving from sacrifice to something like consecrating yourself to that other person.00:08:25
Okay, what does that mean? Well, perhaps this is just an idea, but sacrificing is you're doing it because they need it, not because you want it. Consecration is they need it and you want to do it for them. Okay. I would say that's a really beautiful way to say it.00:08:44
So trying to define what love is in just a few words is like trying to explain how a particle in physics creates gravity. There's so, so many levels, so many states, so many embodiments of love, it's impossible to bottle up so many meanings in just four letters of a word. Indeed. Yeah. It really shows how clunky, in some ways, the english language is.00:09:10
And I think perhaps some other languages are better able to communicate different elements of different kinds of love. Yes, higher levels of love. Right. But love and marriage, I don't know if you knew this, but love and marriage is actually a fairly new idea that emerged maybe in the 18 hundreds. For thousands of years, love was often seen as a threat to marriage because it could cause young people to defy their parents efforts to arrange beneficial political or economic alliances with other families.00:09:46
A lot of arranged marriages. That sounds really unromantic. It wasn't. But when you married someone, it was more often because they were built for having children or a hard worker or they had a family with political or economic resources that could benefit the family. Doesn't love play in there anywhere?00:10:08
Well, it's really interesting. For those of you who might be fans of Fiddler on the roof, the musical, like we are, I just want you to think back to Tevia singing to his wife, with whom he had had an arranged marriage more than two decades earlier. He asked, do you. Do you love me? Do I what?00:10:34
Do you love me? For 25 years, I've washed your clothes, I've cooked your meals, I've cleaned your house, I've given you children, milked your cows. Ooh, that's a big one. After 25 years, why talk about love right now? And then he asks again, do you love me?00:10:55
Do I what? For 25 years? And so Hodl just really starts thinking as she's singing. She's like, I've done all this stuff for you. I've done it for you.00:11:09
And then she's thinking, do I love him? I don't know. And then she says, for 25 years, I've lived with him, I've fought with him, I've starved with him for 25 years, my bed is his. If that's not love, what is? Yeah.00:11:28
So love can be sacrifice. Love can be doing things without that romance, without those intense feelings of love and passion for each other. Yeah. Actually, his wife's name is Golda. Oh, Hodl's daughter.00:11:50
Yeah, that's okay. Okay, well, that shows you're the more intelligent. No, no. Fiddler on the roof when you said that. I'm like, I think that's his daughter.00:11:59
But, yeah, you're right. We don't want any of those things with a daughter. All right, so according to doctor Scott Peck, love is the will to extend oneself for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth. Love is like an action that you take, something that you do to nurture yourself or someone else. What do you think about that?00:12:27
I think that sounds like a pretty standard definition of what love may mean in a dictionary. Okay. What would you say it is? I say that you cannot define love. Okay.00:12:45
Maybe love is a verb. Love is a verb, a noun and a meaning that cannot be defined. Okay. Some of the words I think you can define parts of it. Yeah.00:12:59
Some of the words that come to my mind when I'm thinking about love or commitment. An investment of time, connection, work, sacrifice. Like we've talked about. Respect, maybe serving each other, having created a friendship. How about forgiveness?00:13:18
You think that's part of love? Yeah. I like that. So Harville Heidi, PhD, who's a marriage therapist like you, claims that love not only isn't a feeling, it isn't even an it. And maybe that's not what you were saying.00:13:35
Well, that's what I'm saying. Okay. You can't. Doctor Peck defines love in kind of a boilerplate fashion, which I agree with. I don't disagree.00:13:49
But the higher levels of love that we're talking about that are required for an intelligent, scintillating marriage are far deeper than that definition. Agreed. So doctor Heidi says real love is a verb. It's a behavior in which the welfare of another person is the primary intention and goal. Love as a verb isn't dependent on how you feel or even what you think.00:14:16
Instead, you make an unconditional commitment, unconditional commitment to the other person. You can't earn real love. You can't earn love, but you can give it. Right? So I studied interdependence theory, which.00:14:35
That's for another discussion, but really what it taught me is that love can be dependent for some people on transactions. Like, you must respond like this. You must behave like this, because, well, if I'm sacrificing, if I'm like, not Hodl, but Golda. Golda. If Golda's doing the laundry, if she's sharing a bed, if she's starving with you doing all these things, then you.00:15:05
I expect you to do what? To do certain things. Do certain things. That's love as an exchange model. Right?00:15:12
That's the it. That's the definition that peck is talking about. Right. But the definition that you and Doctor Heidi are talking about, the motivation for it is not for a reward because that burns you out or makes you resent the other person. That is correct.00:15:30
When it's not fulfilled. Right. So tell me more about love. Not as a transaction, but unconditional commitment. Yeah.00:15:39
So it can't be earned. He's right. Only something I can give. And so let's say you're supposed to wash the dishes and clean the house, but you don't. Or I am supposed to go to work and bring home a paycheck, but I don't.00:16:03
Then what does that mean? Love no longer exists because I'm not doing that transaction or you're not. It is the act of giving, only giving, never expecting something as a payment or reward. I can say it's a lot easier to take that mindset of doing it, no matter what you get back when the other person isn't capable of doing those things. And I would say that there is a base level of love that is transactional.00:16:38
Right. That I'm not. I will withhold my love if you don't do this. But that is. That is a baseline.00:16:46
That's not what we're headed for. That's not what the scintillating marriage, intelligent spouses do. Right. So how do we get there? Well, we're talking about it.00:16:57
This is hard. It's a good, hard place to start, really. Perhaps learning how to love in that way is the meaning of life. That's a good. I love it.00:17:09
Meaning of life. Perhaps that's what we have to figure out. That is it. And we're going to mess up a lot. I am with you.00:17:17
Well, then somebody says, doctor Hastings, what's the meaning of life? Right. Say love. Learning. It's not something to do.00:17:26
That's the purpose. Meaning is just. It is a deep feeling. Learning how to love on a deep level. Yeah.00:17:36
Maybe the meaning of life. Our spouse, our children, our parents, our siblings, our neighbors that are hard to be next to, even if they're crotchety. Yeah. People who have different political ideologies, different religious ideologies. Can you imagine what we would be like if it changed the world?00:17:56
People of different political parties and genders and income levels of social identities could learn to speak this language on a deeper level. There's no expectation. You can only give it, not ever earn it. I love that. So maybe the first place we practice then, is within our home.00:18:22
Yes. Yeah. That's the greatest laboratory, isn't it? One way I've found that we can do this in our homes and in our marriages, especially. To create a scintillating, intelligent marriage is to sit in discomfort for growth with each other.00:18:45
So can you think of any examples where you've had to do that? Where you've seen other people do that? Probably yesterday. Okay. Or this week at least.00:18:56
Like, we don't always see eye to eye. Right? Shocking. I know. The intelligent spouse knows this.00:19:04
We're not perfect. We know a lot, but we are also humans and we need to remember that. And there are hard times that we have things that I do, things that you do that we don't like, and we learn to sit in it. With each other and without contempt. Where I think I'm better than you.00:19:27
Yeah. I'm not better than you. I could have done that, too. Maybe you lost something of value. Maybe I said something hurtful.00:19:39
And we sit in it. We don't run away. We don't leave. We sit through it. It's uncomfortable.00:19:50
It is. So we don't know how to sit in discomfort. We have all of these things around us, surrounding us. I'm uncomfortable. So I'm gonna bring up my phone to self soothe, right?00:20:02
To self soothe. To get out of what I'm sitting through, right? I'm telling you, learning how to love is learning how to sit in discomfort. Not running away, not yelling, just sitting. Maybe in silence, even sometimes sitting by me, or me sitting by you, being curious, asking questions.00:20:26
I love that. Yeah. So love can mean many things. You know, I might say, I love this hamburger. You know?00:20:36
It's not. But that's not the same thing as this transcendent, life changing experience that we've been talking about. Love can be felt by two people who are madly, passionately, romantically, physiologically, connectively, economically, spiritually, and emotionally in love. In reality, love may not even be able to be defined. As we said earlier, it's not something we can do or say.00:21:07
We can't really explain it in words until we experience it. Some people will say love is all they need, and a lot of people will laugh and scoff, but I'm coming back to the Beatles doctrine again at the 30,000 foot view. They may be right. It may all boil down to love. Or I'll even throw in there a little Tina Turner.00:21:36
What's love got to do with it? Yeah, what's love got to do got to do with it? So what isn't love? That's a good question. Love can certainly include these things, but don't answer the question fully or completely, like we said earlier.00:21:55
So the feeling by itself, I'm in love, okay. Which is perhaps partly oxytocin, being the same as the other person that you think you're in love in. That might be enmeshment. That's not very good. Okay.00:22:10
That's a good one. Sex, that's not love. So, not by itself. Again, chicken or the egg, what comes first? Right.00:22:18
It can lead to more love. Sex can. And love can lead to sex. But sex by itself is not love. That's good.00:22:25
Dependence. I need you like a co dependent, so I'm sticking with you. I'm staying married to you because I need your finances. I need help parenting. Because we own a home together.00:22:37
Those kind of things don't equate love, not at the deep levels. Okay. Safety and security. We talked about women want to be safe and secure. And we talked also, last time about oxytocin, creating feelings of safety and security that, by itself is not love.00:22:59
But again, it's all part of it. It's part of this big picture. Excitement, intense physical attraction. Butterflies in your stomach. That's a dopamine surge.00:23:15
That's part of love. Hormones have a lot to do with love, then, huh? But by itself does not define it. And so we have this very tricky task of trying to define something that's really undefinable. But we have talked about some practical things, about learning to sit in discomfort with each other.00:23:35
Right? We have talked about Heidi's favorite love song, my favorite love song, and why. And why. So, this is a little experiment that we did. We don't know.00:23:47
Look into each other's brains and figure out a little bit more about our own different perceptions of love. So y'all are gonna find out the same time we do about each other's favorite love song and why we kept it a secret from each other until just now. And so, Heidi, you go first. Okay. So I probably could have chosen several different love songs, but the first one that came to my mind is.00:24:13
Drum roll, please. Oh. Oops. Oops.00:24:22
Okay, turn it off. Oh. None of those are a drum roll, but that's okay. You got the wrong button. Truly, madly deeply by savage garden.00:24:35
What? Do you remember that? Yes. Okay, so this was a song. Oh, my love, right after we got married.00:24:42
Oh, my. Oh, my gosh. So I'm going to share with you some of the lyrics. It talks about. I'll be your hope I'll be your love I'll be everything you need I love you more deeply with every breath truly, madly deeply I'll be strong I'll be faithful because I'm counting on a new beginning and a reason for living a deeper meaning.00:25:03
And all of those were impactful for me because I was looking. This was the second marriage for me, and I was looking for a different kind of marriage, something that was more lasting, more deeply intimate, more able to ride through the difficulties. So he talks about, I want to stand with you on a mountain I want to bathe with you in the sea I want to lay like this forever until the sky falls down on me I don't know why this is creating emotion in me. But when the stars are shining brightly in the velvet sky I'll make a wish and send it to heaven and then make you want to cry the tears of joy for all the pleasure and the certainty that we're surrounded by the comfort and protection of the highest powers. In lonely hours, the tears devour you.00:25:59
And so I think there's an element of safety and security, an element of being blessed by the powers of heaven, an element of doing intimate things together and staying by each other even through the hard times. So that brings up emotion in me all these years later. Those were my hopes of what a relationship with you would look like. And I have to say, we've been able to create a marriage like that, that has been safe, that has been blessed by heaven, that has been intimate and adventurous and deep and meaningful. Wow.00:26:44
So what's your. I am speechless. I know. That's hard to believe. That is hard to believe.00:26:55
Had no idea that that song was that meaningful to you. Wow. I crank it when I hear it. Come on. Because it doesn't.00:27:05
It was in the nineties. It came out right. It doesn't come on anymore, but when it does, like, I crank it out right. Because I love it, too. Yeah, that was really meaningful.00:27:19
So my favorite love song. Ready? Yeah. Oh, wait. Oh, shoot.00:27:28
I'm still learning the buttons. I'm sorry.00:27:33
No, that's not it. Dang it. Okay, turn. Okay. All right.00:27:35
Okay. Favorite love song? Unforgettable by Natalie Cole and her father. That was actually another one. Was that on the short list?00:27:47
Yep, that was on my short list. Okay, so why. This is so interesting. Your love song was specifically lyrically based. Yes.00:27:57
And if I were to go by that, I'd probably pick that one, too, or it'd be on the shortlist. Anyway, this one, I did it purely out of sentimental reasons, and it is so sentimental. Unforgettable. I have this gift or a curse. I am highly sentimental.00:28:18
Yes, you are. Things that we've done in the past are highly valuable to me. And when we were dating, first dating, I had this playlist. No kidding. I was on a cassette tape that I made.00:28:33
My favorite song that we had to turn over. Yes. The older people out there know what I'm talking about. We're older. Oh, my gosh.00:28:44
Okay. So unforgettable. Every time I hear this song, I'm instantly transported back to when we were dating and. Yep. My green truck.00:28:58
I don't know why it was green, but Twitter painted. Yes. And. And you'd sing it to me. I would sing it to you, and you would just melt right there in my ugly truck.00:29:09
Yep. So these are two of our favorite songs that really, I think, evoke a lot of feeling of love and emotion and memory of really special times in our lives. Yeah. So what are some things you can do takeaways from this podcast today? Just ask yourself what Tina Turner asked herself and made millions off of in her famously popular 1984 bestselling album, what's Love got to do with it?00:29:45
Love has a lot to do with it. Yeah. What's love but a secondhand emotion? Sit down with yourself. Have a conversation.00:29:54
What is love to you? We've talked a little bit about what it is here today. Do I know what love is? I want to know what love is. Foreigner also asked that question in 1984.00:30:07
That was a big year about love. Then actively, intentionally make efforts to increase that meaning of what that word means daily to yourself and others. Express it to people close to you, maybe loosely to other people who aren't as intimate. Try it out with people, maybe who you work with, but especially express it to your spouse. Yeah.00:30:31
I would also say, ask yourself, what is my motivation? Am I looking for a reward or for love? Good question. Is what I'm doing? Am I doing it for exchange reasons or to be energized?00:30:46
Because if I'm doing it for an exchange, I'm going to become resentful and burned out. But if it's for love, I'll be energized and be able to keep giving and keep loving and keep serving my partner. So what are just really quickly, a few things that we can do within our marriage to increase those feelings of love or that not just feelings of love, but the experience of love. So, mindful gaze, looking into each other's eyes for two minutes. Okay, you're gonna have to count it out.00:31:19
Cause 30 seconds, it's gonna feel long and it's hard. Mindful holding. Again. Two minutes. Hold each other when you get home or in the morning.00:31:27
Two minutes. Count it out. There's something called Gottman card decks. It's an app. That's an app for date night.00:31:35
And you ask each other probing questions about what is meaningful to you. Yeah. This allows us to get to know each other, each other's minds, kind of their inner world. Sharing music that you both like. Right.00:31:50
In fact, we challenge you to do this with your spouse today. Right. That'd be a fun. Tell each other your favorite love song and why and talk about it. I think working on projects together or serving each other or serving other people together can help create those feelings of love.00:32:10
Yeah. When an argument comes up, that's a perfect time to practice sitting in discomfort. Right. Some of you are going to have more arguments than others. Sit in it.00:32:20
Right. Watching sunsets silently in awe is a good one that we love to do. Deeply connecting all these things require intentionality and intimacy, which are the two foundational cornerstones that we really tied specifically to love in our conversation today. Yeah, I agree. I think it really helps us develop those, too.00:32:48
Right. Keep in mind that love takes intentionality and it takes creating moments of intimacy. So, next week's question. Oh, what is it? I'm curious.00:33:00
Ooh. Well, what is the big elephant in the room that we don't recognize and we don't talk about in our relationships? Ah. All right. It's gonna be an.00:33:13
It's gonna be a really good one. Something really different. Okay, until next week, have a great week, lovers. So, if you like this podcast, we want to ask for your help with just three little things. First, rate our podcast wherever you listen to your podcasts.00:33:29
Second, review it. Tell others what you liked about our podcast on your social media. Third, share it. Send a text of the link to this podcast to anybody that you think would like to become an intelligent spouse and can benefit from listening. So again, rate it, review it, and share it.00:33:45
We really are so grateful that you joined us today, and we look forward to having you join us next time on marriage. Marriage IQ.
