IS Love REALLY All You Need???

A good friendship or any other deep, caring relationship is like a good marriage. If it is to last it needs to be treated as such. Yes, the number one ingredient is love but regardless of what the Beatles sing, love is NOT all you need. So what is it that not only gives such a friendship what it needs to sustain, but also what it needs to continue growing?

I am not denying that love is a major part of the foundation of any relationship. Of course it is, and it would be ridiculous to think otherwise. But there needs to be more. A good friendship takes work and time, some more than others. There must be a conscious decision on behalf of both parties that they are willing to do what it takes to sustain and maintain their friendship. This includes trust, and compromise, and loyalty, and dedication. Hard work? Time consuming perhaps? You betcha! But the payoffs are undeniable.

The thing is relationships are hard. They are work. And in order to maintain a relationship you have to be willing to put in the effort. I’ve found as I have gotten older that I have less patience and less of a desire to put forth such work. But everyone needs at least one good, real, honest caring relationship. Do I have this with my spouse? Yes. But whether one is married or single, such a friendship is still a necessary addition to every one’s life. Yet it is an addition that one must choose to have.

Every morning when you wake up, you choose to have this person as part of your world. You choose to stay where you are in your friendship, no matter what the current circumstances. And you do what it takes to support that choice.

You don’t choose trust, honesty, openness and compromise because it’s easy. You choose these things because they are all a part of love. And you choose such an intimate friendship because you love that person and want them as a part of your life.

Before I continue any further, let me clarify something. When I talk of love, I am not referring to romantic love. I love many people in my life, but I only have one romantic love and that is for my husband. I have told many people I love them but it is not in the sense that I love my husband. Some may say then that the word is thrown around too loosely. I do believe that in today world this is true. People love everything from a good burger to their favorite television show (Dexter!) But that is not the “love” I am referring to here. Now that, I hope, I have clarified that, let me move on.

So you truly have a deep emotional l (not necessarily romantic) love for that special friend/s in your life. This is a love that needs to be treasured. It needs to be sustained regardless of what is happening in the world around us and it needs to take priority in our lives. That is to say it should be more important than your budget woes, or the crappy thing that happened at work today, or that fight you had with the neighbor over whose responsibility it is the keep the shrubs between your homes clipped and tidy. You choose this love over the annoying habit your friend has or the stress that is felt in all relationships. Sometimes you even choose to love when you don’t like your friend very much right then. You choose it because you know you’ll like them again and you want them to be there when you will. You choose it because the crappy thing at work will eventually get resolved, the shrubs will get trimmed one way or another and your relational stress will work itself out. And when all of that is said and done, if your friend is suddenly not beside you, you won’t be happy anymore. So you choose love. A true, deep meaning friendship is something you actively choose to. Simply loving, will not sustain it, but choosing will.

So maybe this is all just sounds like a bunch of garbled-gook, maybe you think I’m crazy or just totally disagree with me. But there it is. It takes two people working actively and with love to make any kind of relationship work. Two people who are willing to trust, and compromise, willing to give loyalty, and dedication. Hard work? Time consuming? Indeed it is. Perhaps that is why so many people live their entire lives without ever experiencing the love of such a friendship. I think about how sad I’d be if I woke up one morning and my friend was no longer part of my life. And I know that I’m willing to work. And I know that our friendship is worth that effort.