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But the lyrics of one song stuck with us, and it is the theme of this article. It was Freddie Hart’s (no relation) “Easy Loving.” The lyrics are quite beautiful, seeing love as a beautiful dream with a pair of angels on pretty shoulders. But it was one line that stuck with us: “Easy lovin’, seein’s believin’.”
Is love easy?
This is the question that the song prompted us to address. The frank answer from the two of us, after 56 years of marriage, is that while it very much is in the early stages, it isn’t later. Maintaining love is hard work. We liken it to a beautiful garden. While I am not much of a gardener, I sure know what a beautiful garden looks like. And love, real love, is very much like a garden. It has been tended, watered, weeded, pruned and lovingly nurtured. If neglected it is an ugly thing. There’s a house down the road from where we live that has a classic neglected garden. It could easily make the cover of “The World’s Ugliest Garden!” In contrast, due to my wife’s love and care our garden is the most beautiful in the neighborhood. But the outcome is even more beautiful than any country song can describe. My wife and I can honestly say that the garden of our love is more beautiful today, after 56 years of marriage, and we are more in love with each other than we have ever been. This is “lovin’ that’s worth seein’.”
Falling in love all over again
How did we get to this place? It certainly didn’t happen by chance. Just planting some grass, a few owers and a sprinkler and hoping for the best won’t do it. We had to diligently take care of our love, shaping, feeding and weeding just as you would a garden. Psychologically, the process is very clear. Socalled “romantic love” begins as a temporary state of infatuation that kicks off the love game. Someone once said that “romantic love is a temporary form of insanity”—and there is some truth to this. In the beginning stage, certain hormones in our brain create strong, pleasant feelings of attraction when a certain person fits the ideal we have conjured up in our minds. These strong emotions overrun our logical senses and we operate outside our rational thinking. I’m not saying this is bad, just that it is a start to real love. And if we marry, a process of change is inevitable in which we discover who the person we love really is. And this is when romantic love starts to die. It has to because it’s not based on reality, but fantasy. And if you work at it (which is why you must have a strong commitment to stay the distance) a new, more mature and beautiful love begins to emerge that can last a lifetime. In technical terms, we form a long-term “attachment” that can’t be broken.
Sure, the early romantic stage of love “is easy.” It masks all the blemishes and quirks you and your partner bring to the relationship. Psychologists call it “transference.” You idealize and see only the good points in each other, then “transfer” your deep needs on to the person you want your partner to be. After a period of time, reality sets in and can undermine this love if you don’t plant new seeds of love.
To put it succinctly: you have to fall out of one type of love, and then learn to love in a deeper way, the real person you married—blemishes and all.
