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Interesting article
Thoughts on Conjugal Love
Eric Schwitzgebel
Department of Philosophy
University of California at Riverside
Riverside CA 92521
June 4, 2003
Two friends recently asked me to contribute something to their wedding ceremony. Since I’m a philosophy professor, I thought I would take the occasion to reflect a bit on the nature of conjugal love, the distinctive kind of love between a husband and wife.
The common view that love is a feeling is, I think, quite misguided. Feelings come and go, while love is steady. Feelings are “passions” in the classic sense of ‘passion’ which shares a root with ‘passive’. They strike us largely unbidden. Love, in contrast, is something actively built. The passions suffered by teenagers and writers of romantic lyrics, felt so painfully, and often so temporarily, are not love – though in some cases they may be a prelude to it.
Rather than a feeling, love is a way of structuring one’s values, goals, and reactions. One characteristic of it is a deep commitment to the good of the other for his or her own sake. (This characterization of love owes quite a bit to Harry Frankfurt.) We all care about the good of other people we meet and know, for their own sake and not just for utilitarian ends, to some extent. Only if the regard is deep, though, only if we so highly value the other’s well-being that we are willing to thoroughly restructure and revise our own goals to accommodate it, and only if this restructuring is so well-rooted that it instantly and automatically informs our reactions to the person and to news that could affect him or her, do we possess real love.
Conjugal love involves all this, certainly. But it is also more than this. In conjugal love, one commits oneself to seeing one’s life always with the other in view. One commits to pursuing one’s major projects, even when alone, always in a kind of implicit conjunction with the other. One’s life becomes a co-authored work.
The love one feels for a young child may in some ways be purer and more unconditional than conjugal love. One expects nothing back from a young child. One needn’t share ideals to enjoy parental love. The child will grow away into his or her own separate life, independent of the parents’ preferences.
Conjugal love, because it involves the collaborative construction of a joint life, can’t be unconditional in that way. If the partners don’t share values and a vision, they can’t steer a mutual course. If one partner develops a separate vision or does not openly and in good faith work with the other toward their joint goals, conjugal love is impossible and is, at best, replaced with some more general type of loving concern.
Nonetheless, to dwell on the conditionality of conjugal love, and to develop a set of contingency plans should it fail, is already to depart from the project of jointly fabricating a life and to begin to develop a set of individual goals and values opposing those of the partner. Conjugal love requires an implacable, automatic commitment to responding to all major life events through the mutual lens of marriage. One cannot embody such a commitment if one harbors persistent thoughts about the contingency of the relationship and serious back-up plans.
There may be an appearance of paradox in the idea that conjugal love requires a lifelong commitment without contingency plans, yet at the same time is conditional in a way parental love is not. But there is no paradox. If one believes that something is permanent, one can make lifelong promises and commitments contingent upon it, because one believes the contingency will never come to pass. This then, is the significance of the marriage ceremony: It is the expression of a mutual unshakeable commitment to build a joint life together, where each partner’s commitment is possible, despite the contingency of conjugal love, because each partner trusts the other’s commitment to be unshakeable.
A deep faith and trust must therefore underlie true conjugal love. That trust is the most sacred and inviolable thing in a marriage, because it is the very foundation of its possibility. Deception and faithlessness destroy conjugal love because, and exactly to the extent that, they undermine the grounds of that trust. For the same reason, honest and open interchange about long-standing goals and attitudes stands at the heart of marriage.
Passion alone can’t ground conjugal trust. Neither can shared entertainments and the pleasure of each other’s company. Both partners must have matured enough that their core values are stable. They must be unselfish enough to lay everything on the table for compromise, apart from those permanent, shared core values. And they must be shorn of the tendency to form secret, individual goals. Only to the degree they approach these ideals are they worthy of the trust that makes conjugal love possible.
www.faculty.ucr.edu/~eschwit...lLove.htm
Thoughts on Conjugal Love
Eric Schwitzgebel
Department of Philosophy
University of California at Riverside
Riverside CA 92521
June 4, 2003
Two friends recently asked me to contribute something to their wedding ceremony. Since I’m a philosophy professor, I thought I would take the occasion to reflect a bit on the nature of conjugal love, the distinctive kind of love between a husband and wife.
The common view that love is a feeling is, I think, quite misguided. Feelings come and go, while love is steady. Feelings are “passions” in the classic sense of ‘passion’ which shares a root with ‘passive’. They strike us largely unbidden. Love, in contrast, is something actively built. The passions suffered by teenagers and writers of romantic lyrics, felt so painfully, and often so temporarily, are not love – though in some cases they may be a prelude to it.
Rather than a feeling, love is a way of structuring one’s values, goals, and reactions. One characteristic of it is a deep commitment to the good of the other for his or her own sake. (This characterization of love owes quite a bit to Harry Frankfurt.) We all care about the good of other people we meet and know, for their own sake and not just for utilitarian ends, to some extent. Only if the regard is deep, though, only if we so highly value the other’s well-being that we are willing to thoroughly restructure and revise our own goals to accommodate it, and only if this restructuring is so well-rooted that it instantly and automatically informs our reactions to the person and to news that could affect him or her, do we possess real love.
Conjugal love involves all this, certainly. But it is also more than this. In conjugal love, one commits oneself to seeing one’s life always with the other in view. One commits to pursuing one’s major projects, even when alone, always in a kind of implicit conjunction with the other. One’s life becomes a co-authored work.
The love one feels for a young child may in some ways be purer and more unconditional than conjugal love. One expects nothing back from a young child. One needn’t share ideals to enjoy parental love. The child will grow away into his or her own separate life, independent of the parents’ preferences.
Conjugal love, because it involves the collaborative construction of a joint life, can’t be unconditional in that way. If the partners don’t share values and a vision, they can’t steer a mutual course. If one partner develops a separate vision or does not openly and in good faith work with the other toward their joint goals, conjugal love is impossible and is, at best, replaced with some more general type of loving concern.
Nonetheless, to dwell on the conditionality of conjugal love, and to develop a set of contingency plans should it fail, is already to depart from the project of jointly fabricating a life and to begin to develop a set of individual goals and values opposing those of the partner. Conjugal love requires an implacable, automatic commitment to responding to all major life events through the mutual lens of marriage. One cannot embody such a commitment if one harbors persistent thoughts about the contingency of the relationship and serious back-up plans.
There may be an appearance of paradox in the idea that conjugal love requires a lifelong commitment without contingency plans, yet at the same time is conditional in a way parental love is not. But there is no paradox. If one believes that something is permanent, one can make lifelong promises and commitments contingent upon it, because one believes the contingency will never come to pass. This then, is the significance of the marriage ceremony: It is the expression of a mutual unshakeable commitment to build a joint life together, where each partner’s commitment is possible, despite the contingency of conjugal love, because each partner trusts the other’s commitment to be unshakeable.
A deep faith and trust must therefore underlie true conjugal love. That trust is the most sacred and inviolable thing in a marriage, because it is the very foundation of its possibility. Deception and faithlessness destroy conjugal love because, and exactly to the extent that, they undermine the grounds of that trust. For the same reason, honest and open interchange about long-standing goals and attitudes stands at the heart of marriage.
Passion alone can’t ground conjugal trust. Neither can shared entertainments and the pleasure of each other’s company. Both partners must have matured enough that their core values are stable. They must be unselfish enough to lay everything on the table for compromise, apart from those permanent, shared core values. And they must be shorn of the tendency to form secret, individual goals. Only to the degree they approach these ideals are they worthy of the trust that makes conjugal love possible.
www.faculty.ucr.edu/~eschwit...lLove.htm
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Re: Conjugal love
Sat, October 17, 2009 - 11:50 AMThanks for posting this JSin, it's beautiful and insightful. It reminds me very much of Erich Fromm's fantastic little book The Art of Loving.
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Re: Conjugal love
Sat, October 17, 2009 - 8:06 PMThis is a very well written expression of the depth and complexity of a intimate life-long relationship. Conjugal love is not for the weak or faint of heart. It all begins with self love - as does much of a good life. From there I tell friends it involves the ability to continually go deeper into each other. Beyond the shedding of clothes and the everyday poses and masks we wear; beyond even the revealing of secrets you tell only to those closest to you. Deeper still. The revelations you find as you explore these depths of each other will renew your life and love and strengthen the bonds between you. Trust is not a simple yes/no option. There are degrees of trust and trust increases as it is proven each time it is exercised. A fulfilling erotic life can initiate the bond between a couple and act as a glue to hold a couple together but its adhesive power is only so strong. There is no simple magic answer to sustaining a love for a lifetime. It is simply hard work that has the potential to bring the richest of rewards. -
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Re: Conjugal love
Sun, October 18, 2009 - 4:30 PMI think what spoke to me the most was the depth of trust and openness/honesty required here. I think what has frustrated me the most about guys I have attempted LTRs with is that after a certain point it's like they just want things to be on auto pilot. I think there are many people that fear this type of intimacy on at least some level.
Thanks for sharing ;)
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Re: Conjugal love
Sun, October 18, 2009 - 11:00 AMthis is a really wonderful piece of philosophy, and two parts really struck me. one is that of trust - of not going into a relationship with "contingency plans." it's an easy thing to say, and a much harder thing to actually do, especially if you've failed before. it requires that you know each other well enough to believe that you will always be able to approach things through the lens of partnership, to have some level of compatible hopes and dreams, beyond the "feeling of love," which is not enough in and of itself to maintain a relationship.
which leads to the other striking concept - that of shared vision. it is so important to be able to share goals, to be working toward the same object, even one as simple and profound as building a life together. it's a sharing of oneself in a way that affects everything one does. in a way, you can no longer make decisions or build a separate identity on your own, because the partnership has to supersede the personal in order to succeed. but by the same token, it's an edifice built together by separate people, the sum of its parts...and the personal goals and values of each of those parts have to be compatible enough to create that relationship together.
it's a delicate balance, in that the personal shapes the partnership at the same time the partnership affects the personal. a certainty of one's own values, a surety of one's partner's values, and at the same time, the flexibility to be shaped by one another towards the goal of what is created together.
just as a side note...the author says this was written for a wedding, so it makes sense in that context to speak of "conjugal" love, but i'd be willing to state that it doesn't require a marriage certificate and that it holds just as true for relationships that contain more than two people. i'd even be willing to believe that it's even harder in relationships that aren't traditional "marriages." culturally, we've had the notion reinforced that love like that is for married people, and the act of marriage itself adds the weight of tradition to the relationship. it's still something that has to come from the people in the relationship, but even more obviously so (and perhaps with more commitment and conscious awareness) when not enforced by tradition. -
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Re: Conjugal love
Sun, October 18, 2009 - 12:53 PMI have wondered if the weight of tradition is a blessing or a burden. I imagine both.
In what ways do you(or anyone) see it as a positive force for a relationship? -
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Re: Conjugal love
Tue, October 20, 2009 - 7:13 AM<<In what ways do you(or anyone) see [tradition] as a positive force for a relationship?>>
that's an interesting question. i've been pondering it for a couple of days, and i'm still not sure i have a good answer as to what i think. my first reaction is, "i was married once, and meh, i don't need cultural validation of my love relationships." but it's so ingrained in us, that i don't know how possible it is to ignore. maybe some people are better at ignoring that force than others. maybe it's not a good or necessary thing *to* ignore it. i just had this conversation yesterday with my...i guess he's my boyfriend now :o) ...about "what we're calling it" - because the people he works with want to know how i should be referred to. it made me laugh, in one sense, because my first answer was, "it doesn't matter, we know what we are to each other." is it just because people are nosy? is it because of that sense of ownership Jsin mentioned below? people want to know who "belongs" to whom?
i think relationships are one of the ways we define ourselves, in our own minds and to others, and that is what the tradition is about - it's a way of identifying who we care about, who is part of "our tribe," to steal Poontangle's usage. if the "conjugal love" idea of the article has any truth to it - and i think it does - then it's not a bad thing. in that way, cultural validation helps to support the identity of partnership we're creating. it offers a sense of assumptions that are translatable to the general public: "we're together," so people have a comfortable baseline to decide how to treat you, or refer to you, or understand you. i don't know that it's necessary, but it is how we think.
also, i could see it as a negative force, in that it forces people into a certain mindset, and when the partnership ceases to work, it keeps people together, miserably, long past the point when they perhaps should have given up. it's harder to break that cultural assumption of togetherness than it is to admit the feeling is gone. whether that reinforces the relationship and keeps us from giving up too soon, i don't know. blessing and burden both, definitely. -
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Re: Conjugal love
Tue, October 20, 2009 - 9:46 PMthe negative you mention is definitely one of the things I think of first when I think of tradition influencing relationships. I think also that it is responsible for alot of people being in alot of unnecessary pain because tradition says one thing and they in whatever way are not nurtured by that dynamic or set up. It seems to me it makes it harder for people to create their own relationships because so many people share (and have shared through media and stories and attitudes as people grow and are learning about what relationships mean) a similar vision of what a certain type of relationship is supposed to be. It may be much easier when your relationship looks from the outside like a traditional relationship to lazily slip into following what you believe people's ideas are or how things should be rather than having to really work out exactly what your relationship is(I'm speaking in general here not at all about you).
On another subject(maybe) what you said about what to call someone clicked something inside of me I've been working on for years now. Because I always wondered from the outside why people were so obsessed with what to label a relationship...even to the detriment of the relationship it's self. It shouldn't need to be explained away in a sound bite. But when I'm in a relationship damn it I wanna know what the heck it is! I want it to have a name! For me it doesn't have to be a traditional name, it can be special naked friend, or cybersweetie, or worst idea ever, but I feel a need for a name.
In reading what you wrote it hit me that I think the reason why is that it's a way to have something more concrete to identify what is going on so that I can feel like I have some solid sense that my partner(s) have the same vision of the relationship as I do. If I feel "special naked friends" and they feel "one and only soul mate" I think we both need to know that. Also I'm thinking that for some people it's a short cut to laying out expectations. For mainstream people I imagine that "seeing someone" and "boyfriend/girlfriend" have a somewhat standard set of rules attached to them. The devil's in the details of course if you use a pre-made generic contract but I can see the appeal. I see the same thing in poly (primary) and kinky(D/s) and all kinds of other groups. It's like we are drawn to set up these one size fits all relationship templates so we know what to expect from our partners and how to judge and perceive everyone else's.
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Re: Conjugal love
Sun, October 18, 2009 - 3:24 PMIF that is so, it would be insane to even consider conjugal partnering with anyone but a true soul mate, no?
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Re: Conjugal love
Mon, October 19, 2009 - 6:06 AM<<IF that is so, it would be insane to even consider conjugal partnering with anyone but a true soul mate, no?>>
Poontangle, was that question directed at me? I don't believe in soul mates...I do believe that some people are better suited than others and some people know themselves better than others. It's merely been my personal experience that it's easy to jump into that "feeling of love" and make all kinds of promises, only to discover one should have thought a bit longer before calling it love. For me, finding someone I actually get along with and with whom I can have mutual, compatible goals is the pinnacle of bliss. No inference of soul mates intended. :o) -
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Re: Conjugal love
Mon, October 19, 2009 - 8:07 AMonce again - Well said! It seems to me that the term "soul mates" can mean quite different things to different people, and the definitions often mean an intense neurotic love/infatuation and don't include being compatible in terms of personality, goals and commitment. Not sure what Poontangle means here. What the writer seems to be talking about - to me at least - is love in action and not a feeling. There are, of course, emotions involved but it's the actions that define the relationship as loving. This is why it seemed to be based upon Erich Fromm's ideas about the art of loving to me. -
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Re: Conjugal love
Mon, October 19, 2009 - 11:39 AMI don't mean the term "soulmate" as a one-and-only mystical thing. I mean people who are on the same wavelength in their aspirations, values, etc. One might say, compatible in terms of personality, goals and commitment, but I meant even more than just compatible. Some people say "of my tribe" instead of soulmate. I am aware "soulmate" is a buzzword. My response was to the original article. I too agree that love is active... but to try to commit to that with someone who isn't suited on more than emotional/physical attraction levels is foolish. -
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Re: Conjugal love
Wed, October 21, 2009 - 1:30 AMOr... mated..... at the soul level... your "inner truths". In that sense a "mate" is not necessarily the same as a partner or someone you couple with. It is "of like kind". That's what I mean by soulmate... be it lover, friend, whatever -
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Re: Conjugal love
Sat, October 24, 2009 - 2:13 AMGreat article, & wise, interesting, thoughtful posts. Remembering why I loved this tribe in the first place!
Unfortunately, my experience has been much like Bite Me's when it comes to sharing the load... but that doesn't mean I haven't experienced some wonderful, if not lifetime loves. And I've certainly had some issues w/ trust that have stalled relationships... other times when I've trusted too much.
I really get it that love affairs are one thing... a live-in partnership/marriage, tho' related, is something else. Lust & romance are a great beginning, erotic chemistry is a powerful bond that can ease things a lot & bring people closer... but it's far from enough to sustain a life together. I don't know if I'll yet find true partnership in this lifetime, & have become used to freedom. I really tried, but it's been a decade since I seriously thought about living w/ a man as a partner again. I felt too drained...
I'm not interested in a very traditional marriage... never have been, from childhood . But I have longed for & tried to co-create lasting partnerships. I simply can't do the traditional thing, it's not me. That doesn't mean that I don't believe that honesty, trust, shared core goals & values aren't imperative. The key is CO-creation... I'm not interested anymore in doing the bulk of the heavy lifting by my lonesome, to make it work. My experience has sadly been, that for many people, non-traditional means: not really serious. Not having the whole marriage/kids/more trad roles means they're not grounded in the partnership. I don't feel that way... I don't love for real often, but when I do, I don't play games. What's the point? Power plays? Hiding? Feh.
I realize my experience is not universal, & have seen a few great lasting relationships, more traditional & less. Loving partnership is possible! I agree that the price of not relying on tradition, is that we have to forge our own paths. Immensely rewarding, but challenging.
I like what JSinn said about a shared vision. Trust, shared core values & going in the same direction on the big issues.
The one way I digress from the article, is I do think it's OK to have a back-up plan, w/ the idea that w/ the best intentions, stuff happens...& then love & commit as if the back-up plan wasn't there. Like flood or fire insurance... doesn't mean you don't feel that your house is your home.
My Mom & Dad were married for 44 yrs. It wasn't always easy, but the love was real, & Mom, especially, was strong in her commitment. Still, she taught me that a woman should always have her own $, & know how to stand up for herself. (She'd been thru a brief early marriage to a handsome liar w/ a bad gambling habit). It's a good thing she handled things, & kept a stash in her name, because tho' my Dad was a good provider, he's lousy at investing & handling money. Thanks. to Mom the bookkeeper, our family was, & is pretty secure. She grew up poor, & protected all of us. When she died, we realized just how much.
Winhen it came down to it spite of a few blips (mostly on Dad's end) my folks were a team. They were actually quite different in personality. But they jibed, complimented one another, & had similar goals.
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Re: Conjugal love
Mon, October 19, 2009 - 5:29 PMI haven't weighed in with an analysis earlier for a reason, I wanted a bit more time to dwell on the concepts he puts forth. I tacked this on Once Again's response because I think she struck a couple of the issues.
Trust is a huge part of this formula as he has laid it out and as such I do think this is key. Yes it can be very difficult to take that step when one has been burned before. Perhaps this almost needs to be taken from a step of surety and knowledge of the person as a whole. In many ways i think as a society we move way to fast in relationships out of selfish reasons whether it be sexual satisfaction or a desire for validation we don't allow enough time to pass to actually get to know the person. I know I have repeatedly been guilty of this in my past and every time it has created a train wreck. In the same vein for some reason in modern American society we seem to think there is a sense of ownership of another person as soon as we sleep with them. Again this is the level of rushing in before you know the person. Again this is not conducive of trust, my feeling is this is a result of an emotional programming of looking at love from a position of scarcity. If we don't close the deal we lose them even if the deal isn't quite right.
Of the concepts the one that most struck me is the shared vision. Regardless of how independent we think we are when we enter into a serious long term relationship we have to have a level of concern for the other person, we also have to be moving in the same direction. If we fail to do so I think the result is the "We just grew apart syndrome". I know from experience with my parents <who are still together after 45 years and still very much in love> part of their success is that they have together followed a common set of goal, beliefs and attitudes. This shared vision is a great part of why they have been able to get through some very tough things. If you are looking at the world through divergent basis then it is inevitable that you will move apart or the relationship can at worst become adversarial.
Finally on traditional marriage and or multiple partners. I don't find this formula breaks down, It does become far more complex due to the number of personalities involved. Is it do able, definitely, but you better be damn open with all involved and make sure everyone is on the same page. I also don't think you need a legally recognized marriage in order to have this work though I can see where a marking point of some sort of ritual would be a great benefit in the establishment of this. This ritual can be as simple as an agreement between two or more people that we are are going to do this together no matter what the cost. Clearly this must occur with full knowledge and disclosure by both parties but it is definitely doable.
JSin -
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Re: Conjugal love
Mon, October 19, 2009 - 9:50 PMJsin, you amaze me. That says a LOT, that needed to be said.
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Re: Conjugal love
Tue, October 20, 2009 - 6:56 AM<< In many ways i think as a society we move way to fast in relationships out of selfish reasons whether it be sexual satisfaction or a desire for validation we don't allow enough time to pass to actually get to know the person. I know I have repeatedly been guilty of this in my past and every time it has created a train wreck.>>
*nodnodnod* this is very much what i was getting at, and i've had a number of those train wrecks, too. i don't know that i would describe the reasons as entirely selfish...maybe they are; but i would say more "wishful thinking..." we want the *perfect* relationship so badly, perhaps, that we see it before it's real, only we haven't given it enough time - what we "see" what the other party "sees" may not match up in important ways, and we aren't looking at what is, but instead at what we want. you can't force a relationship to be any particular thing, no matter how strong the feelings are, just like you can't force a person to be something they're not - you have to watch and see what develops, and nurture that.
is "wishful thinking" selfish? not deliberately, i don't think. self-centered, perhaps. but i think putting it down to a desire for validation is probably the most accurate. i do wonder, with the cultural change in how we view sex, if we aren't stuck in the middle somehow: it *did* used to be a sign of ownership, at least culturally - something you only did if you were married - and although one could argue that it wasn't like that at all in reality, it was still the cultural ideal. now that the culture is becoming more open-minded about sex, it's not a big deal to have it outside of that committed marriage, but we're still dealing with that programming, and maybe we get caught up in the feelings and the ownership idea and it pushes us to think there *should be* something more there. instead of dating and waiting, so to speak, to see if a shared vision and compatible relationship is possible, we jump in and assume too quickly, sometimes, that a relationship will work.
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Re: Conjugal love
Sun, October 18, 2009 - 11:33 PMAnd when that love is shattered by death, it truly feels as if a part of one's own being has been lost. I thought that the trials and tribulations of our relationship had damaged the love, but when he died, I understood just how much he meant to me. I still miss him, even though it has been a year and a half since his death. If you love someone, tell them, while they can hear the words. -
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Re: Conjugal love
Mon, October 19, 2009 - 5:17 AMKinene, please accept my sympathy for your loss and my thoughts and love. When I was a child my parents told me and my brother that when they argued loudly with each other not to be afraid because they argued because they loved each other not because they wanted to part. It took me a many years to fully comprehend but my brother and I never doubted their constancy. Unfortunately I think the pain you experience is proportional to the depth of your love. It never leaves completely but it does abate. Have you read 'The Year of Magical Thinking' by Joan Didion about her grief from the death of her husband John Gregory Dunne? I wish you peace.
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