When Love Fades: Why Marriage Needs Something Deeper

“I think that’s it. It’s simply over.

“At first, we loved each other so much, and then one day it all disappeared. We can’t bring the love back. It’s gone. I truly feel we need to separate,” Naomi cried.

“Do you feel that you don’t love Yossi?” I asked.

“I feel that he doesn’t love me either,” she continued through tears.

“Is that necessarily a problem?” I asked.

The question stopped her cold.

“What? Of course it’s a problem. What do we have together without love? That’s why we got married,” Naomi said.

When Love Becomes the Foundation

“Naomi,” I said gently, “the thing that destroys most marriages in the Western world is love.”

She stared at me in disbelief. “What do you mean?”

“Let’s imagine that Yossi was wealthy, and you married him for his money. What would you think about that?” I asked.

“That’s disgusting,” she said immediately. “I’m repulsed by women who do that. How could you live with someone you married only for money?”

“And yet,” I continued, “how did people react when you told them you and Yossi were getting married because you loved each other? That you had found the love of your life?”

“Everyone was so emotional. They cried from excitement,” she said.

“So what’s the difference?” I asked.

“Are you serious? I married him because I loved him for who he is,” she replied.

“If you married Yossi for his money and the money disappeared,” I said, “you would clearly leave. The reason for the marriage would no longer exist.”

“That’s sad, but true,” she admitted.

“It’s the same with love,” I said quietly. “Just replace money with love.”

Love as a Hidden Interest

“How can you compare the two?” Naomi asked.

“Because when love is the reason for marriage, you’re not really marrying the person. You’re marrying the feeling they give you. The pleasant experience of being loved or loving.”

She sat in silence.

“When love fades, as feelings often do, the reason for staying disappears as well. In that sense, love becomes a hidden interest, no different from money.”

“But everyone gets married for love,” Naomi said helplessly.

“Thanks to romantic movies and books, love has been elevated into the ultimate justification. But it’s still an external factor,” I explained. “When you say you married Yossi for love, what you’re really saying is that you wanted to live with the feeling, not necessarily with the person.”

She shook her head, struggling to process this.

“So marriage isn’t the natural outcome of love?” she asked.

“No,” I replied. “Marriage must be the goal itself. I get married because I want to be married. Because I want a bond, a commitment, a shared life.”

“I’m confused,” she admitted.

“Believe it or not,” I said, “in marriage, mutual feelings are not the most important thing.”

Something Greater Than Love

“That makes no sense,” Naomi protested.

“I once worked with an elderly couple,” I told her. “I asked the woman if she loved her husband. Do you know what she answered?”

“What?” Naomi asked.

‘I lived with him for thirty years. I suffered with him, rejoiced with him, and lived a full life with him. What does love even mean?’

“And what did she mean by that?” Naomi asked quietly.

“She meant that she gave him something far deeper than love. Love was only one part of it. She gave him herself. All of herself. She belonged to him.”

Naomi listened intently.

“There is something more powerful than love,” I continued. “And that is belonging.”

“You shouldn’t expect Yossi to love you every day,” I said. “Feelings change. But you should expect him to be yours, and for you to be his. When there is belonging, nothing competes with it.”

“In recent generations,” I added, “people criticize earlier marriages for lacking romance. But those couples understood something essential. They didn’t rely on feelings. They chose each other.”

“The Jewish secret to a lasting marriage,” I concluded, “is belonging. A bond that is not conditional on emotion, mood, or circumstance. A love that grows out of commitment, not the other way around.”