Kings are plagued with the dilemma of determining who is really loyal to them and who of their associates seeks to kill them to gain power for themselves. There is a similar dilemma presented to one who, having some extraordinary quality or feature, is led to question the grounds for love by any particular suitor. This is especially true when someone has great wealth ("does she just love me for my money?") but it also happens to individuals who have social standing, a particularly noble pedigree or family lineage, great beauty, or fame. To a certain degree, such conditions seem to give adequate grounds for doubting the presence of love, but do they?
On this model, let's say there are 'n' number of qualities that an individual could have, the "grounds" for doubt would be each of the possible qualities; i.e., that Jack, having 'n' number of qualities, could be loved by Jill for any one or any combination of those qualities. It would then be possible for Jack to say: "Jill doesn't love me, she only loves these qualities and so her love is suspect." Of course, a corollary to this is for Jack to say "what Jill feels for me isn't really love because she only cares for these certain qualities." The assumption here is that there is a residual "Jack" that is left over after we subtract all the qualities and that, since Jill only loves the qualities, she, therefore, doesn't love the residual Jack. But Jack has another problem, not only does he think there is a residual "Jack" left over after the qualities are subtracted, he also thinks that love offered him by Jill is not real love because it is triggered and prompted by the qualities and not by the residual 'Jack.'
Jack's view that there is a "residual" self that lies apart from all the qualities that exhaustively describe Jack is based on the mistaken belief that a "self" can be "inwardly" present with no "outward" clue or effect as to its presence. That is, that it is possible to have a difference inwardly with no difference outwardly. If this were true, then Jack could never be loved because no one would ever be able to detect the "real" Jack. But what we have here is not so much a problem in logic as it is a problem in psychotherapy.
Typically, individuals who are not so distinguished by wealth or fame, etc., do not raise questions when they discover that someone loves them, unless, of course, they are in poverty and someone wealthy "takes a shinin'" to them. That is because to raise the question of the validity of someone's love for you is not really a question of the love but, rather, of your own self-worth. That is, it seems to people raising such questions that the feelings of doubt are about the love offered when the doubt is really a self-doubt; when we raise such questions it is because we do not know who we are. Quite often this happens after many years of marriage and the individuals have changed and grown apart to only wake up one day and discover that the other doesn't really know them at all. Indeed, they have only just begun to know who they are themselves. But hope is not lost; couples counseling is quite effective in helping individuals regain the balance in their relationship provided, that is, that there ever was a balance and not just a detente.
On the other hand, there is a bond of love that transcends the qualities of the individuals involved; that is, the satisfaction of that bond consists in merely finding the other and making the discovery explicit to oneself. Of this bond it is truly said: "What God hath joined together, let not man put asunder." I have often quipped that marriage, as we know it, could not possibly be ordained by God because if God put two people together they couldn't get asunder; the very fact that divorce is even possible is proof positive that the bond is not the one God ordained. And, as with all things Holy, the guidance and direction for these relationships must begin in the Heart and with God.
Jack's other problem, of not thinking that Jill's love is real, is also a problem of self-worth. Not only is there a lack of confidence in Jack that he is worthy of Jill's love; there is also a decided lack of experience in giving that kind of love. Here I am reminded of Mary Magdelene's song "I Don't Know How to Love Him," from Jesus Christ, Superstar (see link below). In that song, she intimates that she has met a man who inspires love in her but not a love that she immediately recognizes and she, herself, has changed...she continues by saying that "He scares me so. I want him so. I love him so."
But it's no wonder that Jack is confused; we use the term "love" so cavalierly that it barely has any meaning anymore; couple that with the eternal Truth that Love is the hub of all that is and we scarcely know where to begin. But, again, hope is not lost. Once Jack "finds" himself and discovers his "ultimate concerns," then he will attract the Jill for him; and, again, that is a journey that begins in the Heart and with God, the Light of Life.
The attracting is going on all the time; what we currently have, we attracted; and we did it by means of our thoughts and feelings. Jack's "confusion" about love is symptomatic of the changes he is going through in personal growth; when I said he will attract the Jill for him, I meant it quite literally. Once you become clear about what your root values are, then someone with those very values will come into your life...it is the law of our being, which is Love. I have always maintained that marriage is for adults and part of what I mean when I say that is that we cannot possibly attract "the love of our Life" if we have not grown to full-stature in who we know ourselves to be. Childhood sweethearts are not an exception to this because they contribute to that growth in the other and are daily apprised of the progress and make corresponding adjustments in themselves. The situation is quite different for individuals who make their growth in widely different environs and social milieux; in their case, they come together as climbers on different faces of a mountain approach one another the closer they get to the top. Metaphorically, the "top" is the "ultimate concern" that each has identified; as each makes progress to that common concern, they come together as individuals to discover their eternal bond.
As a final comment, let me say that, in the end, Love needs no grounds; it is self-grounding and that upon which we build everything else. The problem that needs solving is how we can contact Love within the Heart of our own consciousness. To seek for something that somehow "justifies" one person's love for another, is, to quote one of my favorites, like "a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." We must, instead, see it as the same author put it in his 116th Sonnet:
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
"I Don't Know How to Love Him"
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