On the Making of Love

Sometimes we might look at a couple and wonder how they found each other. No matter how they outwardly seem, act, appear, we see that they can express love, care and affection. How do they do this? What keeps their glue going? How can we find a similar feeling with our partner?

We think we found it at the beginning. We think we knew it. We live on hope and desire for it. But, too often we discover that love is elusive. Where did it go? It escapes us about how, why and when. What is the timing for love as it begins? Will it last? How can we learn together to make it work? What are the ingredients?

So many questions and where are the answers?

We know everyone has an opinion about this. We know there are experts who tell us how to do it. Even there are those who call love a game and go about it like that. There are those who describe love in song, video, literature and movies. But, each one seems to have another interpretation. We are left with the reality of needing to find and shape it ourselves.

What we address here is the serious, quiet, exciting and validating development of love over time. The support and care that a loving story holds. This is a place where we can develop the beauty of our personality from being in the metaphoric arms of a loved and loving partner. The security we can have grows over time. It allows us to fight and repair, to be honest and true in order to work out the life struggles in partnership.

This partnership is both fragile and durable. It can hold the more revealing aspects of the difficult spaces of our nature. The more we trust and share—not just the facts, but the feelings that we experience each day, the more we develop places to express this convoluted nature we all have. Initially we learn how awkward this partnership is, and then view it with more prowess, then to experience what it is to expose in bold relief the needs, wants and desires of fulfilling love.

Love is basic. A need? An instinct? A life force? Yes, it is all of these and more. Our lives involve us in a series of images that we carry individually and collectively about love. These images are also found in art, literature, videos, movies, dreams, tales, myths and stories. They afford us a myriad of pathways for integrating the unconscious material in service of an interrelationship with our conscious life. We are led to find the ‘we’ and this is such a compellingly attractive force that we cannot stand against it. We must accept it and go with it. We learn to trust in the wisdom of our nature that leads us into a love story for many reasons, some known, some unknown and hopefully all filled with the challenge and realization of growth and development beyond what we ever imagined.

Susan E. Schwartz, Ph.D.