Love and all that jazz

It seems to me that falling in love is not necessarily enough to sustain a long term relationship - what is more important is that you both bond for life. Not just one but both of you. This is what so many who get married, including myself in my past life, didn't always realise.

Often we think that because we are attracted to someone and want to devote ourselves to their happiness then we are in love and shall live 'happily ever after'. We often fool ourselves into thinking that when they say  'I love you' they must be feeling the same as us.
It's no good if only one of a couple is willing to bond - you both have to bond for without it a love partnership is unlikely to succeed.

Having just attended a 50th Wedding Anniversary - it is clear that the two main participants fell in love and bonded all those years ago and that bond has never failed them. Despite arguments, and moods, and upsets, and troubles, they were so closely tied that nothing cand or will ever break that bond.
That should be our aim when looking for a life partner.

Perhaps we should try to see love as bonding first and only when we are sure it is a two way thing - give ourselves permanently over to love. Some scoff at long engagements - and many these days start living together before a true bond has been built. Too late one or the other or both will find they have  committed themselves to a partnership which cannot work because there is no bond. By then there are often children involved - and it it is they who pay the price for their parents lack of foresight. Bonding demands devotion and loyalty to ones partner. No wonder so many relationships break up these days.

Ah, we do so want to be loved, don't we? And we fool ourselves into believing - without question - that the other person must feel just as deeply and devotedly.

Love at first sight? I wonder how many couples who thought this are still together 50 years later? Of course one likes to think that  'love at first sight' is possible, and very occasionally it does happen, but the proof of the pudding is whether you are together 50 years later. No one makes a note of those statistics!