From Date to Mate - Falling in Love With The Spouse You've Got (Part One)

Why did you get married? Was it because you were lonely, or was it simply time to make a change in your life, to take an expected step.

No, don't recoil in horror. A LOT of marriages started that way. Actually...most of them.

Most couples didn't start out with an unquenchable love for one another. There was attraction - yes. God designed us to like the opposite sex (in different ways, for men and women, to be sure).

There was an emotional link, a feeling of comfort in the presence of the other.

But for most couples, there was also an area of cool calculation during courtship. The part that could think, "You know, I'm kind of glad we're NOT going out tonight."

"Phone's busy...whew."

There is absolutely nothing wrong with these feelings, and others like them. They just mean you're human, and in the absence of sure knowing...you're unsure.

And how can you have sure knowing, that you want to spend your life with someone who's still largely a stranger? Whose life before you met is not a closed book, but one in which you'll only see certain pages.

I know that this goes against what we want to experience, the swept-off-the-feet feeling that we see in films, hear in songs, and might have experienced when we were younger. (And don't think for a minute that men don't get swept off their feet - they do, and they tend to fall into love or infatuation as hard as women do.)

But most marriages...yeah, they're closer to mergers than "Sleepless in Seattle". There's a mental cost-benefit analysis going on at some level - on both sides.

And we often say yes, after the analysis, after the calculation, and with a leap of faith.

And then the real work begins - of making a mate out of a date.

Of falling hopelessly, desperately in love with the person you've married.

We'll look at that tomorrow.