I LOVE HER BUT I AM NOT IN LOVE WITH HER
Tom Cruise said this on getting a divorce from Nicole Kidman: “I love her but I am not in love with her”. There is a grain of truth in what he said. The feeling of being in love is not love.
We all *love* being in love, don’t we? When we waltz along the street (or at least walk, but with those springy steps). When the world is still the same but it just looks different: more colorful, warmer, brighter. When a 5-minute phone call makes us smile all day long. When a date is the only thing that matters in this whole world.
Indeed those are the best moments of our lives. Those are the times when we truly feel alive, and be grateful to be alive. So full of hopes and bursting with energy. So full of dreams and bursting with passion. Amazing how one person can inspire us so.
But here is Life’s little secret: you cannot be in love forever. It is too tiresome; it takes up too much energy. The feeling, with all its roller-coaster ride sensation and rainbow colors, will soon wear off. You fall in love, and then you fall out of love.
So did Tom Cruise. So does everyone.
The question is: what to do next when you fall out of love? Get a divorce? Cheat on your partner? Suddenly support polygamy?
M. Scott Peck, a psychoanalyst I most respect, argued that the end of “being in love” could well be the beginning of “a real love”. When you get over your infatuation, when you no longer crave your beloved, and yet you two are willing to stay together and help each other to grow beyond the boundaries— that is Love. Will and acts (sometimes hard-labored!) to be better, happier persons both.
So Tom Cruise got over his infatuation. If only he (and she) had worked on their Love, the couple might have been together still, and happier than ever. Pity.
posted by eloque @ 6:30 AM
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