Sunday, September 16, 2007

selfless love

I have several blog posts that are itching to get out of my brain and into the blogosphere, but they will have to wait. Stay tuned. For today, I want to throw out some food for thought. This afternoon, Jared and I have been discussing love. Specifically, love between spouses. And I posed this question to him which I now pose to you: What do you love about your spouse (or anyone very close to you) that is separate from yourself?

There are many reasons why we love people, and I honestly do think that a large portion of these is because it benefits us in some way. The root is in someway selfish. But if you take away all those things, if you remove yourself from the equation, if you look at your best friend as just a person and not your husband/wife, or the father/mother of your children, or the person who cleans your house, or provides for your sustenance, or cooks you delicious meals, etc... what do you see? What do you love? What is it about this person, about who they are in their core, that you love?

That is what we are thinking about today at our house. I'd love to hear your thoughts on the subject and your answer to the question. It can apply to more than just a spouse--your parents, your siblings, your best friend... I'm interested to know what you all love about the people closest to you.


8 comments:

  1. Does being a woman who most definitely does love her man, qualifies me to be commenter #1 here? I hope so.
    I love Nate's (almost) uninterrupted optimism and confidence in himself. I love his ability to see things for what they are. I love his ability to grind through hard things (on that list would even be marriage to me, sometimes :) And I'm not going to lie, I double love his body. I love his tenderness. I love his ability to admit a mistake and his ability to call me on mine. I love how during the best man's toast at his friend's recent wedding, he fought back tears as he told the whole crowd, (comprised mostly of roudy, unmarried, booze-loving, twenty-somethings,) in reference to our marriage, "everything I know about true love, I learned from her." And I love that I feel the exact same way about him.

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  2. A topic that is so fun to think about-and lots of time to think about it lately w/ a husband missing 5/7 days of the week. Some of my favorite things about Jake: 1-How much of a manly man he is. He loves fixing/creating things on his own, mostly masculine things. I love it how he's innately interested in loud, powerful, fast things and wants to ride/operate/control them. I love it how much he LOVES Ellie. He is crazy to the core for her. I love his daily raves for her. I love his honesty and his complete open communication with me, a real novelty in a lot of marriages. I LOVE his genuine no-walls, no "I have to prove it" happy, appreciating personality.

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  3. One thing that I really love about Neil is his self-discipline when it comes to his work and study habits. The reason why I love it is because I know that he doesn't spend 18 hours a day working because he likes to; he does it because he knows it will have enormous dividends for his family. I love how I utterly believe him when he tells me confidently that thus-and-such will work out, whether it's a phase one of our kids is going through or something broken on the car or how-will-we-afford-this-thing. I really love how he gets down on the floor and plays happily with our kids like it's the best thing anyone could ever ask him to do.

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  4. Ok I am going to try to follow your rules here...You are right...most of the reasons we love those close to us is because of what they do for us or how they make us feel about ourselves. What I love about my husband is that he never gets angry really. I know that sounds crazy...but its true. The only time he gets upset is if I get mad at him, otherwise, he is just so grounded and calm, and realizes that most things are not worth getting upset over. Also I love that he is so generous with those around him. Truly, he will do anything to help a friend or family member, and never thinks about what he is getting out of it...which is RARE I have noticed. I love that. It makes me feel extra protective of him and really bugged when people take advantage of that. Also he genuinely wants those around him to be successful and happy. I love that. I feel like he is a person who has a lot going for him but he doesn't feel the need to constantly talk about himself or what he is doing in life. He let's other's shine. Ok one more thing. I love that he is just genuinely a happy person. He is happy about his life. He wakes up everyday with a cheerful attitude (sometimes annoyingly) and I love that--actually I am super jealous of it.

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  5. So, good looks are probably selfish cause it's you that gets to look at them, right? hee hee.

    Hmmm, things I love about Brett, not beneficial to me. But when you start thinking hard about things, you can kind of work most of them out to be beneficial to you somehow. Anyway, here's my quick list.
    He loves to figure out how things work, his mind grasps things so quickly and then jumps to the next question and beyond. He is creative. He is a REALLY hard worker (I know that benefits me, but it's something I love about him just as him, ya know?). He is FUN! He is hot. He has so many interests and aspirations.

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  6. wow. everyone has such great comments katrina. great job getting the discussion going. and to think that i just wanted to say hi :) thank you for commenting on my blog. it's always nice (as you know) to know that people even read the words you write.

    sure miss you dear. and love the bangs. come play in dc soon. love you.

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  7. oops, i guess i didn't really follow the rules, am i disqualified?

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