I have heard it said that love is a feeling, and I have heard it said that love is a choice.
Of course it is both.
The error of feeling, by itself, is that it gives way to any other feeling, including bad ones. The error of choice, by itself, is coldness and lack of intimacy and human touch. When you have both, the two correct each other’s potentials for wrong, and we get the best of all possible worlds. You have intimacy, and you hold yourself to a rightful standard of conduct in dealing with the woman.
Once an older gentleman told me that he and his wife were tired of one another. I responded to him with what I’ve read from Steven Covey: That sometimes action follows feeling and that sometimes feeling follows action. I told him that the solution to his problem is to treat his wife in a loving manner whether or not he is feeling loving toward her. Start with a rightful action, and the feeling will follow. He found that to be a useful insight.
Now there is only one of me; but there are billions of other men. I want to influence other men to more loving attitudes and more loving behavior. I am not in a position to be with every woman. I am however in a position to show other men that there is a better way.
I have found that many men who have negative attitudes are at one or another level open to a better way if they were to find one. My former wife did some work to fight domestic violence; and when we split up a number of men were watching how the situation would go. I maintained a good relationship with her. I showed these men that marital separation does not have to mean becoming each other’s enemies. If that influenced some of these men toward better attitudes then I have done something.
I do not like to see men be bad to women; but I also don’t like to see women being bad to men. Both sides in the gender conflict are wrong. Neither men nor women are good or bad. Both are capable of both. And the best thing that one can do in this situation is influence both men and women to be better to one another.
Love is both a feeling and a choice. Neither by itself is sufficient. It is necessary to feel love for the partner; it is also necessary to treat her in a loving manner whatever you may be feeling at the time.
This, then, becomes the true definition of love.