It's all about the loooove

L-O-V-E...The thing we all want to find. As a female, love is something that is often on my mind, though I have never before experienced learning about love in a school setting. Boy, was this an interesting experience. In this section we focused on what love is, how people select their partners, and differences between cohabitation and marriage. I'll admit that though I clearly will wait until I'm married to live with someone, I thought the research might show that a different start would produce a more satisfying marriage. I found it really intriguing that those who live in cohabitation have a harder time adjusting to marriage because they lead parallel lives when cohabitating and cannot become "one" as easily after marriage--God really does know what he's talking about. I also found it interesting the different things that go into selecting a life partner. Our textbook focused on what attracts us to people and why people get married. Surprisingly they said that love isn't the biggest reason (though people mistake it to be the only reason). Things such as money, similarity to our families, and close proximity were all reasons for selecting someone--though they may be subconscious. We like what we're comfortable with and thus we seek to find someone who fits into our mold. We also have a very limited pool of people to choose from--though the internet has opened this up quite a bit. 

After this section, I realized that love isn't what we typically may think of and that it can be very hard to define. But, falling in love isn't all we need in order to have a successful and fulfilling marriage. I think love comes with time and grows deeper as we get to know someone more and more. What a beautiful thing!