Society says: Marry the person you love.

Bible says: Love the person you marry.

What teaching is better? I think both are good, but the one from the Bible is more important. That’s because the Bible teaches you to love your spouse always, and not just while it feels great.

You can certainly follow the teachings of the Societies, but if you don’t follow the Bible teachings as well, you won’t have a long and successful marriage. To put it simply, you can marry someone you didn’t fall in love with and choose to love that person (and that person chooses to love you), like an arranged marriage for example, and you’ll have a long and happy marriage, whereas if you fall in love with someone, marry them, but then don’t choose to love them unconditionally even when butterflies fade away, you’re marriage will be a disaster.

That’s what society gets wrong about marriage, it’s too focused on feelings you can’t control like falling in love. The problem with that is that those feelings of love are hard to separate from feelings of lust, and lust only brings disaster. One good way to answer the age-old question “Is it love or lust” is when you are in the middle of a big fight, when that person you think you love has irritated you so much – in those moments, do you still try your best to stay respectful? Do you still feel love for that person regardless of the fight you’re having? If you do, then it might be something worth fighting for.

Society: If you find the right person you’ll be happy.

Bible: Become the right person to be happy.

The key takeaway from this is don’t look for fulfillment in other people (or things FYI). If you feel bad about yourself, then the problem is already somewhere in your life, and you must find it. Finding a good partner (or people in general) for your life is much easier once you’ve dealt with yourself first.

Society: Love is a feeling.

Bible: Love is a choice.

I’ve pretty much covered this in the first part. I would just like to add that divorce is a choice, not a feeling. Same way, love is a choice, not a feeling. You choose to love someone, you choose to respect someone (so you don’t cheat or humiliate them) and in that same way, you choose to not get divorced.

Society has a LOT of problems with divorce. This comes from the fact that people no longer view marriage as something sacred but rather as some business deal, and each business deal can be canceled. I don’t think I would ever get divorced, that’s because I’ve talked with my wife about it and firstly there is just too much respect between us to cheat or do anything unholy like that, but even if we did, if God can forgive us that so can we forgive each other.

It’s like the saying “Two wrongs don’t make it right”, if one of us was unfaithful and therefore sinned before God, how would it help if we then separate and therefore sin even more?

Choose love, and choose respect, always!

Society: When it gets hard, just leave.

Bible: When it’s hard lean on me & each other.

This is just what I was saying so there is no real need for me to repeat myself. Take care and make good choices rather than live by your feelings.