To Like and To Love

            (For anyone contemplating marriage, or weighing their relationship)

When do you like a person and when do you love someone? If you like being around a person, is it because you love them[him or her], or like the person for the pleasant feeling it gives you to be there? Obviously you don't really like being with someone if it is unpleasant to be there even if you would make some sacrifice for the person out of love.

To like a person is to feel good about their presence because the person makes you feel good. But love is a commitment not limited to the good feeling you get from being in harmony with that person. It is caring about the person whether or not you may like the persons at a given moment.

It may be that before marriage, you may like a person very much, but would not be willing to make a sacrifice if things got really rough in your relationship, or if you were very disappointed in that person. After marriage, in the commitment of faithfulness and permanent love, you are committed to to care regardless how you feel, whether or not you like how the person is relating to you at the moment or generally. Thus it may be that liking the person dominates the relationship before marriage and love is the commitment in marriage.

So, when you cuddle up to your partner, is it liking or loving? If it is only for your own feelings, it is liking. If it is also because it makes her or him feel good, it is also loving. It is both when it is what you both want to give to each other and what you want to receive and it makes you both feel good. It is the same for sex. It can be mutually positive, or for the benefit of one more than the other.

If closeness is only for the liking of one of the person, it becomes a matter of self interest, and becomes a turn-off for the less interested person. Unless closeness is for the sake of the other person, unselfishly. I suppose all relationships should keep a balance of loving and liking: or loving above liking. Certainly to love a person you don’t like some imperfections in part becomes a test of a real relationship. Hopefully, one both likes and loves the person you marry. Usually in marriage one discovers traits you don't really like. It is love that carries you through in the commitment to a permanent relationship.