Clive Staples Lewis…..Over the course of this Lenten series, please allow me to periodically share with you why this 20th century intellectual giant is my all-time favorite Christian Author. A one- time Atheist, he came to experience the magnificence and love of God and could not stop writing about his faith until he died.
On the basis of marriage: A man and a wife are to be regarded as one flesh, which in modern English translates to a single organism. Christians are wont to believe that when Christ said this, He was not expressing a sentiment but stating a fact, just like a violin and bow make up a single musical instrument. The combination is not only on a sexual level, but in a total sense; a total union of the multiple facets of man. Hence the monstrosity of sexual intercourse outside marriage; this is like trying to isolate the pleasures of taste from the pleasure of eating, by chewing and spitting out food without swallowing and digesting.
On the modern view of divorce based on falling out of love: The idea that ‘being in love’ is the only reason for remaining married really leaves no room for marriage as a contract or promise at all. If it is only about love, then the promise adds nothing; and if it adds nothing, then it should not be made……The promise made, when I am in love, to be true to the beloved as long as I love, commits me to being true even if I cease to be in love. A promise must be about things that I can do, about actions: no one can promise to go on feeling in a certain way…..He might as well promise never to have a headache or always to feel hungry.
More on ‘Being in Love’: Being in love is a glorious state, which is generally good. It encourages generosity, courage and attention to the beauty of the beloved and the world. At least in the initial stages, it conquers lust by subordinating the mere animal sexuality. But it cannot be an impulse that must be followed at all costs and cannot be the basis of a whole life. It is a noble feeling, but still a feeling. No feeling can last in its full intensity, or even last at all. Knowledge, principles and habits can last, but feelings come and go. ‘They lived happily ever after’ is a fairy-tale because they could not go on feeling the way they felt on their wedding day for 50 years.
But of course, ceasing to ‘be in love’ need not mean ceasing to love. Love in this second sense is not merely a feeling, but a deep unity, maintained by the will, and deliberately strengthened by habit, reinforced by the grace which both partners ask and receive from God. (At least in Christian marriages). They can have this love for each other, even at those moments when they do not like each other; just as you still love yourself even when you do not like yourself (not happy at something you’ve done, or a situation you are in). Being in love first moved them to promise fidelity, this quieter love enables them to keep the promise. It is on this love that the engine of marriage is run: being in love was the explosion that started it.
People get from books and art, the notion that marrying the right person can result in being in love forever’. When this does not happen, they feel entitled to a change; the glamour will go out of the new love just as it went out of the old love. Like every department of life, thrills come at the beginning and don’t last. The thrill you feel on first seeing some delightful place, dies away when you go on to live there. But if you go through with it, the dying away of the first thrill will be compensated for by a quieter and more lasting kind of interest.
What is more, it is just the people who are ready to submit to the loss of the thrill and settle down to the sober interest, who are then most likely to meet new thrills in some quite different direction. This is, I think, one little part of what Christ meant by saying that a thing will not really live unless it first dies. So, let the thrill go – let it die away- go on through that period of death into the quieter interest and happiness that follows and you will find you are living in a world of new thrills all the time.
Culled from Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis. Some portions edited for brevity.
Take-away points: A promise is made about actions to be carried out, not about emotions and feelings. It is normal to have periods when you don’t really like your spouse’s actions, but you never stop loving him/her; just as you don’t stop loving yourself during the times when you don’t like yourself or your actions.
Hilltop Thoughts, Valley Strengths 
Brilliant analogy!
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