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@h-jones

So, here’s my take on it – hopefully I have some appropriate scriptural basis for my verbiage!

The purpose of love (not necessarily romance) between a man and a woman is as a reflection of the love of Christ for His bride, the church, and our humble submission and love back to Him. Look at Ephesians 5:22-33 for the scriptural basis.

Love is a need. Not a desire – a fundamental need. The body may not die if the soul has not love, but he who does not love has not Christ, and that indeed is very much DEAD. (1 John 4:8 – “Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.”) John did not say this lightly – God’s love is the crowning jewel of the divinely inspired work which he gave to us in His Word, His impossible, supernatural love.

I think there is a certain cheapening effect in the phrase “fulfilling physical and emotional needs” that downplays our deep need for love – for a love that will ignore all our flaws and overlook our sins and forgive us every time we screw up, no matter how badly and even if our screw up directly hurts the one who loves us. We were made to love God and be loved, but in our broken, sinful state, we can’t reach that – only He can give us that kind of love, and in His grace, not only does He grant that love in this life and promise our ability to love after His fashion in the next; He gives us a model of His love in the romantic love between a man and a woman which overlooks each other’s failings not out of selfishness, but selflessness – as a beautiful reflection of the true glory of God’s all consuming, all redeeming love.

That promise, “until death do we part,” is supposed to be awe inspiring. We hear it so often that we forget it was shocking in the day and age of its introduction.
Men of the Old Testament and pagan Levantine period commonly took multiple wives and concubines and traded in their older wives for younger. God declared that wrong, an evil mistreatment of the other half of Man created in God’s holy image, and decreed just as He loved one Bride (Israel) whom He would never throw away but whom He would always be faithful to, even through her faithlessness, so should a husband be unfailingly loyal to one wife till the end of his life.

I don’t know if God has a destined “one” for us or not, and perhaps it varies from person to person. Hosea for example was told to marry one woman, a prostitute, to love her faithfully as an example of God’s love to faithless Israel. With Boaz and Ruth, God could have chosen any woman to be the mother of David’s line, but he chose to graft in a pagan-proselyte from among Israel’s ancient enemies as a symbol (check my theology here, make sure I’m not being a crazy heretic) of God’s future redemption of the Gentiles – a young widow with no wealth nor options, simply faith in the God of her mother-in-law that He would redeem her, even being an outsider in Israel.

Romance isn’t really about wistful walks in the park or trips to the movies or checking out each other’s bums. Physical attraction exists for a reason, but physical beauty is not the only thing (nor is it to be completely ignored or denigrated). Romance is really just an outward manifestation of either love or lust: lust if the self is all there is (what I need or want), and love if the other is what really matters (what he/she needs). The same walk in the park can be a consummation of selfishness, or the epitome of selflessness. Though to reach either extreme it would need to be a VERY interesting walk in the park.

The shortest way I can think to put it is this:

“I love you, and there’s nothing you can do to change that.”

I used to say that to my ex-girlfriend, most frequently in the context of forgiving one another and while I believe it is still true, the nature of that love has had to change since our paths no longer really cross anymore. And in many respects, my love for her was clouded with physical infatuation, and I was not as selfless as I should ideally be, and neither she – rarely anyone is.

 

I think to show true enduring love, the way God has shown it to us, is a hard task – and frankly difficult to do in a short format.

 

One way in which I have been trying to do this is through two secondary characters in my novel, a knight and a sorceress: the former of which has some major ego / pride / destiny issues mixed in with his otherwise chivalric-heroic personality; the latter having serious sin nature / temptations, as well as external physical ugliness in the form of horns, claws, a tail – in a medieval setting that very much believes in and fears demonic entities. Their romance goes up and down and sideways, fighting through stubbornness, each one’s inability to put aside their dreams to love the other, loss, betrayal, witnessing the worst – and the best – that each is capable of. It is as they learn to love one another more than themselves (along with a great many other teaching moments) that they come to consummate that romance – and to finally submit themselves to Christ who loved them first.

 

Lemme know if I have been helpful or if I have completely failed to answer your question!