Oprah's pick portrays unconditional love

What I like about Elizabeth Gilbert's memoir "Committed" is how it upholds the value of unconditional love. The notion that we are all flawed but all we want really is to be loved without conditions. It's never about the stuff in a marriage it's always about the substance. Is there romance? Is there passion? Is there respect? Is there kindness? Is there compassion, caring and constant effort? Is there affectionate touching? Does he or she love me no matter what? Is there one place in this life, on this planet where we are loved for just who we are as we are, warts and all? To me, this is what true love and true commitment are all about. And I think Gilbert gets this.

Gilbert points out on page 123 that according to the Rutgers study, other factors of marital resilience include:Education, children,cohabitation, heterogamy, social integration, religiousness, and gender fairness. If you have the book I advise you to sift through the findings of this study--very interesting. But what's even more noteworthy is what Felipe said to Elizabeth when she asks him on page 128 how he knows he really loves her.

Felipe talks about his gem stone business and then he goes on to say, " It's the same with relationships, I think. People always fall in love with the most perfect aspects of each other's personalities. Who wouldn't? Anybody can love the most wonderful part of another person. But that's not the clever trick. The really clever trick is this: Can you accept the flaws? Can you look at your partner's faults honestly and say, 'I can work around that. I can make something out of that.'? Because the good stuff is always going to be there, and it's always going to be pretty and sparkly, but the crap underneath can ruin you." And then Gilbert says, " Are you saying that you are clever enough to work around my worthless junky, crappy bits?" And then Felipe says, "...I can accept the whole parcel."

After 22 years of marriage I think Felipe hits the mark. We are all beautiful and we are all flawed--the deal is can we love that beauty and those flaws of the partner we are with--that's clever allright and wise. I love the famous chinese proverb which says, "Before marriage have both eyes wide open, after, close one." Or the Buddhist saying, " Focus on his or her strengths not the weaknesses or there will be no end to the weaknesses.

Ah, yes, commitment really requires our own commitment to loving unconditionally doesn't it? Any thoughts, Keep creating guys, love, Leslie