Love is said to have two sides: a voluntary part and an involuntary part.  The mass media glorifies the involuntary part, that first spark of passion, the feeling of falling that leads you to do wild and crazy things for the object of your love: dancing in the rain, evening serenades under a windowsill, a stolen kiss drenched in starlight.  The more sober institutions in our society counterpoint this with an emphasis on the voluntary part of love, that to love is an action, a choice to do what must be done for the object of our love: reunions with relatives from out of town, sitting through graduations, bedside company during sick days.

Is one or the other suffient?  Clearly the involuntary aspect burns out in the cold light of morning, when the  flowers have faded, the jokes are no longer funny, and you keep hearing the same stories over and over again.  The voluntary aspect is far more durable.  And yet I wonder: is it enough?

Is it enough for a relationship to be built solely on roles and obligation?  Is this not in itself a tragedy, to realize that his happiness is not yours and vice versa?  Isn't is an equal failure to have to go through the motions of constant togetherness when you share no common interests?  Is pain a necessary part of love--to tolerate, to cater to, to acquiesce, to follow, to suffer silently in the tedium, boredom, and loneliness?  Yes, this is love, but with only the weight of the persona of spouse to sustain you, it is a generic love of the ideal marriage.  The love for the other for the other's sake is absent.  It is the persona, not the other that is loved.  Change the other and the love will remain exactly the same, the way we "love our neighbor" or the way we respect the position of Senator or President.  It is an imperfect love, this love for a thing, sad and tragic and deeply flawed when not coupled with the madness that infects us when we meet the one for whom we are truly meant.

The perfect relationship is a balance of voluntary and involuntary aspects.  The voluntary aspect will motivate you to sacrifice for the person you love. The involuntary aspect takes away the sting, so that you sacrifice without suffering.  The voluntary aspect will move you to spend time with the object of your love. The involuntary aspects transforms time spent to time savored, not just time killed. The voluntary aspect makes you say, "He is my husband, therefore I love him." The involuntary aspect makes you say, "I love him, therefore he is my husband."