The New York Times’ Modern Love column is what President Barack Obama might refer to as a “teaching opportunity.”
You read what others write about their broken hearts, mended hearts, the ones who got away and the ones that never were. This week’s NYT essay is about a love lost (that perhaps wasn’t) and the will of the woman who simply didn’t believe her husband when he said he didn’t love her anymore.
Laura Munson was understandably shocked and saddened (understatements both, really) when her husband looked at her one day and laid it out there:
“I don’t love you anymore. I’m not sure I ever did. I’m moving out. The kids will understand. They’ll want me to be happy.”
What happened next was surprising even to Munson herself. She simply did not accept the information she’d just been given as fact. She knew her husband was going through a rough time and rather than react emotionally, she reacted evenly and calmly. She says she “loved him from afar” while he went through his own hell. She firmly refused to suffer (though she admits that didn’t always work). And wouldn’t you guess it — he got over it and came back.
It’s a testament to the ultimate power of positive thinking — and not the Pollyanna variety, either. This is a hard lesson in unconditional love: “I love you even when you say you don’t love me.” She used her head — and her love for her husband, and how well she knew him — and she won her family back.
Read it for the reminder that life isn’t what you’ve made it, but how you feel about it.
Full article here, and see the old favorite Seinfeld clip below (totally related).
Photo courtesy of sxc.hu.