Love’s Shades of Black and White Pt. 3: Relationships, Love and Unity

Relationships, love and unity

I overheard someone I respect say this on Twitter, (and I paraphrase): “Relationships and marriage are all about unity than they are about love [Period] Both only work under given principles and none of those principles are absolutely exclusive because love only works to make them efficient…”

Side note: Allow me to be absolutely sincere with you on this one…

The statement above made me (because I love being a-down-to-earth-kind-of-lad) sit down and look deeper into the words; while at the same time analyzing the causes of failed relationships. 

I remembered what my dad once taught me that: a man only gains sanity through using his mind to sail through his failures and picking out what went wrong together with what went right and [somehow] why it went wrong and how it went right… (well done , old man)...

I sat there thinking of all the possibilities there could ever that can make that statement true.  Things like “what really makes a relationship work?” and “Does love really matter, or is it just a catalyst to what already exists between two people!?” and “Do all relationships really fall apart due to lack of love, or is it caused by something else?”… ran through my mind.

As I sat there, I realized that what most people call “love” in relationships is never love at all. Okay, it may be love but I realized that it is normally but a mixture of so many things – many things that are in agreement in order to make sense to the other person and for that person to interpret them as “love”.

Side note: Last year’s blog post titled “Of Love and Falling in Love” may help you in understanding this.

Actions that show or constitute “love” (refer to the blog above) are what when denied of or when shown to someone tend to describe feelings of “not being loved”, “being loved”, "being loved a little" or "pretending to be in love"; and mostly when these actions intermarry/intermingle and are united by a person who is directing them consistently towards another, they can end up being interpreted as “love”. 

Okay, I will explain…

Affection, tenderness, respect, compliments, support, sex (to the married), gifts, romantic actions, financial support… bla bla bla… are some of the actions that a person will always think (and agree with me) that they deserve when in love, right? Okay. What if those actions are denied or transferred to another person in the conceived existence of the first party? Maybe the resulting notion will be that “I am not loved anymore!” or “I have been betrayed…!”, right?
Love, therefore, in such a scenario is not what is lacking but the actions thereof…the so-called consolidated actions that show love… But that is not my argument in total; and I’m neither being cynical nor impractical...

I don’t put away the necessity of love in a relationship. I don’t do that because love puts together too many things between two people that grew up in totally different contexts. I just argue that love can lack in a relationship and that relationship will still be good enough… it will still make sense…


I used to be of a view that Love, yeah that thing called love, is the main constituent in a working relationship and a later abounding marriage. I used to think so because I THOUGHT SO… but not justifiably so… 

I used to side with most ladies (and I am not saying that I now don’t) when it came to the fact that men are not emotional enough and that they don’t care enough… or that they don’t fall in love…This changed when I realized that men DO fall in love… but in a rather guttish way. Theirs is more of a mind and gut issue than it is a heart issue. I realized that I was wrong all along to expect men (not all men actually) to take love as the peg upon which ALL their relationships hang upon (this, I think, is the mistake most ladies make - thinking that relationships hang on love). 

So after realizing all this, it made me to say, "It is one thing to fall in love, while it is altogether another thing to keep on loving someone…” 

Think about that, just for a moment.

What is foundational is this: love will neither give you the respect you crave for in a relationship, nor all those things that add up to make a relationship work; but love, at any given time, will hold two different opinions together if those two opinions would wish for unity.

90% of people who have had genuine relationships will tell you that love was not what pulled them to each other, but rather a package of actions from the other person that made them appealing to their like. I don’t believe there is something like “love at first sight” but rather “attraction at first sight” (and attraction doesn’t have to be sexual... because sexual attraction is lust).

As a relationship grows, moving from one phase to another, (and this happens to every relationship that has a sense of direction) matters arise that call for action - real action and not “love action”… Disagreements, disrespect, violence and so on are some of the things that overwhelm the power of love… (so to say) and Love just somehow refuses to conquer over such! Love may help in tolerating a behavior in someone, but it never solves disagreement(s) or disrespect or financial issues or disease/sickness… It only helps to deal with these issues at hand in a more conscious and understanding way, but never solves any of them… 

Quote: People can love each other but fail to agree – and it can be as always as the sun rises from the East and sets in the West…

Love can be present in a relationship, but minus unity, it becomes weak and useless… And whenever this happens, a separation or a divorce or a breakup lingers in that partnership.

You may ask, “What really breaks (or brings down) relationships or marriages that were once figured as 'unshakeable'? And I will answer back, “There is nothing that is unshakable except for the things that concern the Heaven of God. Putting that in mind, the lack of better and workable conflict management or resolution mechanisms mixed with pride from both or either of the concerned parties will make any 'stong' relationship to come to its knees…”

That is to tell you that unless people in a relationship (or a marriage) work on their differences and lack of unity, love will NEVER be enough to make them stand the test of time. If people can learn on how to amicably solve all their differences, love may not be needed for any relationship(s) or marriage(s) to survive. No wonder we have always heard most elderly people around us say, “I didn’t love them (referring to their spouse) by the time I was getting married to them, but along the way, I learnt to live with them and they learnt to live with me… and it has worked… to the point that I now have come to love them…”

It is weird, but it is true.

Quote: Love grows to maturity. Love grows to bring in unity in a relationship. Mature love unifies.

Quote: Lack of unity (or agreement) in a relationship(s) (and not majorly the lack of love) is the god of most separations, divorces and breakups…

And I am not saying that two separate people can always agree, no; but that they have to agree in order to make a relationship or a marriage work. That is why the Bible says that men should love and honor (or respect) their wives as Christ loves the Church (which means men should love their wives in a manner that makes the Head - who is Christ and in this case, the man - to be in unison or in unity or in agreement with the body - who is the Church and in this case, the wife); while the woman is to respect and submit to her husband…and respect together with submission have an accent and order of unity in them…

Issues that bring disagreements and conflict like finances/money (its availability, management and use), lack of support (commitment and responsiveness on the side of the man/husband; and encouragement and affirmation on the part of the woman/lady/wife), a solemnness to faithfulness and honesty (from both sides), children, education and career choice… can only be solved when that so-called love is proved through agreement…

Final quote: Minus unity, love is empty…

I hope you now get my point.

Bonface Morris.