爱华网系列专题：《点亮生活的智慧：人生之钥》
And then there was the Connemara workman, chatting away whilst plastering my kitchen. Having mentioned in passing that his wife had been left widowed with two little boys, he made the odd friendly reference to Jimmy, their dad. “You knew him?” I asked. He shook his head. “We never met. But I have a feeling he’s still with us, somehow, looking down from afar.” Then, smiling, he went on: “And I say to him, don’t you worry, Jimmy.I’m here. I’m looking after them for you.” I looked on, impressed, as he bent to refill his trowel. “She fell out of love with me,” sighs a man, apparently accepting this as a regrettable but perfectly valid reason for his partner in life to have abandoned him. As if ‘being in love’, an emotional state as volatile as any mood, were a prerequisite to staying loyal. “He replaced me with a younger model,” sniffs a middle-aged wife, fighting off bitter memories of the passion experienced early on in her marriage, before the friction and trivia of everyday life wore it all away, revealing nothing but a vacuum underneath. The person who has no explanation to offer is one who had settled for a safe, rational union based on mental affinity and mutual interests, but came to see the other half suddenly, inconceivably, after years of congenial living, make a bid for freedom.
It seems that neither emotions, physical attraction nor common sense can be depended upon to keep a couple together. So what does it take for two people to maintain a life-long devotion? Is it love – undying love? Is there such a thing? Or is that love a function of something else? At the end of the day, it may all come down to values. A relationship is only as sound, and as lasting, as the values shared by the two inpiduals involved.
