Can You Commit to Love Without All the Facts?

When we choose to marry, we often don%27t know everything. There are often things that are missing. After all, we haven’t seen how our partner behaves in a variety of circumstances, many of which they haven’t yet encountered. But more importantly we don’t always know ourselves. So we search for things to worry about in our partner in hopes of having some level of control. Not wanting to come to terms with the fact that we can%27t control the other. However, there is one element of control, and this lies within ourselves.

Acts of love by way of chessed are seen throughout the book of Ruth.  Rabbi Jonathan Sacks says that Megillat Ruth is about the love that is chessed, loving acts of kindness. Giving, as exemplified by Ruth showing loving kindness to her elderly mother-in-law by remaining by her side even when she didn’t have to. And the chessed that Boaz gave to Ruth, giving her from the fruits of his fields and then choosing to marry her; believing in the potential that he saw living inside of her. Love as loyalty, and belief in what each of them hoped would be.

Many of my clients come to me after they%27ve been dating their partner for a while to work out whether they should in fact commit to them. They see wonderful qualities in their partner, but often find something that is missing. This missing ingredient (sometimes not even fully understood by them) often becomes the focal point of their quest to seek out an understanding about whether their partner is for them.

On Shavuot, we relive history where we recommit to the Torah, after thousands of years of keeping the Torah we know what we are getting ourselves into. However, our forefathers had no clue what they were signing up for when they said "Naaseh V%27nishma". They took a complete leap of faith, only banking on the experience of the love they experienced from Hashem throughout the dessert and of course the exodus from Egypt.

When we date for the purpose of finding our soulmate, we are making our decision based on the little information we have. This is why it is so important to aim to have deep and meaningful conversations and experiences as the relationship progresses, to make sure we have a sense of what we are both signing up for.

We can learn a lot from this leap of faith taking of our ancestors.

• We see that when we jump into something wholeheartedly it can be for the best.
• When we truly believe in something, it has a way of going well for us. We are reflecting something onto the other, and then the other responds in kind.

I see this happening with partners all the time. One starts to let go of their fear and allows themselves to love more freely and then the other responds in kind. It is known as the mirroring effect. Mirroring is when one person subconsciously mimics the behavior of the other in gestures, speech, or attitude.

A good experiment to try in your relationship, whether you’re dating or married is to try to exude positivity, even when you aren’t feeling amazing; and especially if you’re seeing your partner looking low and see how this impacts your partner and then notice how they respond to you.

Give this one a try…and drop me a line to let me know how it goes. I%27d love to hear all about it…