Love is . . .

Netflix dropped Wedding Season in 2022, and it quickly became one of my comfort movies. The stunning saris, the community, the meddling parents. But as much as I love Asha and Ravi, it was Suneeta, Asha's mother, whose love made the biggest impact on my heart. 

In a brief scene Suneeta tells her daughter why she wants her to marry for love. She shares that her parents arranged her marriage to a stranger despite knowing she was in love with another man. She was heartbroken when she married Asha's father, but that wasn't the end of her story.

"At first, I pretended to love your dad. But eventually, I didn't need to pretend anymore." 

That line spoke volumes. 

She pretended to love her husband until she did love her husband.

Her choice cultivated love.

I've grown up in the United States, and I've always received negative messaging towards arranged marriages. At worst they're oppressive. At best they're destining people to a life of commitment without love. 

Just the other day I was watching a movie in which the love interest's mother, a queen, had been in a similar situation as Suneeta. She'd married her parents' match despite being in love with someone else. By Western standards the criticism of this marriage was light. The queen never regretted her marriage because her son wouldn't have been born without it. She even said that her and her husband were happy "in their own way" before saying that they never laughed together and urging her son to do things differently.

Out of all the classic romcom tropes--your boyfriend is actually the prince of a small country, your fiance is super chill that you decided to dump him for your new boyfriend, you had to fake a relationship with someone--arranged marriages are outside the realm of feasibility. It seems like in Western media, they can only ever be a means of conflict that separates the lead from the real love interest or her own autonomy.

We don't believe as a culture that people can find love in arranged marriages. How can they? This wasn't their choice. The marriage wasn't based on their feelings, and no one can force someone to love another person. 

But that's where choice comes in.

Our feelings change all the time, yet we still believe that if we were married to someone we didn't love, we would never have love. We're resigned to this fate. So what good is choosing to love someone? 

What we don't understand is how much choice and commitment affect feelings. 

In Jane The Virgin Jane goes from being a hopeless romantic who believes in the power of meant-to-be to a hopeless romantic who believes in the power of choice.

During a wedding speech in the later seasons, Jane credits the couple's success not to fate or their own passion but to them choosing each other. She says, "In the face of a million obstacles, they chose each other. When it seemed like they should give up, they chose each other. And they keep choosing each other . . . That's commitment." 

We place such a big emphasis on feeling, and while feelings are important, Jane learned that choice is what sustains love. Feelings might get us into relationships, but choice is what keeps us there.

Yet Western media continues to portray feelings as ultimate. They are the only source of love. They're easy and unshakeable. And if they're lacking in your current relationship, that relationship has no worth. Because love is easy. Love is natural. It certainly shouldn't take work. And the only thing we're committed to is pursuit of that feeling of love.

And it's that messaging that justifies cheating tropes.

It's that messaging that ruins the happily ever after at the end of our movies.

Because feelings fade. No matter how strong they are, we'll have moments where those emotions feel distant or where they're replaced with a negative. We'll have moments where we care more about loving ourselves than we do about the person we chose. And that's why commitment is so important. Because when we're committed to someone, we have to make a choice to love them even when it's hard. We have to keep choosing them. 

And like Suneeta in Wedding Season, we might be surprised what happens when we choose to love someone despite our feelings. 

Choice helps us to withstand the hard seasons and often creates feelings of love where there were none. 

Choice is powerful and necessary for our marriages.

Yes, in love marriages feelings come first. They're what get you to the altar. And they are good. But it's commitment that gets you "til death do us part." And it's choice that keeps love alive until you get there. 

Love is a feeling. But more importantly love is an action. Something we choose to do. And the greatest love is born out of commitment, not passion.