Love Out of Bounds

HERE is a married individual who has not found in marriage all that marriage seemed to promise or here is one who so far has had perfect happiness. But one fine day there comes into the picture the perfect creature, the dream person—the ideal.

Oh, to be sure, there is no thought of renouncing one’s home, but one dreams of a friendship of a very special kind . . . intellectual exchanges . . . There will be bodily separation but as high a degree as possible of soul union. They do not wish to fall. They will not fall. Is such a noble friendship forbidden?

A noble friendship is certainly not forbidden. But is that the case we are considering or is it not rather a dangerous friendship of which we speak? When beauty—let us suppose it is not just an imaginary ideal—does not coincide with the good, can there be anything else possible but seduction and fatal risk?

After all, have you not promised to another the entire gift of yourself. Love does not consist only in the material gift of the body but also and still more in the gift of the soul and of the heart. What then does this mean? Do you think you can divide the divine arrangement? Reserve for your marriage partner the traditional gift of your flesh while you are withdrawing the very part that gives honor and dignity to this tradition—your interior affection and fidelity.

Your partner in marriage has a right to your whole being. The day of your marriage you indicated no division; therefore you are in contradiction to what you have promised, to what God demands and to what your partner expects. Would either of you have accepted the other if you thought the endurance of the bond was based on whim and that an essential reserve was contemplated? Does not marriage involve at one and the same time the body and the heart. There can be no thought then of a simple material fidelity.

Reverse the roles. The temptation which you are experiencing— because it is a temptation and a sly temptation at that—is not experienced by you but by your partner. What would you think of giving in to it then? Would you be willing to accept the situation for yourself that you are tempted to impose on your partner?

You say “we shall never go so far as to be intimate.” Are you sure? How can you guarantee that after a primary infidelity you will not fall into a secondary infidelity? And what assurance against surprise have you? If you boldly walk up to danger, do you believe divine grace to be obligated to save you in spite of yourself? How many who like you claimed to be strong and sure of themselves have fallen! All the sins of infidelity in marriage begin like this.

Surely if at the first attack, this perverse love would reveal all its batteries the noble soul would revolt. But it doesn’t. It ingratiates itself, slipping in decorously and gently. Patience! It will turn sensual and you will be tricked!

Besides, suppose you do keep your senses in control, are sins of action only to be condemned? What of sins of thought? Of desire? Our Lord said, “that anyone who even looks with lust at a woman has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”

But you say, I shall accept only what is elevated, noble, in this friendship. So you say. But that you will not do because it is practically impossible. Let us just admit your hypothesis for the sake of discussion. All right, it is true for you. Is it true for the other person? Can you say positively that your imprudence will not arouse in him or in her troubled thoughts and desires? You are not an Archangel; the other person is no Seraphim. Well then? . . .

No! no! Away with lies and false reasoning! Lord, put order into my love. Grant that I may love only according to Your law.