Photo by Charles Black and courtesy of Chuck Black Photography

Nearly losing my spouse to a silent but potentially deadly medical condition has had a powerful ability to concentrate my thoughts, especially about what it means to have someone like that who makes up such a large part of your life.

Facing the frighteningly real prospect of losing that person has made me think deeply about the true nature of love and happiness.

It started when I awoke in the night with a dark thought, what if my wife in bed beside me had stopped breathing?

It wasn’t a random anxiety. I had real reasons to think it might be true.

A Routine Test

Earlier that evening, my wife had come to me with the result of the five-minute medical test she had undergone earlier that day. She showed me the one-page result and asked what I thought.

Although I’m not a cardiologist, I am a doctor, and I recognized this abnormal result indicated a potentially deadly medical condition. The frightening kind where sudden death is a real possibility. What do you say in a position like that?

The weird part was that she felt fine. Well, she had been feeling a little off. But, then again, she had just performed a high-intensity workout at the gym with friends and a trainer, so it wasn’t like she was incapacitated. Yet, her energy level and exercise tolerance weren’t what they used to be.

We agreed to wait for the doctor to call the following day as my wife had been instructed. I told her and myself that it would all be ok. But apparently, I did not believe that because I was laying in bed awake and afraid to touch my spouse for fear I would find she wasn’t breathing. I lay there wondering how I would react if she never woke up?

Would I fall apart?

What would I say to the kids?

What would I do next?

My Long Night

The blankets were too warm. I was in a cold sweat when I finally summoned the courage to touch her and felt the reassuring rhythm of her sleeping breath. I kept my arm around her and couldn’t go back to sleep out of my anxiety that if I stopped monitoring her, she might stop breathing.

Those hours laying awake gave me a lot of time to contemplate a world without my wife and to navigate that landscape in my imagination.

It seemed an empty, desolate, cold place where the sun never rose. A lifeless place where happiness never bloomed.

I know it is romantic to think that I couldn’t go on without the love of my life, but that is a juvenile view of love. The fact of the matter is that I would go on. I have three children who would need me more than ever.

I would be strong for them and show them the way forward. Living for them would give me purpose, a reason to get out of an empty bed each morning.

Plus, my being miserable wouldn’t change anything. There is no depth of depression I could sink into that would bring someone back from the other side. Although my despondency would be a dramatic gesture, that is all it would be, as it wouldn’t accomplish anything.

My Wife is Not the Source of My Happiness

This got me thinking about the nature of a healthy relationship. My wife is the most important person in my life. She is my best friend, confidant, co-parent, and occasionally “partner in crime.”

What she is not is the only source of happiness in my life. That is not a mature way to look at a loving relationship, even one of three decades.

Seeing another person as your source of happiness does not make for a healthy relationship.

What many people do wrong is love another person because that person makes them feel a certain way. The problem is that you are saying, “I love you because you make me feel _____.”

The problem with this approach is that the opposite is true: “If you stop making me feel ______, then I won’t love you anymore.”

It happens all the time that relationships end because “the magic disappeared.” When people say something like that, they are saying that they didn’t love the other person. What they loved was the thrill the other person gave them, and when that thrill disappeared, so did the love.

Transactional love.

Love becomes a bargain. Loving someone for how they make you feel makes love transactions. People are saying to each other, “I will love you as long as you make me feel excited, special, happy and loved.

But if I stop feeling that way, then I won’t love you any more.” Surely you can see that this is not real love.

This is just a convenient arrangement to get something you desire from someone else, and it can only lead to disappointment, disillusionment and heartbreak.

The real nature of love.

I don’t think I fully understood the nature of love until we had children. Infants can’t do anything for you. They can’t even do anything for themselves.

My babies depended on my wife and me, and we loved them more than I had ever loved anything. It was a non-transactional relationship, as the infants could not give anything in return. It is the purest form of love I have ever felt.

That is what love truly is, a love for another based on what you can give them rather than what you get from them.

I love my wife for who she is; fabulousness, flaws and all. I see potential in her and want to help her grow into the person she can be. That is what a relationship is: two flawed individuals who come together to help each other be better and create something more than the sum of its parts.

What a loving relationship is not.

What a loving relationship is not is a transaction where you get something in return for loving someone else. That isn’t love, that’s a business agreement, and like all deals, either party can walk away when they feel they aren’t getting what they want from the arrangement anymore.

What I Learned.

So what did I conclude from my long night of soul-searching? First, I would be happy again. I can remember being happy before I met my spouse, which means it would also be possible to be happy without her. Although she makes me happy, she is not the source of my happiness; I am.

Second, a loving relationship is about what you give. It is giving without the expectation of anything in return that signals love.

When you expect something in return, you are in a transactional relationship; you are making a deal to love someone only as long as they provide you with what you want. When you stop getting what you want, then you stop loving.

True love is like your love for a small child who can do nothing for you. It is pure giving with no expectation of receiving anything in return.

The joy of caring for an infant comes not from the child but from inside yourself. Giving love makes us deeply happy while receiving love is a temporary fix.

Third, I realized I need to accept the world as it is. My wife had a severe medical problem, and I couldn’t change that. The reality was what it was, regardless of whether or not I liked it. I can fight reality because reality always wins.

What I needed to do was accept the situation. I couldn’t eliminate the problem but I could get her the medical care she needed. I could sit by her bedside to comfort and support her, kiss her as she went off for her procedure, and wait when she returned. So, I did what I could to accept the reality of the situation while still taking control of the elements within my ability.

Our New Normal

My wife and I are now on the other side of this frightening event. The problem is not reversible, but with the care she received, we hope to be together for another three decades. We are now on the other side, working to find a new normal. Adapting to living in a world that is not as safe or certain as we had previously assumed, in a world we now realize is not within our control.

Conclusion

Moving forward, I can’t know what else reality has fated for us. What I do know is that what will be, will be. I can’t change it, so I must learn to accept it.

In the meantime, I will remember that my happiness comes from within me, not from anyone or anything else.

Keeping that in mind, I will keep my relationship with those I love focused on what I can give rather than what I get. Right now, that is easy because I am so thankful that my wife is home and safe, but as the trials and stresses of everyday life reassert themselves, it will take a conscious act of will to stay focused on what is most important.

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