by Gary Borjesson
Note: Since it is February, and since the world can surely use more love, I offer this as a little Valentine’s gift, dedicated to romantic love. Its inspiration is Stephen Mitchell’s book, Can Love Last? This is not a book review but an invitation to reflect on romantic love, with Mitchell as our guide.

In my early twenties I fell in love with a woman who couldn’t color inside the lines. Brilliant, sensitive, and adventurous, but unreliable, addicted, and self-destructive. Around that time I was also in love with an amazing woman who was healthier and more reliable, if also (like me) less dangerously exciting. I felt conflicted: Should I embrace a more romantic and adventurous life, or choose something safer and more sustainable? My gut told me that choosing adventure in this case would end in heartbreak and bad habits. My heart was split between wanting safety and wanting danger. My head didn’t know what to think.
Many of us face a similar bind, whether to choose safety or adventure. Whether to plan ahead or live more spontaneously and passionately. Whether to hit the open road or put down roots. In his fascinating and wise book, Can Love Last? the fate of romance over time, psychoanalyst Stephen Mitchell addresses this bind, and offers a way through. The way begins by recognizing that romantic love is actually constituted through the tension between “the ordinary and transcendent, safety and adventure, the familiar and the novel, that runs through human experience.”
So, how do we make true love? In Mitchell’s grand vision, it’s not about siding with passion or security, it’s about about bringing them into the living conversation that is romantic love. In the final chapter of Can Love Last Mitchell sums up his argument
deeper more authentic commitments in love entail not a devotion to stasis but a dedication to process in the face of uncertainty. Genuine passion, in contrast to its degraded forms, is not split off from a longing for security and predictability, but is in a continual dialectical relationship with that longing.
Mitchell’s way of putting it would have appealed to my 22-year-old self, who would soon be going off to grad school in philosophy. Back then, however, I didn’t have the maturity or self-awareness to put this wisdom into practice—even if I could have appreciated the theory. Nevertheless, for those who want to make love that lasts, Mitchell’s book offers insight and inspiration. Many practical suggestions can also be gleaned. Read more »