Peicing hurts like hell and is harder than...

[LoginName]

I was having a conversation on another's thread about love being a choice, and what that meant. I had this idea I wanted to share, but couldn't find the posts on that other thread, so I'll put it here.

Here is my idea. Choice only exists if the options are known to the person and that person believes they are real, viable options for them.

This idea started for me years ago while in the Navy. I met an Air Force Captain at a conference. He was of cuban decent, and from the Miami area. He told me that he was raised in the slums, spoke spanish, listened to spanish radio, watched spanish TV, billboards were in spanish, and he did not see anyway out of the slum and the life he knew there. Then, somehow, he was exposed to the option of joining the military. He said until then, sometime in High school I think, he had no idea that there was a military and that he could join it. He did join, bettered his life, worked up to officer, got out of the slums.

The point there for me was, the military was not a choice for him until he knew about it.

Then later, I started to see that even if a person knew of the option and the opportunity, if they didn't believe it would work for them, it still didn't really exist as an option, and there still was no real choice. If that AF Capt had thought that there was no way the AF would take him, or that he couldn't pass the physical, etc., than the AF would not be an option for him, and he may still be in the slums.

So our spouses and love: We say love is a choice, but our spouses may not believe it, or they may not believe it's an option for them. They may believe that they aren't worthy of love, that they can't be forgiven, that love doesn't really exist, or that even if the chose love, they can't achieve it. My wife was worried that she was somehow broken, damaged, and couldn't love.

So we need to help them see that love is a choice, and a viable, do-able option. We can forgive them. Love is real. They are worthy of love. We need to make that choice available to them. I guess,even if they learn and believe love is a choice, they may not chose it, but that's better than never making the choice, IMHO.

Love is a choice, but only if the person sees it as a real option, and one that they can acheive.

I think, from reading other posts, that Retrovaille (sp) can help people see the choice is real, as can MC,and IC, and personal example.

Good luck y'all. Hope y'all see all the options that are there for making our lives better, and that we all make the right choices.