What Really Matters in Love: A Grandparent’s Guide
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(OPINION) My grandkids are nearly grown, I’m afraid. Of the five, three are in high school now and one’s in middle school. Only the youngest is still a little guy.
The process of growing up being what it is, the older kids seem increasingly aware of, and curious about, romance. I’m probably overstating this, but it feels as if practically every week at least one of them has a new boyfriend or girlfriend.
Watching this has got me thinking about the next step — where the kids will become adults and eventually start searching for someone to settle down with for the long term.
After 40 years of marriage (that’s total, between two marriages) and almost 70 years of life, and having watched countless rom-coms, I have opinions about how to look for your special person. As the TV commercial says, I know a few things, because I’ve seen a few things.
In my entirely non-scientific take, here are three key qualities I believe you ought to seek in a potential life partner. And rom-coms and social media aside, none of these three things has a lick to do with beauty, wealth or coolness.
Here’s what really matters:
— Kindness. Hardly anything matters more than being with a person who possesses a good heart. Finding romance is important, but just as important — actually, more important — is finding somebody you just plain like.
Looks will fade. Passion may wane. Before you know it, you’ll both be balancing jobs and irritating in-laws and mortgage payments and a 3-year-old who still wakes up screaming every night at 2 a.m.
When all that happens, nothing tops having a partner who’s a deeply decent human being. One who genuinely cares about others — and especially about you.
So, when you’re searching for someone to go the distance with, watch how she treats her parents and coworkers and the custodian at the office. The way she treats others is how she’ll eventually treat you, after the new wears off.
Latch onto that guy who opens the door for elderly people he doesn’t know, who lets the other driver in a busy parking lot go first, who feeds the skinny dog that wanders by the house looking scared. In other words, look for somebody with a tender soul.
Choose your best friend, or the person you’d like to become your best friend.
— A sense of humor. Or maybe I should say, a certain type of sense of humor. Some folks’ idea of a joke is making fun of others. They wield laughter as a cudgel to establish their own superiority or compensate for their inferiority. Avoid those people.
Look instead for somebody with a more generous idea of what’s funny (see the entry above on kindness). Hold out for that wonderful person who appraises the world and all it contains through a slightly cracked lens, who recognizes her own foibles as clearly as she sees anybody else’s, who doesn’t take herself too seriously. Grab that gem who finds something to laugh about even in dark situations, because life will bring the two of you many dark situations to share.
I read that the actress Joanne Woodward said the key to her 50-year marriage to Paul Newman wasn’t his talent or heartthrob looks, but that he made her laugh every day.
A sense of humor can get you through just about anything.
— Honesty. If you’re going to share a house and a life with somebody, he ought to be the kind of person you can trust with your heart, your money and your deepest failings and fears.
So ask yourself, does he cheat on his taxes or his expense account? Does he lie to his customers any time the truth might be uncomfortable or unprofitable? Does he delight in telling you other people’s secrets that he promised he’d never divulge? If so, be wary.
Get someone instead who habitually tells the truth simply because it’s true, even when it’s not to his benefit. Someone who keeps his word.
There are many reasons honesty matters, and they’re mainly obvious. You don’t want somebody who’s going to steal your ancestral heirlooms.
But another big reason is that we humans are self-deluded. This includes you. We all need somebody who’ll not only tell us the God’s honest truth about herself, but about ourself, too — and do it from a motive of love, not meanness. A great mate lets us know when our baloney is, in fact, baloney. She cares enough to save us from our own hubris and stupidity.
I’ll stop here, at three, because I’m afraid even that’s a lot to absorb. The whole list is longer, though.
It’s good to ally yourself with somebody who’s generally optimistic rather than a naysayer. That’s especially true if tend to be a naysayer yourself. It’s smart to find somebody who allows you to be who you really are, and isn’t constantly trying to change you. And so on.
Still, if you can land a partner with just these first three stellar qualities, you’ll be way ahead of the game. You’ll have an excellent chance of staying together happily for decades to come.
Good luck.
Paul Prather has been a rural Pentecostal pastor in Kentucky for more than 40 years. Also a journalist, he was The Lexington Herald-Leader’s staff religion writer in the 1990s, before leaving to devote his full time to the ministry. He now writes a regular column about faith and religion for the Herald-Leader, where this column first appeared. Prather’s written four books. You can email him at pratpd@yahoo.com.