The Romantic solution as a spiritual search

Recently, a New York Times article made me smile. It tells the story of a network of romance bookstores that have delightful names such as Beauty and the Book, Grump and Sunshine, Kiss & Tale, and Love’s Sweet Arrow. Instead of placing romantic storylines among other genres, these bookstores are full of novels about forced proximity, enemies who become lovers, grand weddings, and happily-ever-afters.

Steamy Lit also stocks some general fiction and nonfiction for the rare customer who doesn’t like romance, on a bookshelf labeled, “I Got Dragged Here.” It’s tucked away in a discreet spot, at the back of the store.

Romance novels celebrate one of the most common life projects of our time: to find the person who will complete you, make you feel loved and put an end to your longings and pain. In the movie 500 Days of Summer, the main character confesses, “I love how she makes me feel. Like anything is possible. Like, I don’t know... like life is worth it.” A friend of his notices this overwhelming passion and goes so far as to say, “Love? … I don't know. As long as she’s cute and willing. I can be flexible on the cute.”

Let me be clear: love, marriage, and romance are wonderful, God-given gifts. What I am talking about, however, is the Romantic Solution. To think that romance will solve other areas of our lives, such as childhood traumas or self-identity. We might imagine it will heal our wounds, expect love to save us, and conceive something like: “If you really idealise the other person, put her on the pedestal and make her everything for you, this love will make you feel complete and fix you.”

Throughout history, most of humanity looked to God for security, hope and love. But when religion began to enjoy decreasing support in modernity, who was to become our point of reference amidst the anguishes of life? In The Denial of Death, Ernest Becker explained that modern man

still needed to feel heroic, to know that his life mattered in the scheme of things; … he still had to merge himself with some higher, self-absorbing meaning, in trust and in gratitude…. If he no longer had God, how was he to do this? One of the first ways that occurred to him, as [Otto] Rank saw, was the “romantic solution”: he fixed his urge to cosmic heroism onto another person in the form of a love object. The self-glorification that he needed in his innermost nature he now looked for in the love partner. The love partner becomes the divine ideal within which to fulfill one’s life… After all, what is it that we want when we elevate the love partner to the position of God? We want redemption–nothing less. We want to be rid of our faults, of our feeling of nothingness. We want to be justified, to know that our creation has not been in vain.

The search for romantic love can become a spiritual quest where we seek things that only God can provide, such as wholeness, healing and salvation. But don't think you will find God in romance. Don't wait for it to save you. Don't believe in the Romantic Solution as a blueprint for life and redemption. Don’t expect an imperfect human being will be the solution to your anguishes.

There are people who jump from relationship to relationship in search of that magical element. There are people who don’t love a human spouse because he or she is imperfect. But the solution isn’t to change the other, it’s to change your heart.

Above all, it is to have Jesus as your solution, fulfilment, and soulmate. This will enable you to love maturely, have realistic expectations, and have compassion for other people’s frailties, just as other people must have compassion for yours.

A marriage in which husband and wife expect the other person to be their solution will end in disappointment; a marriage in which husband and wife find their deepest fulfilment in God remains tender and solid.

Your solution must be Jesus, not the spouse you have or would like to have.

René Breuel is the author of The Paradox of Happiness and the founding pastor of Hopera, a church in Rome.

He has a Master of Divinity from Regent College, Vancouver, and a Master of Studies in Creative Writing from Oxford University. You can learn more about his work at renebreuel.org.