Love without God

Fran Lebowitz says romantic love is a kind of mental illness—a pleasurable one. A drug. Something that distorts reality so completely that without it, falling in love would be impossible.

I understand what she means. I even agree with part of it. Love does alter perception. It softens edges. It edits evidence. It creates coherence where there may be very little. But where I part ways with Lebowitz is here: she treats that distortion as harmless, even necessary. I don’t.

Because what she calls illusion, I now understand as power—and power without structure is not romantic. It’s dangerous.

Intimate love, especially sexual love, is not just an emotional experience. It is a spiritual activation. It opens the deepest layers of the psyche, the body, the past. It brings shadow to the surface—trauma, rage, dissociation, unintegrated sexuality, buried violence. These things do not politely announce themselves. They emerge behind closed doors, in private, where there are no witnesses and no language for what’s happening.

We are told to trust. To soften. To give the benefit of the doubt. To not be judgmental. Women, especially, are trained to override their intuition in the name of love. I did this. I had instincts. I had warnings. And I told myself they were fear, or cynicism, or moral failure. I internalized the messages predators rely on: be kind, be patient, don’t jump to conclusions, take the high road, give the benefit of the doubt, forgive and give more.

That wasn’t virtue. It was self-betrayal.

Love without spiritual containment becomes addiction. Not because love is bad, but because unresolved people use it to regulate themselves. To soothe wounds they won’t face. To access intensity instead of intimacy. When there is no shared spiritual framework, no accountability, no reverence for what sex and union actually awaken, the relationship becomes a pressure cooker. And someone always pays.

I paid.

I believe in love. I believe in union. I believe those bodily chemicals can be harnessed toward something holy rather than destructive. But just as food can nourish or poison, love can heal or consume. The difference is not chemistry. It is consciousness.

A divinely oriented union is not manic. It is not blinding. It does not require self-erasure or constant tolerance of harm. It is tended, like a garden. It is slow, sober, reciprocal. God is not an accessory in it—God is the ground. There are witnesses. There is prayer. There is maintenance. There is humility.

When that kind of love exists, health improves. Clarity improves. Creativity returns. Not because you are high, but because you are honed.

Lebowitz is right about one thing: illusion plays a role in how love begins. But illusion cannot be the foundation. If it is, love doesn’t just wear off—it turns predatory, volatile, or violent.

Divine union is not a drug. It is a discipline. And it asks everything of you—consciously, or it will take everything unconsciously.

That’s what I know now. Not as theory. As lived truth.

The only thing there ever is to say is thank you. If you’re not there yet, start praying. Never stop. Because if you cannot stay in loving relationship with God, you will struggle to love another without distortion. God teaches discernment. God teaches self-honour. God prepares you for partnership by bringing you into right relation with yourself.

From that place, love doesn’t drain you. It overflows.