Counselors offering Sanford tough love

COLUMBIA — In one especially soul-baring e-mail to his Argentine mistress, South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford quoted from 1 Corinthians 13 about the nature of love.

"It is patient and kind," he wrote. "It is NOT jealous or boastful."

The Christian counselors Sanford sought out while trying to decide whether to stay with his wife or jump on a plane to South America advised him what else love is and isn't.

"Their point is that love is not a feeling," Sanford told The Associated Press in a tearful two-day confessional. "It's a choice. It's an action."

That sentiment might seem cold to many Americans, but it is perfectly consistent with the born-again, evangelical Christian world that Sanford inhabits, said sociologist John Bartowski.

"What evangelicals are doing is sort of carving out a subcultural view of love which is not so highly romanticized as we see in movies, that is at odds with the dominant view of love," said Bartowski, a professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio and author of the book "Remaking the Godly Marriage: Gender Negotiation in Evangelical Families."

That world view, he said, "divorces" love from emotion, because "feelings are fleeting and not to be trusted."

"Love is something that is cultivated in the trenches of living a day-to-day relationship," said Bartowski. "That is not a Hallmark moment."

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So while there are countless romantics out there urging Sanford to follow his heart, he can expect mostly tough love from his own spiritual community.

"The emotions are the icing on the cake," said Ben Witherington, a New Testament professor at Kentucky's Asbury Theological Seminary. "They're not the cake."

Witherington said feelings are a "notoriously unreliable guide" in personal relationships because they tend to change with time. Marriage is not just a commitment of will, he said, but a commitment before God.

"That's why, at a Christian wedding service, you don't say, 'I feel like' and 'I feel like.' You say, 'I will' and 'I will,' 'I do' and 'I do.' "

Sanford is a man writhing in agony as his emotions battle his sense of duty — to his wife, to their four sons, to his office.

In one e-mail to his lover, Maria Belen Chapur, Sanford said to "sleep soundly knowing that despite the best efforts of my head my heart cries out for you, your voice, your body, the touch of your lips, the touch of your finger tips and an even deeper connection to your soul."

He told the AP on Tuesday that the past 8 1/2 years have been an emotional "wrestling match," a struggle "between one's heart and one's value system."

"A whole lot more than a simple affair," he said. "It's a love story. A forbidden one, a tragic one, but a love story at the end of the day."

That is not how he talks of his bond with Jenny Sanford.

"I do have a love for my wife," he told AP. "I do have a love for my boys. I do have a love for the farm. I do have a love for the world of ideas and politics."

What has also become clear over the past few days is that Sanford has decided, at least for now, to take his friends' advice and try to repair his marriage.

The friend whose words appear to echo loudest is Warren "Cubby" Culbertson.

The owner of a court-reporting business, Culbertson, 51, is an influential Bible study leader and considered a pillar of the state capital's Christian community.

Sanford told him about the affair immediately after his wife discovered it in January, and Culbertson has been counseling the couple ever since — even holding a monthlong spiritual "boot camp" at the governor's mansion.

The Rev. Gary Chapman is a senior associate pastor at Calvary Baptist Church in Winston-Salem, N.C., and has been a marriage counselor for 35 years. He has written several books, most notably "The Five Love Languages."

Chapman said Sanford is in the throes of what he calls the "in-love experience."

"It's not that there is not emotion involved in love," he said. "But the 'in-love' experience is super emotion. It's very euphoric. It doesn't take any effort. You're just pushed along by your emotions."

That high doesn't last, Chapman warned. Rather than seek that high over and over, he counsels couples to stick with the commitment they've already made and learn how to "keep love alive."

A faded love can be reborn, he said. But it takes time — and work. "You don't sit around waiting for the emotional love to come back."