When I truly love, what matters is the relationship itself, not the benefit I derive from it.
The most exalted love is entirely other-oriented: It is the love I have for nature, which I cannot change or own.
And it is Jacob's love for Rachel, which endured through seven years, and longer (whether a few days or another seven years), because it was the fact of the relationship that mattered, not any tangible benefit to him.
–Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz
From "Love, Actually," an essay by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz