Avram – just to clarify (i know i write long posts…i never was good at being mekatzer), i never said that love isn’t important or that one should remain miserable in a loveless marriage. I said that it’s not a mitzvah and that rather it is the result of fulfilling the Torah’s plan for marriage. A person can make himself love his wife by giving; I was clear (but loquacious) about that.
Re, regulating emotions – look at the seforno on lo sachmod. Other rishonim discuss this point too, but it’s fleshed out in musssr seforim; if memory serves, rav dessler discusses it in michtav me’eliyahu. It’s not that emotions are not regulated at all, it’s that spontaneous feelings are not prohibited by halacha and neither are constant positive feelings obligatory. When discussion ahavas hashem, the rambam and others say how to bring one’s self to ahavas Hashem; learning about the bri’ah, learning Torah, and contemplating all the good Hashem does for him. The sefer hachinuch, brought in mishnah berurah, says that if one is loveah machshavto, dedicates his focus on enjoyments of olam hazeh without any intention of serving Hashem, he has violated the mitzvah of veahavta es Hashem elokecha.
What comes out is that you don’t violate ahavas Hashem if you’re not thinking loving thoughts all the time. You violate it if you intentionally veer off the path that brings to loving Him.
The aforementioned seforno says that the Torah cannoy obligate us to not feel desire for someone else’s property…rather if you change your paradigm, and understand a Torah concept that everything we have comes only from Hashem, and that we cannot of our own decision earn more lr get someone else’s thing save for the hand of Hashem giving it to us, we will automatically feel no jealousy, since you only desire things that you can realistically have. He says it’s like desiring to marry a princess; you don’t, because you know there’s no chance of it happening.
Re, rambam and women’s obligations. Why by a man would there be a mitzvah of ahavah and kovod, and by a woman there should only be kovod? Wouldn’t it be a two way street? We’re not talking about masculine responsibilities; there’s nothing male or female about loving one’s spouse. According to my pshat it makes a lot, and I mean a lot, of sense.