“Love doesn’t just sit there, like a stone,
it has to be made, like bread;
remade all the time, made new.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Lathe of Heaven
…
I knew that several of our family and friends were heading to divorce a year or few before they knew themselves. I think a failing relationship is obvious to anyone, but we ignore the signs or fool ourselves into thinking “everything is fine, they will always be there for me.”
Disney lied. Disney sold several generations that love is easily won, and once won, the couple lives happily ever after. The End.
“Amazing. Every word of what you just said was wrong.”
Relationships take time and effort to build.
Relationships must be maintained for you to trust, respect, and love one another.
“Happily ever after” only happens if you both work at it to make it happen, otherwise it’s your happiness, his, or neither’s happiness.
Any time I hear about another’s divorce, especially after decades of marriage, I always feel terrible. When one faults the other, I know better, it took two people to create a relationship, and it takes the failure of two people to dissolve one.
Ursula K. Le Guin was right. The truth about love is as plain as the nose on your face. Love is not a static object you attain and you possess for the rest of your life. Love is an effort that you made yesterday, you make again today, and you’ll make again tomorrow.
I don’t know about your relationship, but I’ll be honest about mine. It ebbs and flows. Sometimes Vicky and I are intensely in love and always there for each other. Sometimes Vicky and I are self-absorbed in whatever it is we’re doing and we take the other for granted. We just sort of assume that everything is alright and everything will still be alright in the morning.
When you stop caring for each other, and not some mythical love-caring but caring in the most basic sense of the word, you stop loving each other and your relationship begins that slow (or fast) decline into dissolution.
Don’t stop caring.
Don’t stop communicating.
Even if it hurts. (“That’s called effort, hon. Trying hurts.”)
And if you’re bitching about your spouse on Facebook where you think they don’t read it (which several of my friends do), ask yourself is that love? Would it be cool if your spouse did the same? So if you do and they do, does that make it acceptable? Why the hell do you bother staying together if you badmouth each other?
So, keep trying… or don’t, but likewise don’t be surprised when your relationships fall apart, and you find yourself alone.
…
“Love doesn’t just sit there, like a stone,
it has to be made, like bread;
remade all the time, made new.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Lathe of Heaven