When I was engaged at 22 yrs old, I remember feeling a tremendous sense of urgency to get married. While I was aware that 22-years old was empirically speaking young, I had already been with Jim for six years, on and off. Together, our young romantic hearts had climbed to the heights of passion and excavated the depth of intimacy. We had also hurt one another brutally and repeatedly over the course of those six years, such that the proposal of marriage came with something of a “shit or get off the pot” kind of energy. We needed to make it official or go our separate ways.
We chose the altar. Then, fifteen hard years later, we split.
I remember as a twenty-something feeling that our year-long engagement was an eternity. I just wanted to be married already.
I remember fearing in those months, after we had chosen to make a life together but before it had officially begun, that we would lose something in the waiting. I yearned to lock in the passion of our young love, such that it might warm us for a lifetime.
What I did not understand at the time, what twenty years and a divorce has taught me, is that there was a certain kind of wisdom embedded in my young person’s sense of urgency. It was just the exact opposite of what I thought it was back then.
What I know now, after years of loving and losing, after navigating the pain of divorce, is that though my young self knew nearly nothing at all, back then, I had great radar for the dynamics of romantic love. My young self understood that there is a basic naiveté that is part and parcel of romantic love.
Through the lens of romantic love, our beloved sparkles and glows.
They seem to us to be larger than life. An act of kindness we receive from them does more to warm our hearts than ten such actions from good Samaritans all around.
The most important lesson we can learn when setting out to build a relationship that we hope will last a lifetime is that our partner is human — perfectly and imperfectly human.
The most important lesson we can learn when setting out to build a relationship that we hope will last a lifetime is that our partner is human — perfectly and imperfectly human. The rose-colored glasses of romantic love make the world so very beautiful, but their hues always evolve.
The best investment we can make in our long-term relationship happiness is to welcome seeing our beloved through the whole spectrum of the rainbow. When we do, we discover that their blues and greens are just as precious as their rosy sunset selves. Sometimes, they are even more precious.
Now, as I cultivate the new love I hope will serve me this lifetime, I find myself wanting the exact opposite of what I wanted for my young self. I welcome moving as slowly as necessary with my midlife love.
The patience that arises in me with my midlife love is supported by the facts that we are both financially stable as we fall in love, and that neither of us are pressured by the drumbeat of our biological clocks. Thanks to life and maturity, I am far freer now than I was at twenty-two. And, thank God for that, as I need a hefty dose of patience to navigate the many ways that our various roles and responsibilities complicate our mid-life love.
When I was looking for young love, I was looking for my other half.
Now, in midlife, I find such an idea downright offensive. I cultivate my midlife love knowing first and foremost, that I am whole unto myself. In that I am already enough and already capable of taking care of myself, I am free to take it slow with my midlife love.
As we grow our relationship, day by day, now what I want for my midlife love and I is to come together, to draw closer and closer to one another (after all, isn’t that the great joy of loving?) at whatever pace we need in order to preserve the flame of passion that burns between us.
The thing I understand now that I didn’t understand when I was twenty-two is that loving is the most glorious and most challenging task we take on as human beings. It is damn hard work!
- Treating another person with respect every day and in every interaction is hard.
- Giving a person the benefit of the doubt always, is hard.
- Being kind, every time, even when I am exhausted or hangry (hunger + angry) or someone else in my life was unkind to me, is hard.
- Facing another as my best self, even when I don’t feel like my best self, is hard.
Yet, these ways of being are what I most want for this relationship.
The purpose of life-long partnership is to settle into a love that supports us in being who we most want to be in the world.
These ways of being, though challenging, are who I most want to be, and I want my love to support me in being them. I want the warmth of our love to inspire me to act in these ways. What I love most about my midlife love is that he makes acting in these ways towards him feel effortless, because I love him so.
Now, I view the long years of courtship in this relationship I am slowly nurturing in midlife as a form of emotional training.
Now, I want us to spend as many moments together as we are capable of engaging as our best selves. And then, I want us to rest. Then engage again.
As a twenty-two year old, I felt a great sense of urgency to lock in the passion of romantic love that had lit up my young life. I was afraid that if I didn’t bottle it up, it would fade away. What I did not know then, that I understand now, is that romantic love always changes. As the Greeks taught, it ripens. If we are lucky, Eros always becomes Phila. If we are lucky, it expands and becomes Agape, the Divine love that sustains the world. Fearing that evolution or fighting against it is a mistake. The way to preserve Eros is not to trap it. It is to tend it with great care, everyday, over the course of a lifetime.
The way to preserve eros is not to trap it. It is to tend it with great care, everyday, over the course of a lifetime.
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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.
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From The Good Men Project on Medium
What Does Being in Love and Loving Someone Really Mean? | My 9-Year-Old Accidentally Explained Why His Mom Divorced Me | The One Thing Men Want More Than Sex | The Internal Struggle Men Battle in Silence |
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