Making Forever Work
I’ve always pondered the notion of “forever.” Of true love. Of what it takes to make a lifetime partnership work.
When I think about marriage, about the thought of spending the rest of my life with one person, I continuously wonder: what does it take to devote yourself mentally, physically and emotionally to one soul … forever?
My parents divorced when I was six, and I grew up with my mom’s boyfriends walking in and out of my life. I wasn’t raised in a functional version of “forever,” nor have I since encountered a seasoned marital relationship — through friends or family — I want to emulate.
We all know that divorce rates are insanely high, that only 50% of (first) marriages last anymore, and that the institute of marriage itself is a tradition that pre-dates recorded history, when human lifespans were half of what they are today. “Forever” wasn’t nearly as long then, and the meaning and social issues married couples face now versus way back when is like comparing a blow-up doll to the real thing: there is no comparison.
I think the problem lies in our societal assumption that after marriage, our lives are only devoted to one person, or to one + a family. That you and your life partner then have to focus heavily on building a life together — moving into (and potentially buying) a (bigger) home away from where your other friends live and where it’s more appropriate to raise kids.
That then, you are each others’ lives. There’s less focus on the continuous building of your friend network and sense and strength of community. That your life partner has to provide you with absolutely everything: he is your go-to emotional support and air bag; he is your best friend and constant companion; he is your partner in crime; he may even be your business partner.
Providing emotional and intellectual support, having similar core values and senses of adventure, and being able to communicate openly and candidly are imperative to a healthy and lasting relationship. And yet, in the process of valuing those things and the relationship itself, we can’t let slip away those people who have helped shaped who we are. It’s in letting that happen that too much pressure builds on the relationship to be absolutely everything — performance anxiety that can slowly erode the connection you felt when you first fell in love.
All of a sudden, your partner is the person with whom you’re over-analyzing the little things that don’t really matter — the things your best girlfriend would have talked through with you; the person on whom you take out your frustration or who feels the brunt of your bad moods.
You shouldn’t have to give up everything you know, everyone else you love, for one person, for an “idealized” life together. Lifetime commitment and partnership should be about the integration of two independent lives and adding your union to the whole community versus isolating yourself from it.
When you can incorporate your community as one more important piece to what supports your relationship, to what helps make it work — when you can balance the just us with the energy of everyone, then it’s easier to look “forever” straight in the eye, with a smile and ever-growing excitement, knowing that for the journey on which you’re embarking, you’ll never be alone, even in the absence of the one you truly love.
It takes a village, right?
Photo courtesy of Flickr user Niffty.. via CreativeCommons
Yes, ma’am. It takes a whole village! I think I need two villages. Or at least a tallanna. Thanks for being a part of Team Lizzie
I remember reading an article once about we each actually need 5 boyfriends, or 5 life partners, or whatever you want to call them. I forget what the 5 categories were, but the take-home message of the article was that one person *can’t* be everything for you, and that we need other complementary relationships in our lives if we really want to feel fulfilled. That has stuck with me for a really long time. It’s not that we can’t be monogamous and have happy, healthy marriages. It’s just that, like you said, we also need to nurture and cultivate relationships outside our partnerships, i.e., with friends, family, community members, etc. Expecting one person to be everything puts an immeasurable amount of stress on that person, and I certainly wouldn’t want someone to expect that of me! It really does take a village.
Forever is truly a long time and humans such as we are, i.e. raised to never give up and reach for the stars, sometimes find ourselves lost from the path we had planned for our lives. Sometimes this is good and sometimes painful, often it is necessary.
For me personally, it was many years before my standards were set in the realm of reality, instead of the Disneyland fiction from which they were born. And so, it took many heartaches to get to the place I needed to be; to be able to consider a relationship as a the meeting point for two people, where each brings their own experiences, their own characteristics, and their own desires to the table and the couple decides what to do with them all in a positive manner that suits each individual.
One poignant item has struck me in my journey to forever. It is that each of us can have very different expectations for how the couple will combine their lives. I have known some who would be told strongly and clearly, how it will be done, others who would worry each decision as a team, and still others, who would prefer never to discuss the issues at all and just let the issues “work themselves out”. The key to Forever, at least im(not so)ho, is for each party to know the appropriate time to use each of these techniques. And of course…to ensure the couple maintains a sense of adventure.
Totally agree with Sister; my coach reminded me that historically, we have always lived in “community” and only now are we in an anomalous situation of independent, fragmented lives where we subsequently place a lot of pressure on just one “significant other” to meet the needs that were previously ‘distributed’. Sister’s dead-on. Gotta diversify some stuff