What do you think?
I'm on the fence on this one. I'll tell you why.
I look at my parents and then I look at myself. They are close to being married just over 50 years now despite whatever challenges they might have been faced with or are faced with. That's not to say that I don't know other married couples who are together for over thirty years who feel feathers for each other. I do and I've heard all sorts of reasons for them staying together. Reasons that go from, "Aaaargh, I'm too old now, what's the point?" to "It's cheaper to keep her." And the list goes on. Hey, if I'm being honest, I had a list of reasons mydamself.
The more I watch my parents though, the more I lean towards the statement holding truth. My dad is now 73 years old, they both are and like every other couple, they are not without their little arguments and their clashes here and there because of differences in personality or opinion but at the end of the day, I still notice how his eyes light up and that grin that he can't get rid of when my mum has been away for a while and he sees her again. To me, that in itself speaks volumes.
People talk about things like when poverty steps in, love walks out. My parents tell us about how much they earned back in the day. How they had to borrow on every Monday and pay back every Friday. Before we moved to our family home, we stayed in a room at my grans. No love walked out. My dad never cheated on my mum and vice versa. So they never had that particular challenge. My mum had a miscarriage before my brother, no love walked out. People talk about sometimes when two people are very different, it doesn't last. They are different as different can be by way of personality. For starters, my mum loves a full, noisy house and she always had her family members living at our home when the need arose and my dad is someone who likes peace and quiet and he likes his own space and even if he didn't always like it and even when he was vocal about it, no love walked out. I think that real acceptance of each other's differences is a major part of the glue that keeps couples together.
Then I look at my own marriage annnnnnnnd that makes me lean towards thinking that no matter how much love exists within a relationship, at any point, it's only as strong as the ability of the two people involved to recover as well as their ability to FORGET. Because forgiving? It sure does melt the burden a lot but it's just one half of the battle. When I was married, I couldn't do either simply because I refused to look anywhere but outside of myself for the root of the problem. Meanwhile, I was part of that root. I can admit that now. It doesn't matter who does what first, wrong is still wrong. I sometimes sit and wonder whether things would have turned out differently if I was willing to do that. Uuuh well, guess I'll never know and that's okay. Us right now is the us I enjoy being a part of.
See? I've lived through the fact that when you can't see what your OWN ACTIONS DID to help create that mess that you were a part of, then you will simply go on living believing that nothing that you might have done helped cause it! You will never be able to fairly view things from the other person perspective and that in itself puts a wall up against total understanding.
Even I got tired of hearing myself whine about he did this and he did that and for soooooh long I was satisfied with just stopping there and sitting in the victim seat but NOT ONCE, did I even think to take the time to FULLY UNDERSTAND EXACTLY WHAT WENT WRONG AND MY OWN ROLE IN IT. The focus was CONSISTENT! I wasn't letting go of my crutch because if I did, then I would have had to find something else to blame and it wasn't gonna be me, no thank you very much! So it was he blah blah blah to me, he blah blah blah to me and walking around with the perception that my ex had did me wrong, point-blank period with no intention of considering that, "Maybe it's bigger than just him, maybe I could have done something to avoid his need to look outside of our marriage!". While I, was justifying looking outside of it too.
But that all changed from having just one conversation about two years back. That one conversation opened my eyes and my mind and my heart to truths where even though these truths were referring to shortfalls on my part as a wife, I didn't feel ashamed of myself. Instead, I felt as though a light had come on where at the end of it, it had me sitting down and saying to myself, "You know what? I absolutely understand why he did, this, this and that, now."
As I sit here typing this, I am able to own my part in the downfall of my significant relationships. Say them out loud! I'm able to acknowledge that I did the best that I could and for what it's worth, the other person did too, except both or one of us made mistakes too and some we were just not yet equipped to move past. To me, that means a lot to acknowledge. It's helped me heal in so many ways. Because of that I am able to let go of much and let go without grudges and bad feelings. Instead I can be thankful for the lessons and grateful for the memories since at one time, I really did love these people. Healing is a journey and everyday you progress a little further.
I don't believe that we intentionally set out to hurt the people that we love. But I do know that it happens and sometimes, it can't be fixed, however much you would like it to be. I've also come to the understanding that we are where we are meant to be at any particular time, that every success and every failure is part of our grand story of existence where after shifts and changes, something is always revealed. Which then leads to better understanding of why we lost or why we won and why we shouldn't look back with more regret than gratitude.
Don't give up! Not on love, not on dreams, not on goals.
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