11 October 2010
Sometimes I wonder...
...if those who are in successful, happy, lifetime relationships are afraid to tell me that the kind of romantic passion I've felt as I've fallen for someone is not important, or if they secretly hope they're wrong and wish they'd felt it, or they don't want to stomp out a dream but let me discover what everyone eventually does: that it's a fantasy to hope for that in a lifetime relationship, or if they have forgotten that they, too, felt it when they met, or if they are actually bitter that they haven't felt it in a long time and wish for everyone to be miserable like unto them *wink*, or if they never have actually experienced what I've experienced but built a happy and fulfilling life without it anyway, or if they really do believe it's a beautiful, meaningful thing I should seek but either don't comment because they have no way of knowing what I actually felt or are afraid they'd be implicitly promoting a relationship they aren't comfortable supporting but don't want to say so and therefore opt to stay quiet instead...I suppose I was supposed to ask these questions and get sick of them by the time I hit my early-to-mid-twenties. Call me a late bloomer. :-)
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7 comments:
Or maybe said people in said relationships read your blog and want to comment but find themselves getting lost in the language...I will admit that sometimes I don't always know what you're talking about so I don't comment.
But, as far as your question goes (at least the one I'm thinking I read in there), I think it can go two ways. I think that you can have a passionate beginning to a relationship and have it lead to a happy, successful, lifelong commitment; I also think it's possible to build a happy and fulfilling life without the passion.
I would like to think that my marriage started with passion, but also the realization that it may not always be there (this from watching others' relationships and knowing what I was looking for). But we work at it. One thing that we have in our marriage is great communication - I think that stems from having to write snail mail letters to each other for almost half of our pre-marriage time together, as well as a deployment after we were married. It's not always easy to know it's okay to talk about everything, but we do it; when it's to tough to bring something up face-to-face, we write it down and give it to the other person.
I guess I got off on a little tangent...If you feel like you want to have a passionate relationship, hold out for it.
This a common topic among married folks. As in Missy's case, my marriage started with passion...more than I'd ever experienced before or thought possible. I think that's a response designed to initiate the bonding of two people. In time, however, passion becomes much less prominent, and a much deeper, more meaningful bond grows...one hopefully strong enough to hold the relationship together and provide support, encouragement, comfort and hope through times of severe stress, disagreement, serious illness, profound sadness, and various other forms of hardship which always accompany life.
The kind of love and commitment that grows between two people who have faced life together and overcome hardship is far superior to, and more enduring than, the passion that brought them together to begin with.
This is the kind of answer I suspect most will give. What if you didn't have that passion to remember, look back to, or bond you in the first place? You could probably still build a successful relationship, given strong motivations and the communication skills to do so, but if you had never felt that, what would have made your interest in each other any different from anyone else you got along with well? And if you could go back, would you choose not to have felt that passion because it's so relatively insignificant in the long-run anyway?
I'm talking about personal passion, not just the "let's get it on" lusty stuff. 'Cause I've felt lust very strongly without passion, and I've felt passion with an amount of sexual attraction that isn't exactly off the charts but which is clearly enhanced by what I think of as passion: intense and joyful interest, appreciation, and affection/connection.
Basically, I'm talking about that walking-on-clouds, "in love" feeling you know isn't exactly rational and will probably fade in time or require a lot of conscious effort to maintain when the newness wears off and routine sets in but which, for the time, makes everything in the world feel, sound, smell, and look richer and more beautiful, makes any activity better just because you're together, etc.
So I guess you could substitute "passion" for "being in love" in the popular sense, though "being in love" once you've been together for twenty years carries, I imagine, a much more complex and expanded description, which is why I focused on the initial "passion" of being in love. Just thought I'd clarify all of that. :-)
Our friendship came first. He was like my big brother/best friend. A few years passed before the "walking-on-clouds, in-love feeling" that "makes everything in the world feel, sound, smell, and look richer and more beautiful,[and] makes any activity better just because you're together" and the "intense and joyful interest, appreciation, and affection/ connection" hit, right along with the fireworks and the "let's get it on" kind of passion. When that occurred, we got married.
That was 37 years ago on the 19th of this month. The fireworks have waned, which is a good thing because it would probably kill us at this age :( However, everything in the world is still better because we're together. We're still best friends. We're affectionate with each other and enjoy holding hands wherever we are. We prefer to spend our free time together. When we're apart, we miss each other and look forward to being reunited. We find a great deal of joy in simple things that we wouldn't enjoy nearly as much if we did them alone or even with a good friend. We complement and complete each other.
I remember the intense passion, and it was exhilarating, but I wouldn't trade what we have now for all the youthful passion in the world. Our mutual love, respect and concern for each other's welfare, and the strength of our commitment to each other and to our family, have endured and sustained us through many trials and tribulations, and we still find great joy in life together.
I don't know if this answers any of your questions. I know you were focusing on the initial passion of being in love. Hopefully I didn't get too far off base, but all I can speak to is my own experience, and a 37-year marriage is, as you put it, a "much more complex and expanded" experience, which, of course can't be described adequately here.
"...We're affectionate with each other and enjoy holding hands wherever we are. We prefer to spend our free time together. When we're apart, we miss each other and look forward to being reunited. We find a great deal of joy in simple things that we wouldn't enjoy nearly as much if we did them alone or even with a good friend."
That's one distinction I'm talking about. People say you should 'marry your best friend', and I agree with the sentiment, I think, but there's something intangibly but obviously different between someone of this kind and any other 'best friend'. I hope to find it again someday.
"I remember the intense passion, and it was exhilarating, but I wouldn't trade what we have now for all the youthful passion in the world.
But that is what propelled you beyond friendship into the relationship you've invested in. Could it have become what it is without that momentum? Maybe so. I know you can't really know. Just questions.
I hope you find it, too.
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