This reel popped up on my Feed this morning, and it got me to thinking how easily people give up on their "love" relationship.
They would rather walk away, than do the heavy work an honest love relationship will require: love builds - ego kills. Being "stuck" is a choice … ANY challenging situation can be overcome IF it's something you really WANT. Lust fades & gives into defeat; love is stubborn & doggedly fights for what it wants. Love finds a way to salvage the root stock after a scorched earth hardship.
EVERY relationship has a cold season - that's just normal. It doesn't have to be the End.
Being hurt by someone's insensitivity doesn't need to be the straw that broke the camel's back. I agree that it's not fun to experience - but that experience doesn't have to catapult you into a hasty decision you may well live to regret.
I was married to Bob, the love of my life, for 44 years: all those years were not a bed of roses. Sometimes we had some pretty rocky moving forward. Sometimes we had stubborn standoffs, where egos reined & the relationship suffered. Sometimes, we even wondered why we were "putting ourselves through this!" But, we never gave up on each other & we never gave up on US. It came close more than once - and I did actually pack everything up and leave him when Stacey was an infant. When Bob missed us enough to come and get us, and bring us back home … that [solution to the problem] was never repeated. Divorce was not an option either of us ever entertained, and the word was not spoken between us. We knew we wanted to be together. To build a Life and a Home together. We knuckled down, grew up, and worked steadily at strengthening what needed tending to, to keep harmony between us. To keep our marriage strong. To keep the love steady & the commitment real. Yes, there were complications - personal baggage we both carried; and helped each other shoulder. And dry spells - physical & emotional exhaustion, fringe intrusions (job, kids, family, world in general) that sucked like vampires at the life force of our relationship … but, we never gave up - even to his last breath.
And, in this marriage, sometimes it really IS complicated. People carry baggage - they drag that with them into relationships. The relationship isn't wrong & the baggage is what it is. Sometimes it isn't so easy to live with. Sometimes it isn't so easy to "fix".
My husband suffered a severe head blow as a child. That caused brain damage … not to the point that he is disabled and irrational, but there is TBI fallout we both struggle with. He also comes from an undeniably crazy family background - which tagged him with PTSD on top of the TBI.
I am dealing with long-standing CPTSD issues. YES, I DO believe in divine healing, and have for the majority of my Life petitioned Elohim for a relief healing; for reasons of His own, that He does not have to clue me in about … those petitions have been denied.
Neither Holland, nor myself, knew about the other's struggles when we met, married, and started setting up house together: the 1st year was extremely hard on both of us - and Holland was shouting, "Divorce!" on a near daily basis; and I was wondering "what the hell have I let myself get pulled into?" on a near daily basis. The second year he was still shouting for divorce (every 2 weeks now, instead of daily) - and I was starting to think that maybe that wasn't such a bad idea: we were both surprised when we finished out year 2, intact, howbeit emotionally weather-worn. Year 3 came and went by-and-large in good stead, except for the month long separation shortly after we came back here to WA; but, Holland missed me - and he got a reality check concerning 'family' & 'friends': he came back home with a whole new attitude & a humbling understanding of Real Life. We're moving onto Year 4 with a better understanding of each other, and instead of hearing "divorce!" when he feels stretched to the max … he saying, "We're gonna make it, Baby. I'm in this thing for the long haul. You & me, riding Life out, together". We're rising above our handicapped lives to weave them together in our own unique tapestry that makes up our life story.
We're a solidified Team, finally.
When we tell people, "It's complicated" - we aren't gaslighting ourselves, or them: it really IS complicated. But, we know who we want, what we want, and are committed to making our life together how we want it.
We've had all the hardship - now we want the happy.
He makes me happy in a way no one else, aside from Bob, has been able to do. Even when I'm so frustrated with him that my eyes are shooting daggers … he is still, at the end of the Day, the one that makes me smile. The one that makes me laugh with a freedom I've never felt before. The one that makes my house feel like a Home with his presence in it.
Happy.
I make him happy. I give him what no one else has ever given him: unconditional love, steadiness, comfort, a purpose, a will to be more. Even during hard-day times, when the heat is on and temperatures are rising, he quietly makes plans for a future, methodically working my wants & needs into consideration. He makes sure I'm always protected; even & especially in, those heated times I'm refusing to accept it (yes, I too, have an alpha ego to match his macho: combustion reaction is unavoidable). He is a quiet man. An observant man. By and large, a good & kind man. And he is becoming a more vocal man, now, in expressing his domesticated happiness.
And when the storm clouds gather … we work together to keep the happy. It's not easy & realistically, it probably never will ever be easy. But, we're happier and better people when we're together.
No one else has to understand our complicated Life.
It's OUR Life; not theirs.
Our relationship; not theirs.
Our marriage; not theirs.
Our love; not theirs.
And we're finding our own way through. Just like the millions of other complicated people living complicated lives, in a complicated world - where nothing ever goes according to Plan & [happy families] are unhappy in their own ways.
The truth is that Life is hard for everyone; and there is no getting around that.
Everyone feels "stuck" more times than they care to admit.
No one walking this Earth has "it" figured out.
But 1 thing is a certainty: giving up, walking away, & adding more complications … never wins the Day.
