Relationship Role Models
Yes, I often speak about how I’d like a significant, healthy relationship in my life. About how I’d like to be married.
Yet, ironically, I rarely look at someone else’s relationship or marriage and think “I want that!”
Most people I know in relationships are content, but not necessarily happy. And they certainly are not excited.
The best relationships I see are older couples…Couples who have been together for many years. Who met when they were very young. Before they decided to have a long list of “what they’re looking for in a partner”. They grew up together, struggled like crazy to make it work. It often wasn’t perfect, but they have settled into a happiness and contentment. People like my parents- I never wanted a marriage like theirs, yet they now seem very happy together, having the time of their lives.
But everyone else? Hmmmmm. .. I don’t know anyone my age who is really happy and excited about their partnership. Who thinks it’s one of the best things to ever happen to them. Most of my partnered friends border on discontented. I'm seeing people go through shorter and shorter relationships...They commit for a handful of months, find a gazillion things wrong with the other person, then bail out.
There have been a few times when I thought- “Wow! Finally! They look like they have an awesome marriage!” Then I eventually see the cracks in the surface and discover I wasn’t completely right in my initial assumption.
Please tell me I’m wrong… Tell me about your relationship role models!
posted by Aileen @ 12:01 AM
6 comments
6 Comments:
One of my favorite couples fell in love when she was 13. He was 14. They got married a couple of years after high school and had a baby a little over a year later and another a few years after that. Their daughter's older now than they were when they met; they still look at each other with hungry puppy dog eyes.
My best friend from high school prefers date nights with her husband to girls' nights out. She'd rather spend time with him than anyone else. My best friend from college still has a special smile just for her husband. The friends who moved cross country a couple of years ago dance in their living room.
A lot of my friends are still in love with their mates. Their relationships aren't "easy," but they work and they are still in love.
Sometimes I think today's singles are just more demanding in their relationships, much as they are in their careers. I've never seen a relationship that didn't have its up and downs. There have been a few times when I thought of bailing out of my marriage (of 33 years), but honestly I can't imagine living with anyone else at this point of my life. The chemistry is not exactly the same as it was at the beginning, but it too has evolved over the years.
I think it's human nature for people to grumble. When you hear couples complaining about each other, they may still love each other quite intensely, but be superficially disgruntled -- you know?
Having said that, I also think Barbara is right -- I think many younger people today have always been told they can be anything and have anything, so they have trouble letting go of ideals and living with just another imperfect person. In fact, they scoff at it as "settling," when it may actually be "reality"!
I love all the comments here. And I think the "cracks in the surface" give us as individuals and certainly as couples character and depth. Quite frankly, I probably do complain a bit too much about my partner. We just had a very sad family event a few days ago, and he showed up, quite literally, when the chips were down. It is in those times that I am deeply grateful for his presence in my life, for our partnership, and for the love that we share with each other. And those are the experiences that knit us together most profoundly. New Year's resolution - stop complaining about the love of my life. You may hold me to that. Love, alw
I think to get to contentment, couples go through the valley sometimes, and every time they fight to make it back to one another, to clear out the cobwebs that accumulate just from the process of getting through the day, white-knuckling it to deal with all the stuff outside your door, so that you forget to deal with one another, tend one another, every time you fight your way back from that, you get closer to the kind of later-life contentment you see in your parents. Or that's what I think. It helps to be with a person who is fundamentally a good soul, who is first of all your friend, who you like talking to and being quiet with, who let's you be you, no matter who you choose to be on any given day. They won't be perfect. None of us is perfect. But they may be worth fighting your way back to.
There are always cracks and warts and blemishes. It's not when the good outweighs the bad, but when those cracks and blemishes seem to disappear. Something along the lines of, "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder." I'm getting married soon; she's far from perfect, but she's perfect for me.
On another note, I can think of one couple that seems like the ones you mention. A guy that went to my high school and made it to the NFL married a girl he started dating in middle school. They're still together.
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