Something to Consider If You’re Thinking of Ending Your Long Term Relationship
In real love, princesses get wrinkles and princes turn into frogs, and if you can’t accept that, then maybe it’s time to move on.
Image by Alena Darmel on Pexels
Every now and again, a piece of writing transforms your life. Its words magically speak to you and open your eyes to a million things all at once.
And author Heidi Priebe’s poem is one that transformed (and is still transforming) me and my marriage. So it’s my hope today her words will do the same for you and your long-term relationship.
The poem reads:
To Love Someone Long-Term Is to Attend a Thousand Funerals of the People They Used to Be
The people they’re too exhausted to be any longer.
The people they don’t recognize inside themselves anymore.
The people they grew out of, the people they never ended up growing into.
We so badly want the people we love to get their spark back when it burns out; to become speedily found when they are lost.But it is not our job to hold anyone accountable to the people they used to be.It is our job to travel with them between each version and to honor what emerges along the way.
Sometimes it will be an even more luminescent flame.
Sometimes it will be a flicker that disappears and temporarily floods the room with a perfect and necessary darkness.
On my marriage, its funerals, and undying love
The epiphany that came to me when I read this poem was one I desperately needed after spending twenty-two years with my husband.
When I first met him, he was handsome, fit, free-spirited, and devil-may-care. And because he made me feel invincible and alive, the anxious and cowardly girl inside me was drawn to him.
He’d get me to line dance to the country music I hate. He’d get me to sing karaoke. He’d make every mountain I was afraid of seem like a molehill.
This is how our love affair started out.
Then baby one. Then baby two. Then being fired from his six figure job with no income for almost seven months. Then getting a new job where he works twelve-hour swing shifts for twenty thousand dollars less.
And because of his shift work, he’s constantly tired and on-edge. He’s also allergic to the chemicals at his job, a job he keeps because it pays way more than the other ones he searched for when unemployed. This means he lives on allergy medicine and has ugly red rashes covering his face. In addition, the stress has caused him to gain over one hundred pounds.
He’s nothing like the young man I fell in love with, but he’s still my soulmate.
I’ve attended each “funeral” of who he used to be, and I’ve honored the rebirth that followed.
For example, I celebrate the man he is now. He’s a man working his ass off for our family. He’s a man too busy helping my fifteen-year-old study the parts of a skeleton to sweep me off my feet for a night on the town. He’s a man continuing to walk hand in hand with me even when all my demons come out to play.
And this is how I know our love was meant to be.
Is your love strong enough to last?
If you’ve been in a relationship with the same person for many years, you have to accept that life changes, and when it does, it changes your partner and your relationship.
No one stays the same. That means you shouldn’t expect your partner to, and you sure as heck shouldn’t demand it.
After all, time tramples across our faces, hearts, and spirits, and there’s no way to erase its footprints on ourselves or others.
But real love accepts this. Real love looks at the footprints life has made on our partners and finds new beauty there. Real love adjusts to change.
Now, this isn’t to say you should embrace a partner’s change if they’ve become abusive. This isn’t to say you should stay when you’ve come to them time and again for love and support, and they’ve always let you down.
But if they’re losing their free-spiritedness (or hair), being a little salty when you ask them to do something, or snoring in the recliner when you want to talk, try to look with love before you turn a critical eye.
Here’s what you need to remember.
This is a person who has loved you and attended your own funerals, even if you stubbornly believe life hasn’t changed you. This is a person who gives you a hug instead of a cold shoulder when you lash out after a hard day at work. This is a person who sees the extra weight or the wrinkles and still tells you you’re beautiful. This is a person who comes home from work and wrangles the kids while you’re cooking dinner.
This is the person who loves you through everything, and they deserve admiration for rising from the dead to nurture you each time you need them.
And if you can’t give this to them, you need to let them go, because I promise there’s someone who would kill to have them.
The bottom line:
Author Marian Keyes says:
“Some think love can be measured by the amount of butterflies in their tummy. Others think love can be measured in bunches of flowers, or by using the words ‘for ever.’ But love can only truly be measured by actions. It can be a small thing, such as peeling an orange for a person you love because you know they don’t like doing it.”
And I’m betting that in your long-term relationship, you’ve seen “peeled oranges” everywhere. You just don’t realize it.
For example, you’ve seen them in the new sink lights your partner hung in the bathroom. You’ve seen them in grocery bags holding your favorite shampoo. You’ve seen them in mall windows when your partner walks next to you even though his favorite team’s playing on tv.
So remember this before you decide to jump ship.
Remember the “oranges” and the wonderful person that peels them for you daily.
Because those oranges? That’s what real love is all about.