LIFE AS A HUMAN

Second Time Around

By Jess Howard | Monday, February 14, 2011 at 12:05 am | 1 Comment

What happens when you let go of the romantic notion of ‘forever and ever’?

My husband and I are not married anymore. We used to be. We were separated for nearly four years. We had our own homes, we had our own lives. We were in the long, painful process of divorcing.

We kept coming back together. For a night, a few nights, and then we would part again. Usually after a fight. Ten months ago we reconnected for the last time.

My husband lives with me now. We are a family and I am madly in love with him.

I’m not sure of all the how’s and why’s of this. I’m not even sure this will work and, in some strange way, that is why it is working. One night we were talking and he said he wasn’t invested in the outcome of our relationship, that it didn’t matter to him. I had a knee-jerk response and was hurt by the statement.

It took me a long time to figure out the magic of that statement. It was just yesterday that I saw the simple truth. When he said that he wasn’t “invested” it hurt me because I hold on to this romantic notion of love: that he and I are “meant” to be together and that we couldn’t divorce because there’s some cosmic love at work. But I realize that his idea of not being invested in the outcome is the most romantic way of looking at love.

If I don’t fear the future, losing him, screwing up, any of the myriad of things that go wrong in love…if I don’t worry about those things, I can then let myself be present in the relationship. I can love him each and every day despite or in spite of what happened the day before and what may happen down the road.

Photo Credit

“Love is in the Air” Bùi Linh Ngân @ Flickr.com. Creative Commons. some Rights Reserved.