This is not about a great book I've recently read, it's about real life. I've realized something very important.. My husband and I have been together over 14 1/2 yrs.. I've seen happy couples who've been together 30 yrs or more, and often wondered (and sometimes asked) "how do you do it?" I've realized that love is not only something that just is, but something that has to be worked on every day. I believe, now, that many relationships that end do so mostly because they have reached the point that they seem to have nothing in common anymore; and no longer enjoy each others company. We tend to get caught up in the "fairy tale" that each relationship starts out seeming to be, that fun, exciting time; and I think we do so partly because of everything we see around us~the movies, books, etc. that show people perpetually in that stage of euphoria in which most relationships start out. This is all fine and dandy, as long as we never lose sight of reality. Problems arise because the, the truth of the matter is, humans continue to evolve and change throughout their lives and everyone who's together for a long time gets "used to" each other and hits a sort of plateau. We even see this in children who are together too much. It is in this time that we need to start looking for more ways to learn from each other and make an effort to enjoy one another's company. We seem to be caught up in the "soul mate" mentality, even if we don't admit it to or consider ourselves to be a romantic. Sadly, many people just think that "he/she" has changed, doesn't care for me anymore, or we have grown apart. True love never ceases! I believe that if, when faced with this dilemma, we could just take time out to step back and re-evaluate what we mean to each other and work hard to find new ways to reconnect, many relationships would not only survive, but thrive tremendously. The ideal way to keep a relationship alive would be to never forget this in the first place and just always work to keep lines of communication open, and keep the fire alive by adapting to one another. That being said, most of us do forget and then just give up, it seems to be human nature. When you find yourself in this situation, please take my advise and, before giving up, take that reconnect time, remind yourself that while your partner has changed, so have you, in many ways. If this is approached seriously, by both people, it's quite probable that you'll find that the love and connection you thought was lost forever never actually went anywhere, but you just started to take it for granted. I believe that many relationships that have ended could, in fact, have survived quite well, and I'm truly glad that I've had this sort of epiphany so that my own can thrive and grow into what it was meant to be!
I believe this philosophy can be applied to any type of close relationship~whether it be marriage or dating, or the non-romantic type such as parent/child or friends. I do feel the need to add a sort of disclaimer to this post: I am not telling everyone out there to remain in a dead relationship or be called a failure; merely asking that everyone take that time to figure out for absolute certainty if it really is dead.. This, of course, does not apply to toxic relationships, where someone is in danger of being harmed (or is being harmed), or being dragged into the rapid downward spiral that some lives tend to be headed.
I wish you all many years of beautiful, happy relationships and promise to have another book review up soon. Thank you for reading my rant, I sincerely hope it has helped and been an inspiration to someone out there!
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