I know you have heard the question over and over again, but indulge me one more time: ” Is love all a relationship needs to survive?’ The simple answer is the obvious one. Nope. Love is not enough, but it makes all the difference whether you get the love you need or miss out on it.
Let me ask you something, if there was a person your partner was already crossing the line with emotionally because you have been unwell mentally for a while, they’ve gone as far as meeting them regularly, and even buying a romantic bracelet for them, talking about the possibility of leaving you together and what not but they never crossed any physical line and immediately set clear boundaries once you started getting better, what will you do should you find this out?
If love is not all that matters, then what?
Let’s talk about timing and how love often starts with proximity, not necessarily geographical setting or space, just the idea that you have to somehow experience the person you fall in love with closely for the connection to build.
Imagine all the strangers you could love but will never get to know. Think back to all the times you liked someone, but it just wasn’t the right time for you guys. Either they were in a relationship, or you just happened to be out of a bad one yourself. It means every love story forged just happened in time. In many ways, time and chance also affect how we love.
Sometimes we get with the right person, but we are the wrong person, or let’s say we find ourselves in the wrong place. We get into situations where we spiral out of control and don’t even know how to be present for those we deeply care about. We struggle with our insecurities, traumas, and addictions, and that, in fact, takes a toll on the love we produce and accept. How do you explain that the way your partner touched you suddenly triggered the memory of an abuse you suffered as a child, and is consequently affecting your ability to be intimate in certain ways?
How do you explain finding a connection with another person so deep that that bond remains separate from the person you chose to build a life with and will forever choose? How do you explain all the parts of your heart you gave away and will never get back because they are lost forever, all the ways you have trusted and been betrayed, such that you find it hard to trust completely? All these versions of you are somehow present with you in this love journey as past, present, and future.
How do you explain that you can have a beautiful life with a person and yet it won’t be enough, not because you seek something else, but because eventually time always runs out, even on good things. Death and loss happen and make you crave their presence when all you have left are memories.
Still, on being the wrong person even after finding the right person, this is not castigation, we are quick to jump on labelling everyone else, the red flag and truly some people are, but let’s focus on when you are the red flag for a minute. Your inability to control flaws that are somehow detrimental to a successful partnership.
Imagine being a partner that cannot be trusted with finances because somehow, you’ll end up using the child’s tuition for a scam project, all in the grand idea of entrepreneurial pursuits that you genuinely believe to be worthy. Or suffering from a pornographic addiction that makes your partner pale even in fantasy, how can they compete with a boundary you cannot even find, a height of pleasure that you will never quench?
This doesn’t mean we only deserve love when we are perfect; on the contrary, it is about being responsible to live up to the love we profess. This is also not a propaganda to incite non-commitment because everything ends.
Rather, it’s a perspective on appreciating each moment of your love story, all the coincidences that had to align to give you the chapters you get. For some it is brief, for others, a lifetime. So, when loving even when they are annoying, a reminder that they won’t always be present may help put things in perspective and help us give grace to one another and be patient with our flaws.
The central idea though is love stories end because like every beautiful tale or play, there’s a curtain call. There’s a Japanese phrase for this Mono no aware. But just because love stories end doesn’t mean love ends. Love will always be present with us in how feel and what we have experienced and shared. Love is at the core of who we are Just maybe that’s the beauty of it all.
Xoxo,
Dcconnoisseur.
Connoisseur of Memories 