Who knew if you put in the work, and were quick to say sorry, a marriage could go twenty eight years?
The funny thing about relationships is that often while we’re in the thick of them we can’t really recall the good, or the bad times. It seems, to me, that the days melt one into the other. I’m not saying this is a bad thing, nor am I saying that it makes a relationship mundane, I’m merely pointing it out, because this is the beauty of comfort, and closeness that comes with time. The ability to hold onto neither the positive or negative of the relationship, but having the capacity of simply living in the present of it. I didn’t realize that that was what I was doing with YB until just the other day.
My worst self is a grudge holder, it is the one character trait about myself that I have had to battle against the hardest. Thankfully I seem to have only passed that trait on to one of my girls. It has been through watching her struggle with letting go of the negative emotions that don’t serve her that I have been able to truly see it in myself. With the clarity of that, these last few years of my marriage, in my opinion, have been our best. I say sorry much more easily, and let go of hurt feelings more readily. This simple change within myself has made the world of difference in my marriage.
Who knew that it would be such a teeny tiny shift of letting go of hurt feelings, swiftly, that would make my marriage the best it’s ever been??
I tell you who didn’t know. Me.
I’d love to say that I wish I could go back and change the past, and that I wish I had learned this lesson earlier, but I’m not going to do that. And the reason I’m not going to do that is because I’m quite content with where we are right now. I love our love, and I love our life. It’s certainly not perfect, and there are things that could be better, but I’m just grateful that we’re anywhere together. In a time when more than half end up divorced, which for the most part I believe is a result from ego, and entitlement, but that’s another blog. I must say that I feel incredibly blessed for my marriage with all its perfect imperfections. Yannick is my lid, and although the pot is slightly dented and misshaped, and the lid is a little bit warped, somehow we still manage to fit together; and for that I’m grateful.
It makes me insanely proud to be able to say we’ve been together for thirty years. And it makes my toes curl to know that we’ve weathered so many storms together, have shared so much beauty and ugliness, and we’re still standing. Not only still standing but still deeply in love, actually let me rephrase that: MORE IN LOVE and still getting our shag on. If this is not the good stuff in life, then I don’t know what is.
Thank you for standing with me for twenty eight wedded years Yannick, I love you madly, and look forward to the next twenty eight, and checking off the list of things we want to do to, side by side, arm in arm in love.
PHOTO CREDIT: GEORGE PIMENTEL
