There is a Happily Ever After.
Here’s to Couples That Make It Work Every Day.
It’s all too common to read about the fall-out on relationships. Look at social media, the tabloids, and you get to feeling it just isn’t worth trying.
Hopes are dashed on the first date or relationships begin a hopeful, optimistic burst of energy, end in a melodramatic explosion. There’s disappointment and hearts are broken beyond repair.
It’s food for fodder that many of us eat up, digest, and ultimately come to believe is the status quo. But this is not the status quo. This is the news which is, by nature, negative.
There are success stories out there if you stop and take the time to look around. And this is what most of us want to attract.
I’m not holding myself up as an example either. I can’t say I did very well on the romantic end. I can’t say I tried very hard either. I can’t go much beyond round three.
I’ve also seen friends try dating sites, or blind dates, only to be disappointed again and again.
Sometimes you are better of buying a dog.
But there are good stories, too.
People who have met the one, married him and are still married fifteen, twenty-five or fifty years later, though online dating had nothing to do with it.
I, personally know of three couples when I think of those who have made it. And they are not living miserably ever after.
These couples are not sticking it out for the sake of commitment, or because they have become “used” to one another. These people actually like one another and are best friends.
Let’s begin with the family first.
I have two happily married sisters. They are in love, but they like one another as well.
They have more in common than just their children; one couple has three and the other has four. All seven are now young adults, so even though the kids come and go, it’s empty nest time.
That’s not to say my brothers-in-law don’t have their odd quirks, but they’re men so that goes with saying. We love them! It’s just that they are a different animal. But life would be boring without them.
For instance, one brother-in-law can fix anything and has a habit of picking stuff out of people’s trash. What are you going to do with a working CRT from an obsolete computer except throw it away, again? Ask my sister how much time she spends going through junk.
The other has a penchant for dark humor and makes jokes out of almost everything. When the mood in the home is a bit too heavy, the jokes begin. This is usually while listening to the news. Needless to say, the heavy feeling doesn’t have a shot at surviving.
It reminds me of the comic relief in a Shakespearean tragedy.
Both sisters are the bosses and this is where I see the saying “Happy wife, happy life,” come into full view. And it’s true. Though they consult their husbands, their preferences and opinions have a lot of sway.
And here’s where the give comes from the take and balances things out.
They allow their husbands space to go out with their friends, garden, tinker, cruise the internet, and even give them the remote when they decide to watch television together, without giving them crap.
In fact, I’ve never heard them exchange any harsh words.
My friend from college is half of the last happy couple I’m going to talk about.
I just visited them, and if there’s any such thing as a fairy tale ending, it’s the life they’re living. It’s simple, honest, and uncomplicated. No drama.
They met when they were in her 40’s and living in Hawaii, at their church, no less. They dated for a couple of years and then got married. That was 15 years ago.
What I see when they’re together is akin to a newlywed couple on their honeymoon. They kiss one another hello and good-bye. Call one another “honey” and mean it.
They phone one another during the day.
She loves to cook him dinner.
He loves to talk to her as he’s cleaning up. Yes, I say “he” in the cleaning-up part.
Then they walk the dog together. He goes in and out several times throughout the day as does their cat.
Their days begin and end together.
Watching these couples and hanging out with them is experiencing genuine love first hand, even if it’s not mine. I feel the love, the positive energy, and the peace and calm of a compatible, long-term relationship.
I can’t say I don’t feel lonely sometimes, but I don’t feel deprived of love either.
Because love, when it’s real, rubs off on you, no matter whose it is.
So if you’re still searching, turn off the news, close that social media app. and look at the people around who love one another.
Like attracts like.
Don’t ever believe that it’s all bad out there. Remember yin and yang and that nothing can exist without its opposite.
And there’s a lot of the opposite of bad if you take a good look.
Appreciate the love you see as well as the love you have. Open your heart and see what happens.
Love is for sharing, after all.
