Why can’t it be easy?
I post often about the hard challenges in marriage (and partnership). Just the other day I was writing about the three choices people face when they are in a one-on-one romantic union: painful growth (toward ecstasy, but painful nonetheless!), fruitless suffering, or breakup. Why can’t marriage just be an easy ride?
I confess I know and used to know couples for whom it seems easy. My mother’s parents were sweethearts from the start. They met in Montana, fell in love, and through the years were (if you believe my grandmother) very happy together. No mention of any trouble in paradise, even during the years when my grandfather’s Alzheimer’s advanced and he reached the end of his life. I know others in my current life who seem to do really well…they seem to live up to their annual cheerful holiday letters!
But I also believe that every marriage–every single one–challenges the people involved to grow, and to wrestle with another person who is growing. For long stretches of time–days, weeks, sometimes even years–the marriage can hum along, no problem, just the usual bumps and bruises of everyday life, maybe a quarrel now and then, but no worries. And then it happens: one of you realizes that you miss something, or want something new, or wonder when it was that your feelings for the other person changed.
It’s easy (and normal) to panic when you find yourself feeling this way, and particularly when you find your spouse feeling this way. He’s not into me anymore? She’s not sure she loves me anymore? Panic!! But that’s when you should remember that every relationship goes through these phases. The comfort and safety becomes boring. Or the easy way of life gets harder, messier, dissatisfying. Don’t panic. It’s not necessarily the end. It’s just that you’re heading into a growth/change stage in your relationship.
It happens to every marriage because we humans are the only species on earth that continues to develop–emotionally, sexually, spiritually, intellectually–throughout our lives. (Or at least we think we’re alone in this. As an animal lover, I’m open to the possibility that other species are a lot more interesting than we think they are.) We continue to develop, continue to seek challenges, continue to learn new things. That means that when we’re married, we continue to meet our spouses again for the first time. What worked last year stops working not because we’re “not meant for each other,” or because of some mysterious reason, but simply because we are dynamic creatures. We keep writing new chapters in the stories of our lives.
So if you’re feeling frustrated, scared, confused, or mystified because your relationship is “on the rocks,” or you don’t feel like you love your spouse anymore, or you can tell that your spouse is distancing from you emotionally, don’t panic. I encourage you to look at this time as a new challenge for your old relationship, a new challenge that calls you into the future as a pair of dynamic human beings. It’s not easy. But it’s not boring!
