There’s an analogy that likens thoughts and experience to waves on an ocean, each appearing separate and distinct, yet made of the same water as the ocean, or consciousness beneath.
From this weeks 3-2-1 Thursday by James Clear
Author Heidi Priebe on loving someone as they change:
“To love someone long-term is to attend a thousand funerals of the people they used to be. The people they’re too exhausted to be any longer. The people they don’t recognize inside themselves anymore. The people they grew out of, the people they never ended up growing into.
We so badly want the people we love to get their spark back when it burns out; to become speedily found when they are lost.
But it is not our job to hold anyone accountable to the people they used to be. It is our job to travel with them between each version and to honor what emerges along the way.”
Royal Congratulations
My parents have been married for more than 61 years. Its not always looked like love. One of my sisters commented the other day about their, ‘constant bickering". Growing up I remember they argued a lot. They talked with another a lot too. They lived their own lives, together.
I think the way of their marriage is like the ocean. One that has supported all the waves of personality, struggle, and growth that came along.
The young bride and groom who walked down the aisle in Great Yarmouth back in 1963 are long gone. They’ve both been through many versions of themselves since then. Through parenting four children, as put upon employees, navigating the frustrations of 40 somethings, the skeptical 50s, disorientated early retirees, and now reflective older people. Each version, each wave has had its moments to peak in the sometimes tempestuous ocean of their marriage, to then dissolve back into the depths of their relationship.
I have no idea whether either of them tried holding onto any particular wave. Of themselves or the other. It would have been futile at best. The ocean just rolled on anyway, the substance from which every new wave continuously formed.
A marriage like theirs is not conditional on each other remaining the person they were when they first met and one day fell in love. Over time they have let go of what was, embraced and nurtured what has become. The youthful adventurer supplanted by the conscientious breadwinner. The idealist rebel who grew into a pragmatic realist. The energetic parent who evolved into a stay at home grandparent.
Relationships with longevity involve people who are a lasting witness to all the transformations of their partner. Not trying to direct them, simply providing a loyal presence as they have evolved.
I think my parents got a good handle on this approach to their relationship. Each providing the substance from which all versions of each other have grown and subsided over the 61 years they’ve been together.
Every version of the people we love deserve the same recognition and care. They’re all valid expressions of the same essential being. People that sustain long term relationships believe deep down that beneath all the surface changes lies something unchanging, someone they love. When we let go of any attachment to specific waves and understand that we are the ocean we become capable of supporting whatever emerges along the way.
“Till death do us part” does not mean we’ll love the same person forever. It means we’ll do our best to provide the conditions in which a thousand different people can safely live, die and be reborn.