How do you measure love? When you look at yourself and your partner what is the shape of your relationship?
Draw two lines one for you and one for your partner, what does it look like? Does it look like two waves drifting apart and then coming back to each other? I've seen it many times couples that drift apart until the next big thing comes along. Like having a baby or buying a house. The trouble is that once the thrill wears off they start to drift apart again. And what happens when you run out of big things?
Or do the lines start together until one partner's line jumps up, to be followed by the other trying to keep up with the first partner's expectations? This is that couple who always needs bigger and better to feel loved. When the little gestures are no longer enough. The man who was once happy a new set of golf clubs, now won't be happy without the new clubs, and a pull behind cart, next year that won't be enough either. Where do they go when the money runs out or they hit the top of the line?
Or maybe you look at your line and its full of jagged jumps apart, explosive collisions, and dramatic gaps where the lines vanish altogether. These are the couples that thrive on conflict. They start out as small tiffs that turn to fights, cheating, separation, or even abuse. Where do these lines end? Where do they go?
All of these couples have one thing in common, a constant escalation.
I know there are many other lines, some work, some don't. No two couples have the same lines.
So what does your line look like?
I know what I want mine to look like with die_tryin.....
This line starts out apart and has come together with little steps gradual movement, closer and closer. Until finally the line comes together and runs parallel, slowly lifting, growing, the lines become thicker and closer together, until finally, they are one line, still moving upwards together.
But how do I get there? what is it that brings us slowly closer, that makes us larger and more complete? It's not the new house, the new car, the baby. It's the little things. The text in the middle of the day when he just KNOWS that its been rough even without having heard from me. Its the nightly tuck in, with a kiss to my sweet spot and the kiss on the lips, and the directions to sleep sweet and dream of whatever thought he puts into my head. Its the small gestures, the card at Valentine's, the note that tells me how he feels about me, the poem he wrote because he thought of me. The way he always makes me coffee, how he just KNOWS when I need him to be rough, to beat me into a calmer state, or the way he knows that I need to be tied up and centered. The way he can tell when I simply need to be taken and left feeling used.
Now I'm seeing that my line is flawed because those little things aren't always there. Like the Valentine's Day debacle....he bought me a stuffed dog weeks before, and I was grateful, I love it. I use it as a pillow when I nap after work. Then we went out to dinner two nights before. It was an incredible meal at the Golf club, and I loved it. The food was good, we dressed up, and I felt like a Lady. But, the little things weren't there...no card, no note, no poem. And I was saddened by this.
Call me crazy, but I'd give up all the fancy dinners for the rest of my life, just for those little things.
