A little bit of everything

A choice

17-02-2024
I think I understand now. There's nothing like having a conversation with a friend, with someone who knows you so well, with someone who understands what you might be going through. I think I finally understand. Love is hard. But it's not hard in the sense that you get hurt, or in the sense that it's hard to find. Love is difficult because it means having to think of the person you love and putting them first always. Even when it's hard. Even when it feels like there's something better out there. Even when it feels like it's not enough.
Being in a long term relationship with someone is a tricky thing. We're humans after all. We are in constant need of feeling high, of being stimulated. So when you enter a relationship, everything is easy. The beginning is always easy. You feel loved, and appreciated, and there's butterflies every time they say your name or touch your thigh. Experiencing the firsts in a relationship is exciting, meeting their friends, their parents, going on your first trip together, moving in, getting a dog... The firsts are what keep things interesting. But what happens when you've been together so long that there aren't any more firsts? Or at least it feels like there isn't any more firsts... You start to get bored. You start to get confortable.
It's easy, in those situations, to find excitement outside of your relationship. Forming connections with people is not difficult. As humans, we like to search for common ground with other people. As soon as we find someone that we have things in common with, and they're funny, and attractive and conversation is just easy... it's easy to get lost in the thought that maybe there's something else there. You've built this life with a person, and you share everything and they know you so well and you think that you're in love but then something else comes along and you start doubting everything. My life is boring, my relationship is boring, I don't like this thing about them, with this other person it's all easier... It's easy to try to find problems in a situation where things aren't perfect.
I think part of the problem comes from that thought. Perfection. Thinking that when you're in love and that you've found your person, everything should be perfect. There's no such thing as a perfect relationship. There's always something that could be better, there's always some part of you and them that could be better or work better. But the point of being with someone isn't that everything works perfectly. The point of being with someone, of being in love, is choosing them. Love isn't being unable to be attracted to anyone else ever again. Love isn't only having eyes for your partner. Love isn't feeling exactly the same way for someone for the rest of your life.
Love is choosing to be with them every single day. Love is choosing to respect them and build a life with them and not fall to temptation. Love is staying when things get hard, or boring, or ordinary. Love is choosing to ignore connections or highs that you find outside of the relationship, it's choosing to try to get those highs with the things that you have now. And it's not easy. I think I understand adult relationships more as time goes on. I understand the frustrations, I understand why people cheat, I understand why people get divorced. There comes a time, when you've been with a person so long, that the spark that you had in the beginning starts to fade away. The spark that couldn't keep you two apart when everything was starting out isn't there anymore. There's no butterflies anymore. When they touch you, nothing tingles. And people misinterpret that. Losing that spark doesn't mean that the relationship doesn't work. Losing that spark does not mean that you shouldn't be together anymore or that there isn't love anymore. That spark is an illusion. That spark is uncertainty. It feels amazing and it gives you a high like nothing else, but you can't live off that spark forever. You can't build a life off of that spark. In every relationship, that spark disappears, but it goes away in place of something better. It goes away because you gain stability, because. you gain trust. That spark, that uncertainty, it's suddenly not there because you know, you know that this person is there and is not going away. You know that they love you and are going to stay with you. There's no need to wonder anymore.
The main problem in today's society is believing that there shouldn't be any problems in our relationships. To the outside, we will always want to show only the good, we will try to hide the problems that we have. You won't read books or watch movies about the day to day miseries of being in a relationship. Of the things that go wrong. But they're there. Being in love is great, but it's also difficult. It's about choosing your partner every single day for the rest of your life. It's about choosing to respect them and the life that you have built together. It's about being strong-minded. As soon as you give in to weakness, it's easy start thinking that there might be something better out there. It's easy to start believing that the relationship you're in might not be worth it. That you might not be meant to be here. Our minds will trick us into wanting the things that give us that high, that dopamine. But it's not what we need to live. What humans need to live is support. And trust. And love. And respect. The highs feel amazing but are fleeting and leave you empty inside when they're gone.
Love is deciding that those highs are not worth it. Love is knowing that the person that you love, the person who you're sharing your life with, is the best thing for you. That it's what you want and need to protect. I think I understand. I also think that, although it might be hard at times, you have to be strong and fight for that. And you have to fight with yourself. You have to fight with your primal instincts, with that part of yourself that's seeking something else, something better. With that part of yourself that get's anxious and scared and wonders if there's something better out there. There might be. There might not. Who says that if you follow that thought you won't be following it forever? When are you sure that this person is the one?
Marriage is difficult and being with the same person all of your life is difficult but it all comes down to that choice. To knowing that this person that you have decided to build a life with is worth it. That you are worth it. And that whatever amazing person, situation, whatever comes along, however good it feels, is fleeting. It's not real. It's not for you.