I am a pretty huge Indigo Girls fan. I actually still binge on the indie music I listened to in the 90’s. On the way to work this morning, I wanted to listen to something from my favorite album, Rites of Passage.
But of course, Amazon recently changed their settings, and I can no longer just listen to the music I want to without a premium subscription. And by the way, sorry Amazon, you got my prime, and 80 percent of my consumer habits, I’m not giving you my music subscription too.
Anyway, long story made unnecessarily longer, I ended up listening to Least Complicated. And there is a line that caught my ear and made me think.
Oh, I’m just a mirror of a mirror myself, All the things that I do
And the next time I fall I’m gonna have to recall, It’s isn’t love it’s only something new
What a powerful reminder.
There are about ten or fifteen people in my life who are going to think this post is about them, but it’s not. Not at all, honestly it is just a simple reminder to me and anyone who has the eyes to read and the ears to hear these thoughts.
I know a lot of folks who struggle in their long term relationships to discover love. Some of you will remember those feelings of intimacy and that warm feeling in your chest when your lover walked in the room.
Over time those feelings have a way of… shall we say… dissipating?
Those warm and wonderful sensations can easily devolve into something more like resentment and bitterness before you know it. I know this from experience. I will celebrate 20 years of marriage soon. I’m not writing as some starry eyed newlywed. I am a dude who knows that those feelings don’t always stay warm and fuzzy.
What my girls, Emily and Amy, reminded me of today was that so often that bitterness and resentment leads to us turning toward “something new.”
When you turn away from your partner for something else, you aren’t chasing love, you are chasing a feeling that feels good. I want to chase love and I want to encourage you to do that same if you ever (and you will) find yourself in that situation.
Don’t get me wrong, I need to put a disclaimer here. There are plenty of good reasons to run like hell if you are in a bad relationship. People in my career path have an unfortunate history of encouraging abused people (especially abused women) to stay committed to wicked, evil men. Sometimes that’s just stupid, toxic, masculine, patriarchy. What I have learned from personal experience is that far too often we don’t have enough information, because even abused people don’t know the horrors of their own relationships. You may have to do some work to determine if you are in a relationship that needs running from. And you may even need to be encouraged to find a safe place far away from an evil person.
Having said that, there are also a lot of relationships that are not toxic, just stagnant. And those are the ones that can be renewed instead of finding something new. Renewal is the way to love. Real love is staying where it hurts and loving when it doesn’t feel warm and fuzzy. Real love is getting out of bed at night to get someone else a warm blanket when you feel neglected.
The old adage is it always take two to destroy a marriage. But it also takes two to fix one. Two people committed to digging into their stories and sharing their vulnerable places with each other. I am still finding things out about my wife and she is still finding things out about me. And sometimes those warm and fuzzies pop back up. But what we are planning to grow into in our third decade is way more deep than what we started out with.
And that’s way better than skipping out for something new. Because that’s not love, it’s just something new.
One more time let me address this important topic, while I am hoping that someone will read this and decide to dig in and grow deeper in their relationship. I want you to know that if you are in an abusive situation. If you are the only one working to make love last. If your spouse or partner is verbally, emotionally, or physically assaulting you please know there are options for you.
The National Domestic Abuse Hotline Number is 800-799-7233.
And if you are in Bismarck you can find the Abused Adult Resource Center here.