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True Love is Hard Work
It’s been very interesting reading the comments on my FaceBook page about love, and the flowers that Jon, my husband, gave me. There seems to be this idea that men are barbarians and women are the civilizing influences, so we train them up to be what we need, or want. Or that there are only a few perfect men out there, and I’ve lucked out and found one. Both those thoughts are based on incomplete logic, and in fact I haven’t found either to be true.
First, it’s insulting to men to cast them in the role of hapless, even stupid, until the right woman comes along and trains them up. A couple trains and teaches each other. You both learn and grow together if the relationship is to be a happy and fulfilling one.
Second, this idea that I found the perfect man and there is just a few of them out there, and if a woman could find the “right one”, then she’d be as happy as I am discounts all the time and effort that Jon and I have put into our relationship. There is no perfect man, or woman, out there. The idea that the right person will make everything in your life work effortlessly is just not true, but a lot of people believe it. I think that one of the reasons for the high divorce rate is this fallacy that if you fall in love with the right person that it will all be easy, and that if it isn’t easy then you’ve obviously chosen badly and you need to find someone else. Sometimes you do choose badly, and a divorce is the only cure. My first marriage ended in divorce after sixteen years. We were college sweethearts, and we went virgin to our honeymoon after a big church wedding. Nearly twenty years later I was a different person than the one he married, and we grew apart rather than together, until there were so many differences we could no longer thrive as a couple. I left when I realized I would rather be alone the rest of my life than be in a marriage that made me miserable. I planned to never marry again. Six months later I was engaged to Jon.
I did everything differently the second time. I insisted we live together first, because I had learned that you never really know someone until you wake up beside them, see them sick, after a hard day’s work, happy, sad, whatever. Anyone can pretend while they date, but sharing a home . . . you learn the real them, and the real you as a couple. Again, dating is all about the special, but marriage is all about the ordinary. A lot of men that are great on special occasions and will sweep you off your feet in that romantic way, suck at the every day. No, really, they do, just like some women that hit that same romantic note may totally suck at being a permanent partner. You can’t live on little black dresses and roses, because someday’s the toilet over flows and somebody has to wait for the plumber to show up. Was that unromantic? Good, because real life cannot be all flowers and pretty, real life is messy and you want someone who is willing to get down in the trenches with you, even if it means getting mud on their Gucci loafers.
Being married to my first husband didn’t help me be married to Jon, they were too different, and I was too different from the girl who married the first time. What I needed in a partner had changed almost completely. I was nearly twenty years older, so that made sense, but it was weird to realize that I had to throw away most of my preconceptions of marriage to make the second one work. I think a lot of people that marry over and over again, try to treat people like cookie cutters and fit different spouses into the same shape of marriage, and then they’re surprised why it doesn’t fit. They have a new shape of cookie, a new relationship and it needs to be treated like something brand new, and special in it’s own right.
One thing I did learn from my first marriage was that you had to make everyday special. You couldn’t wait for holidays, or anniversaries, because there weren’t enough of them, not for me. I’m the kind of person that needs anniversary sex daily, and flowers for no reason more often mean more to me than a big, expensive bouquet on my birthday. Now, I know I said earlier that dating is all about the special, and marriage is all about the every day, but successful marriage for me is about making every day special. Now, you can’t do it literally every single day, because there are days when the child is sick, the work deadline is crushing you, and by the end of the day you and your spouse are so tired you just want to fall into bed and sleep. It happens, the point is to make sure it doesn’t happen too often. That takes conscious effort on both your parts to understand that being married to the other person is a privilege, not a right. You earn privileges, rights are given to you like the Constitution gives rights. You must always remember that marriage is about earning the privilege to continue to be happily married, and it’s up to each person, each couple, each family, to figure out what that means for them.
Here’s the other thing I learned from my first marriage that helped me make a happier one the second time around. Love doesn’t mean the same thing to everyone. That means that how you show love isn’t the same, and what makes you feel loved isn’t the same. That sounds logical, right? You just have to find out what makes the other person feel loved and do those things, but what if they are mutually exclusive things?
To one person doing the dishes makes them feel loved, but to the other person being made to do dishes feels like punishment, maybe it was a punishment as a child so to have their spouse complain about them not doing the dishes throws them back into unhappy childhood memories. But the dishes still have to be done, and the other half of the couple will not think it’s fair to do them all the time. It is the job of the couple to find out why dishes are such a hot button for them. Figure that out, and the half that was punished with dish washing can offer to cook more often, or vacuum more often, or take some task that their spouse hates more than dishes.
“You were punished by being made to mow the lawn, I’ll do that, if you’ll do the dishes, because it makes me feel punished to do them.” Is that fair? Only if both halves of the couple feel it’s fair. That’s just one small example of the kind of dynamics that go into a long term relationship.
Here’s another example of the confusion that can happen if love means different things to people. I sent flowers to my first husband’s work once. I loved him and wanted him to have a happy reminder of that at his job. He came home and told me, “Never do that it again.” It had embarrassed him for his wife to send him flowers, and the other guys had given him shit about it. I had meant it to be romantic and tender, to make him as happy to get the flowers as it had made me to pick them out and send them, but it had made him unhappy and far from making him feel special, or loved, it had made him feel just the opposite. I must admit that his reaction to my flowers made me feel very unloved, too, so lesson learned. I never sent him flowers again.
Go forward about twenty years and I’m seriously dating Jon now. I was out on one of the last big book tours I would do by myself without Jon. I was gone for weeks and it was the longest we had been apart since we got serious. I sent him roses to his job with the first stanza from Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s poem, “How Do I love Thee, Let me count the ways . . . ”
Now I was taking a chance here since a similar gesture had blown up in my face with my first husband, but I had been dating Jon for nearly six months, living together most of that time, and we had been friends for eight years before that. I had sent him flowers to congratulate him for getting his first big job out of college and he had liked them. I’d done other romantic gestures for him, so I thought it was worth a try. But not only had I arranged for this bouquet, but I had arranged for a different color of rose and the next stanza of the poem on the card to be sent to his work every day for a week.
He got the same ribbing that my first husband had gotten from male coworkers for the first flowers, but Jon was able to proudly say, “She loves me, and she wants me to know that.” To him the flowers and the poem meant he was loved, just like it meant to me that I loved him. We matched up in our love expectations and actions. Yay!
The women at work thought it was very romantic, the first day. By day three the women were getting hostile to him, and the men at work were having two reactions. One, what sexual secret did Jon know to make a woman send him this many flowers!? Jon’s answer of, “She loves me, and I love her,” did not make the men stop trying to wheedle this bedroom secret from him. Two, that he was making them look bad in front of the women they were dating. He actually had one boyfriend who didn’t even work with him come over and talk to him, because the flowers were making the boyfriend’s girlfriend who worked with Jon complain to the boyfriend. Why didn’t she get flowers from him?”
The boyfriend said, “You’re making me look bad. Tell your girlfriend to stop sending you flowers to work.”
Jon’s reply, “I don’t make her do anything, and I like getting the flowers. You can get a five dollar bouquet of flowers from the grocery store across the street and give them to your girlfriend.”
I have dated other men besides Jon where the big gesture wasn’t as appreciated. It didn’t fall as flat as it did with my first husband, but it made the men uncomfortable. Part of the lack of comfort came from the fact that I was dating men ten years, or more younger than myself the second time round, and I had more money and resources to do the big gesture than men in their twenties. ( I did try dating men in my own decade, but I had many of the same issues with them that I’d had with my first husband. Ten years, or more younger and we got a long better. Jon is twelve years my junior.) I apparently made some men feel less manly, because I wanted to do the big romantic gesture and I did it better, or more expensively than they could. Again, go back to the whole idea of love means different things to different people, you have to respect that and figure it out. I knew I wanted to date a man that enjoyed getting flowers from me, so I did. I wanted to be rewarded for my romantic inclinations, my generous impulses, not feel punished for them. That goes back to the whole who washes the dishes question, well, who feels punished and more emotionally attached to the dishes? What do flowers at work mean to a man? Is it a good thing, or a bad thing? Find out, and respect their feelings. That’s really the key talk, communicate, and find ways to make you both feel happy and loved.
Strangely, Jon no longer likes getting flowers at work. This made me very sad, but the reason is that he works out of the house just like I do now. Flowers at work where he couldn’t see me and touch me were reminders that he was loved and got to go home to me. Flowers at home/work seem useless to him, because I can just find him and hug and love on him in person. Why send flowers when we’re together during the day anyway? Once we talked it out it made sense, but it still made me sad that he no longer enjoys getting flowers. On the the other hand I love when he gets me flowers, so he does, because for me as I write alone in my office they are a reminder that I am loved. This is just one example of how things that made us both feel loved when we were dating have changed. You have to honor the changes in each other, as well as the things that stay the same.
55 thoughts on “True Love is Hard Work”
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Lovely. I’ve been trying to figure out how to say something similar lately. Thank you!
I have learned in my 23 years of marrage tat it is a 50/50 relationshop. It is always in ned of work and there fore you are always learning and growning. You make of a relationship what you want. I have yet to meet the perfect person and I am haooy with out. I enjoy learning and teaching in my marrage.
Sorry… Messed up the first commment. Just wanted to say, I agree. Love and marriage is hard work, but worth it
I agree whole heartedly and it is what I preach at those whom I meet that are young than I and who have married after Tony and I. We spent years perfecting our marriage. It takes work and it takes dedication.
1. Do not keep score
2. No violence in word or deed
3. No threatening of divorce…there is no divorce unless rule number 2 is broken.
4. grow together
I would just like to say thank you. My boyfriend and I are very happy together because we talk about what we both want and what makes us feel special. You see, I dated his brother for almost 3 years before we found out that it just wasn’t making us happy. Brad and I rarely fight or even argue. We choose our battles and make sure they’re about the really important things. Most of my family and friends say how lucky we are but we don’t feel like that. We have worked to be as happy as we are but we did it because we love each other. Love is hard but it’s worth every second.
You hit the nail on the head. Too many times people date and marry thinking life will be bliss. WRONG! It takes alot of work, hard work to make a good marriage last. Trying to fit someone into the mold will always fail because if they didnt fit to begin with they never will. In Oct we will be married 30 yrs. We lived together for 2 1/2 yrs before that. Love isn’t just about the good, it’s about the bills, stress, kids, in-laws, the car breaking down, being sick, … it’s about that thing called life. We have been through so much and no matter what happened we always cared more about the other person than ourselves and ALWAYS tried to keep our sense of humor no matter what. Ok sometimes it’s a warped sense of humor but hey whatever works to get you through …
People give up too easily sometimes. Thanks for doing this. You’ll help alot of people. =)
I love this post, and fully agree. Marriage is hard work, and you grow with the person. I did not change my husband, he did not change me, but he lifts me up every day as I try to do the same to him. Hard work pays off in life, it does the same in marriage.
I think that this was an absolutely beautiful post and it really truly describes things. It makes so much sense and I can see everything in relation to my mother’s two marriages and what I want out of my relationships when I get there. I have never seen a better description for Love and at the end of the post, it make me smile and think “that’s what I want”.
It is nice to see someone post reality of a relationship . So many just do not really see that any relatinship takes work to make it last.
I once heard someone say that real love was someone who would hold your hair back when you puked. I think that’s true. The romantic stuff is wonderful, but having someone who sees you at your worst and is still there means more. At least to me…
Thank you very much for this blog. I’ve been with my husband for 12 years now. We’ve had our ups and downs, but it’s taken a lot of work sometimes working through the same problem multiple times before we get it right. I am glad you found someone you are happy with, though divorce after nearly 20 years scares the hell out of me. Your interesting can clear commentary always gives me something to think about.
As always, I love your writing. Considering that I am a FTM transsexual and am going to legally marry the women that I’ve been married to for 12 years already, I can agree: marriage is work. When you say, “I do”, you’d better. Thank you for sharing. Much love to you and Jon always and making your fans aa part of your lives.
As always, I love your writing. Considering that I am a FTM transsexual and am going to legally marry the women that I’ve been “married to” for 12 years already, I can agree: marriage IS work. When you say, “I do”, you’d better. Thank you so much for sharing your insight. You are on my “If I could sit down and have lunch with any five people in the world– living or dead, who would they be?” list. I find your writing wonderful. I find your personal writing and observations all the moreso. Such admiration and respect for you and your work. Thank you for making your fans a part of yours and Jon’s world.
You are exactly right! My husband and I are going through couples therapy because even though we were high school sweethearts, we have grown into different people and we have to relearn who we are to be able to thrive as a couple again. The example about the dishes is 100% spot on and that’s actually similar to an example our counselor used (except it was taking out the trash). Just because we’ve known each other for a long time, doesn’t mean we stay the same people after marriage, kids, and careers. I realized this when almost every day we would fight about something and decided to get help. I love my husband just as much as I did on the day we were married, but life changed and since humans are adaptive creatures, we changed to fit the lifestyle change and now we’re different. If you take the time to learn who you are and in turn learn who your spouse is now, it could spice things up in your marriage again and start all over.
I also agree with living with someone at least 1 year before getting married. It has saved me from 2 marriages. You get to see who that person REALLY is and not through rosy (or beer) glasses. There’s nothing to hide when you realize that they like to guard the bed with dirty (and clean) clothes, or leave whiskers in the sink, etc. it lets you know if you can deal with how they live or not. I will recommend this to my daughter when she gets to that stage in her life because I know it works.
You are an absolute idol to me and its nice to enjoy someone who doesnt sugar coat evrrything and just gives you thr experiences they’ve had.
Hmmmmm…I got with my husband my senior year of high school, got married at 21, went to college and got my degree at 30. That was the beginning of the end. Making more money than him was something he was ok with in theory, when it actually happened he discovered he want as progressive as he thought himself to be. At 38 we separated and now here I am starting at 40 and am more confused about love than ever! Maybe I need to try a decade younger too? My problem is that certain aspects of my life scare younger men (I have grown children) while certain aspects of my life and personality turn off men my own age:( To be honest I like being alone most of the time. I’ve reapply learned to enjoy my own company, but I really miss sex!
I wanted to thank you for finally having the balls to explain to people what a relationship really takes to thrive. I have been married twice also and the first was hectic and offbeat for the same reasons. It takes time to learn your partner and if you want an easy way out then get a 9 to 5 because marriage is a 24/7 job. Thank you so much Laurell 🙂
Your right that’s how things are nobody is the same and we fight for what we want. And what you wrote reminds me of your books. They make life so much simpler that it cheers me up. So thank you. And i think this is one of the best view of you you could give to your fans.
Beauty & the Beast
In a woman’s love
she is most oft’ the Beauty
With hair so soft
and eyes so bright
Truly a beauty to behold
The man who loves her
is most oft’ a brute
tamed only by her hand
Unruly in manner
A Beast is all regards
But what if that woman
is the one who is the brute
With a vicious tongue
and hateful eyes
A woman who is a Beast
Loving a man
with a tender heart and a pure soul
one who deserves admiration
A man who radiates Beauty
I must confess
despite who I want to be
My love he is Beauty, and I the Beast.
Shaunna Drummond 2001
I wrote this poem when I was in high school. I am 30 now, married to the love of my life. We met almost 6 years ago and got together for nothing more than sex and fun. I had plans to move away and he was enjoying being a young, single, good looking guy. Somewhere along the line we just never lost hold of each other. We credit our relationship to being able to grow with each other. We teach each other different things, and we take on parts of each other. Ray has taught me patience and I have taught him sarcasm. Funny, but true. I never thought of myself as the beautiful, soft person in a relationship, and I certainly wasn`t looking for a man to “train up”. We were married August 25, 2012 and I have to say that nothing has changed except my name. We love, we struggle, we play, we are building our lives together. We are not different people now, and our expectations have not changed. I’m currently re-reading the Anita Blake series and I am on Incubus Dreams right now. The story is pure turmoil, but somewhere in it all, for some reason I am seeing something different. It’s not about the sex, it’s the reasons for it, the need and the response. I realized recently that I was very much treating my husband like Anita was treating Nathaniel. Not to say we don’t have sex, but I was neglecting something he wanted, something he needed. In my mind I used to compare my husband to Richard, but he has shifted in my head to be more of a Nathaniel. I’ve been rolling this note to you around in my head for a couple days, and when I saw the post on facebook about commenting on this blog post, I just felt like it was the right time and place. Thank you for the work you put into books. I met Anita when I was in high school. She’s been a part of my life for a long time and I appreciate you, the woman behind the story for giving me a world to explore myself in.
Much Love,
Shaunna
I have found in my past relationships and my marriage that what you have said is very true. Love is hard work, but true love is worth it. I’ve found that when love starts to feel easy, it’s not too long before it sours – sometimes you just don’t realize it right away. I’ve had love that soured and love that ended before it truly soured (though not often) and it has taught me that when you want to keep someone around, you MUST work to do so. Sometimes it’s as simple as paying attention to the players on a favorite hockey team, other times it means you have to deal with hardships and difficult emotions, but when someone is worth keeping around, it doesn’t feel that much like work; it becomes a joy to see that smile on their face and hear that happiness in their voice. I know I need to work more in my relationship – between work for him and school for me, sometimes important things, relationship-wise, fall by the wayside. I know, though, that this time I have a partner who’s going to work as hard as I will, so we can make this work together.
Thank you for your wise words, here and otherwise, as well as your joyful words and your sad words. You have provided me with much joy and inspiration in my life, for many years, and I am forever grateful. I love to read and your books are among my favorites, because you paint such beautiful pictures with them.
It seems my husband and I do nothing but fight over lack of money. How do you know when to give up when there are kids involved? When we fight I just won’t out because I’m unhappy the kids are unhappy but I have left and I just want to be back in my home. Maybe I am not trying to understand him like I should. You have given me some food for thought.
I wish I had words of wisdom for you. For myself, it was a matter of the stra that broke the camels back. As a child of an unhappy marriage, parents staying together isn’t a benefit to the kids if the kids know how unhappy the parents are. Though it may suck to move forward becasuse it feels like moving back, please consider it. Ask the kids, but not ag]fter a fight, what do they want and think?
This just goes to reinforce why you are my favorite author!! Thank you for sharing this.
Mrs. Hamilton, you are truly an inspiration and and an amazing writer, wife, and woman. What you and Jon have together is really a thing of amazing beauty and time, just like you said. Its what you two make it. Hilariously I am the older one in my relationship as well, and I’ve noticed for me it works out well. Loving in many the same ways and understanding each other on so many levels is so key to who we are…even on bad days, we know where we are and who we are, together and alone.
I have learned so much from you, and I hope to continue to do so. Thank you.
I 100% agree. Real love is hard work and the work is harder some days than others…but always worth it. My husband and I dated for over 9 years with a couple breakups dotted in there before we finally tied the knot a couple months ago. We are each others’ first serious relationships so our first breakup was caused by the typical stresses of living together. We got back together cautiously after that and grew together. Last year I left him for a much more serious reason…alcohol abuse. It was the hardest thing I had ever done in my life, we had JUST bought a house together the year before and were talking marriage and kids. After a few months apart and being completely heartbroken we started talking again. He was getting help and we both agreed to always keep an open line of communication. It seems easy, but truly open communication is hard work. You have to remind yourself that your partner can’t read your mind…your actions are being interpreted by someone other than yourself….like your flower example. It is important to make the effort to understand your partner and be understood by your partner. I know, first hand, the work love requires and that it is SOOOO worth it. A little over a year after the saddest time in my life I am now living the happiest time of my life….I am married to the most wonderful man and we have a 3 week old son!
I loved reading this blog and I do agree about perfect love doesnt exist. We are all imperfect beings and need to love perfectly even the flaws I. Others. My husband and I work everyday to make our relationship work. It is nice to hear that other people also have to do the same thing.
My sweetie & I always say to each other, “Even your imperfections are perfect to me.” This is sometimes hard to remember when we are upset or angry with each other but it’s really the bedrock of our relationship. Even the hard things never shake that bone-deep knowledge of, “You are the one for me.”
I am so pleased though that seems too subltle of a work to have gottento know you eventhrough books and websites. I am a better girlfiend and lover due to your influence. I have always been afaraid to tell you this even though you will never know me. Thakn you for being my mentor in matters of the heart and bedroom. My boyfriend may not know it but he thanks you yoo.
This is so very true. After being friends for approximately 8 yrs (like you and Jon) my fiance and I got together as friends with a little something extra on the side. We were roommates and after a few weeks we were using the front bedroom as the computer room and the back bedroom as ours. That was 2 1/2 yrs ago and I see nothing but the best for us because we work at it everyday. I have major issues that I am still working thru because of 3 previous relationships that were bad. I just try not to make him pay for them and try to keep the lines of communication open. Thanks for sharing and letting your fans know that you’re in the relationship trenches with us.
Wow, you certainly nailed it for my my husband and I. Specially the part about the dishes. For him, it was really important that I took care of our home, specially washing the dishes, if he came home from work and the dishes were unwashed he would get really angry and started spouting things like I didn’t care about him since I made him wash all the ldishes and didn’t clean the house (I did clean the house in general terms, we just disagreed about when the house needed cleaning). After many fights, he managed to tell me that he saw the house as a reflection of our couple. Meaning if he saw the house dirty and untidy it meant I didn’t put the effort of keeping things in order and look after it/us. Once I got how he felt I really put my back into it and made the dish washing part of my routine. I found out I didn’t hate it nearly as bad as washing the toilet, so that went to him and I took dish washing and laundry cleaning. Afterwards we got someone to clean for us once per week so that the hard cleaning went to her and we took turns doing the rest. It was a win-win. Oh! He also improved with my messiness. He now tolerates my messy corner and I try not to leave things stranded everywhere. So I got to be a little tidier and he got to be more accepting of one or two things laying about the house.
Amazingly put. I definitely couldn’t agree more. The only other thing my fiancée and I do that I think is a huge asset to our relationship is everyday we thank each other for something they did during that day. Whether it be something small like fixing something around the house or for making a grand gesture. Being thanked and appreciated for the things we do have made our relationship 100% better over the years.
Also, at the end of every day, we say something positive that happened. Even if it was a dreadful day from hell, we say something we liked or loved. Like lunch was good, or I jammed out in my car. Saying the positive about the day is a great stress reliever, and to share that with your other half, you start seeing them as a stress reliever, and a beacon of hope after a long, hard day.
I found your view on what makes your marriage work for yourself and your husband very interesting as it would appear to be the near opposite of what I would write about my own very happy 26 year marriage to my own husband. Perhaps this only proves that each relationship is unique to the parties contained therein and that everything is indeed relative, or a matter of perspective.
We have not had some of the environmental stress such as infidelity, poverty or terribly I’ll children that some couples face. My first reaction when couples say marriage is work is to think your doing it wrong, I have had to work at many things, but my marriage has never been one of them. I always give the reason to mthe success of my marriage as our ability to put our spouses first, to be unselfish with each other, not always, but mostly. We have always felt that we are true partners in life, that together we are stronger and will face the world. Together. Thank you for sharing the personal info on your marriage.
I agree my husband and I were together 30+ year until his death in 2004. We didn’t always see eye to eye about some things, but I don’t beleive we couldn’t have found anyone else to meet our needs as well as we did together. Marriage is not a perfest 50/50 split, sometimes it’s 60/40,. But, on the whole we worked together. I think he was more “romantic” than I was.
Sometimes making love to one another can be as simple as sitting across from each other at a busy supper table “knowing” what the other is thinking by the look on their face. Feeling desired is important to most anyone. Things changed drastically after Trinity was born 5 years ago. Something we thought would never happen but it did and we were thankful and overwhelmed. So we’ve adjusted and worked out the fact we could’nt do all the intmate things we started out with in our relationship. We were best friends for 11 years before dating so we already knew each others skeletons and were ready to be together. Communication is #1 on our lis and works for us!.
Thank you so much for writing this. It is so hard to explain to my friends why after dating for 11 years, marriage is not really a priority. I want a partner, someone who I can build a life with together, not who I can build a life for or vise versa. I don’t want to own him as much as I don’t want to be owned. I don’t want to have “rules” or “laws” that take the fun out of being ourselves. It’s a give and take and it’s work but it should also be enjoyable for both parties or why do it?
I’m in my second marriage, and at just over two years, it’s lasted longer than my first. One, I’m older and more comfortable in my own skin. Two, I’ve learned a lot about myself: wants, needs, faults and all. To me, marriage is trust , honesty, respect, and above all, communication. It’s too easy nowadays to get a divorce. I’m of the mindset that I love my husband, no matter what he does; and yes, we’ve had some doozy arguments. Yet still, I have firmly put out there that this time, there will be no divorce. Sure,it takes work, and even compromise, to make it work. Both will have to give in on an issue at some point, to compromise just to maintain the relationship.
Ms. Hamilton, you have a great understanding of what it takes for a relationship to work. Anyone can put on a front while dating, but one would only be falling in love with what one sees, and not the full person. Thank you for sharing. Jon sounds like a great guy, and although not perfect, he’s just right for you.
I love your insight! Your writing and how Anita and Merry relate to their men has helped me be a better wife! My husband and I have both changed sk much since high school, and your books have helped me learn how to grow together, not apart.
Your story gives me hope. I have been divorced for 2 years now and it has been a struggle to find “me” again. I feel like another relationship will cause me to lose myself all over again. I have read almost all of your work. The issues your main characters face have given me strength over these past few years. That I don’t have to constantly struggle to be perfect. To accept myself as I am and not try so much to please others. Thank you for giving us real characters. I read every day and love the worlds you create. Please give us more!! I wish you and your husband all the love in the world…
It’s amazing how some people can have such similar histories. 16 year marriage end in divorce. Find someone only months later, marry. And I’ve learned the same lessons. I could not have expressed them as eloquently, so thank you for putting them into words. It is truth, and I hope that more people learn the valuable lesson that love is a daily decision and constant work, not something that just happens and stays that way. I am glad you found yours (oddly my mate is also a decade younger than myself, but age should never be the big issue as long as you both act like adults).
I don’t have anything to add to this, except to affirm that love is hard work, but oh, so, worth it.
I agree with what you said. Being married is a hard job and something you have to work at everyday. I have only been married 6 years now and have two kids with one on the way here any day, but we are happy. We do have our fights, but we work them out before we go to bed. Our philosophy is never go to bed angry and it has worked for us so far and everyday we learn something new.
I am glad that you wrote this blog and I hope that you stay happy in your marriage.
JO
This post really spoke true to me. My second husband and I have now been together 5 years married almost 1 and been through such similar events as yours it is amazing. People say ” marriage is for life” we’ll sometimes the first marriage doesn’t work out and is mearly a life lesson that one must learn. Marriage and relationships require work both physically and emotionally. I think most important that my present husband has thought me is learning to love myself. The more you love yourself and happier you are with you , the grander your relationships in life will be. We create our own destiny every day, we decide what we want life to be and how it should be orchestrated and if we choose to have a beautiful existence with our partner than so it shall be. Relationships may be hard, but knowing the love you feel for someone is so grand.
My husband and i have been married almost 4 yrs, which i know isnt very long, but even before that we date 3 yrs, part time during high school. When my friends come to me about problems ms, I always ask them well did you talk to him/her about whats goin on? Communication is 1 of the key things to making a relationship last. I also tell them that to make a relationship work, you must work and put effort into it. Both sides must be putting effort into the relationship, it wont last if its all 1 side or the other.
My husband and I married quite young (I was 20 and he 19). We are still happily married 15 years later. It was work it was not easy, but it was worth all the joy, pain, good, and bad. We lived together for some months and that sold it for me. I see far too many who throw away a good thing because they have this mistaken belief that marriage should just take care of itself. Sad. I love your writing and your attitude about this is bang on which only reinforces to me the type of person you must be.
Laurell, this is well written and you have always spoke to me with your writing on a lot of topics through Anita…So much that one passage from (I want to say) incubus Dreams stands out to me the most. “There comes a point where you just love someone. Not because they’re good, or bad, or anything really. You just love them. It doesn’t mean you’ll be together forever. It doesn’t mean you won’t hurt each other. It just means you love them. Sometimes in spite of who they are, and sometimes because of who they are. And you know that they love you, sometimes because of who you are, and sometimes in spite of it.”
I totally agree. It IS work to keep a relationship where you both want it to be. One thing that I do is write my husband a love note on his lunch napkin every single day. I have done this for the past 4 years and it never gets old or repetative for either of us. It’s my way of showing him that he is loved! (BTW…this is my second marriage also after being married for 20 years and vowing never to mmarry again!) K
laurel you inspired me to write a post on love in my ownblog asi have had similar experiences.I so hope you will read it and comment!
http://www.dramatiquedesigns.blogspot.com/2013/01/love-is-real-real-is-love.html
I’m just a young girl compared to everyone who has posted, I’ve never been married, or had kids. I’ve never been divorced either. But I know how hard it i to keep a relationship strong, and healthy. I’ve almost been engaged twice, and luckily those didn’t pan out. Now I’m dating a guy who is five years older, who has been previously married. With our last relationships, we both went through hell. I had a judgemental and extremely controlling boyfriend, his wife cheated on him while he was serving in Afghanistan. We were reluctant to start a relationship with each other. But I’m glad we did. We are so comfortable around each other. We’ve talked about moving in together. It might be happening within the next few months. I like taking care of my boyfriend, which is something he’s never really had. He feels bad when he asks me to do simple things, like refill his glass when I’m in the kitchen grabbing a snack. We’ve spent the night together, slept in the same bed, woke up next to each other hair a mess, and were just so happy that we woke up next to each other. I know we’ve got a long way to go, and I’m not saying it will end up in marriage, but for now I’m focusing on being with him, and helping him be the best person he can be, while he’s helping me do the same.
I want to thank you for saying that about marriage. I have been together with my husband for 12 yrs. and we have 8 beautiful children. I believe that the things you have mentioned are why we are together still. So I want to thank you for always being the open minded person i have grown to love and admire. I believe you could write about anything and it would be great. I also wanted to thank you for making my brake time (my me) wonderful with 8 children running around there is always a need for mommy time. I spend this time reading your new books or the older ones.I want to thank you again for working so hard so we all can enjoy your wonderful books.
Your words are beautifully written, Laurell. Marriage should be about understanding, a balance, commitment, hard work, listening, communicating..well, the list goes on.
I’ve been married twice. The first lasted 10 years and I knew the fellow for 12, since I was 16 years old. We married when I was 19. I feel now that becoming married that young was a mistake because I haven’t been on my own long enough to feel comfortable in my own skin and truly take care of my own as well as focus on what my future may be. I fell into the romantic trap of looking for someone to take care of me. It turned out, amongst other things, that he was extremely controlling and I had to leave. The day I left, I had no bank account, no money, a part time minimum wage job and a lot of fear. I lived in a woman’s shelter for 2 months and learnt a lot about psychological abuse and controlling relationships. The divorce lasted 3 years.
I met my late husband one year into my separation. He was a beautiful man, very passionate about music, flowers, poetry, theatre, science, family, travel, good food and wine, and I found many of these things and more we had so much in common. He was funny, charming, dressed impeccably, danced awfully and was the classic ‘romantic’ sending me flowers and the like. John’s passion was red roses and would send them to me on special occasions. One day I said that I would prefer and love to have roses in my garden so I can see them all through the warmer seasons. We did that yet he would still send me bouquets and in my heart I still loved that. We initially lived together for three years for the same idea you mentioned. You don’t know a person until you lived with them. However, I was slow to see the warning signs. He would get angry and ‘blow up’ if he felt cornered or if I’d get at all cross with him. It turned out that he had terrible low self esteem and throughout his life was controlled by his mother and the only way he could find balance was to try and control me. I lived (married after the 3rd year) with ‘Jeckyl and Hyde’ for 9 years. ..
Into the second month of our marriage, I was enrolled at a college and was walking down a short pathway in my neighborhood so I can reach a road to catch the bus. I was attacked in that walkway, stabbed under 12 times, beaten, choked to unconsciousness, sexually assaulted and robbed. Luckily I survived but the attacker is yet to be caught. This happened Oct 19, 2001. The police had asked me over and over whether my husband did this to me but I said no. They dragged him to the precinct and grilled him and kept him a person of interest for many months. This incident ingrained in John that he failed me, like he failed in his previous marriage, in pleasing his mother, in failing university (before he graduated with honours from the college instead)… I felt alone in dealing with my recovery, fighting city hall for pathway lights (I won that battle), checking in with the precinct for 4 years about leads on my attacker, giving seminars to young women about violence. John never prevented me from doing what I needed to do to recover but he stood aside while I had to deal with panic attacks, three years of therapy..
Years go by and his mother’s spouse becomes ill and in hospital. He goes with her every day for a year to that hospital until he passes away. He then sees her every day to help her with the Estate and he falls more and more into this silent depression. By this point, he hasn’t communicated or shared anything with me since Al’s death. John was always a very private person. With all my pleading that we should go to counselling over the years for John’s anger issues or non-communication, he would not budge. My health was failing. I was walking on eggshells and I realized that I can’t live with him anymore. I left him and gave him names of good counsellors that we can both see separately for a while until I’m ready to go to see one with him together. He got desperate and after two attempts, committed suicide on April 13, 2010. This had been one of the worst events in my life that ever happened to me. John was my soulmate and I loved him dearly. I told him I loved him repeatedly, even when I left but the marriage was lost.
After being married twice, I won’t marry again. I haven’t given up on loving someone. I’m actually with someone who looks a lot like your Jon! We are happy living in our own respective homes and one hour apart. We get together weekly, enjoy each other’s company and have been very happy. I’m enjoying my independence and have two kitty cats for daily company. Marriage can be a beautiful thing and you can also have a lot of heartbreak. I never regretted my marriage to John. We had shared so much joy and passions together, especially in the early years and I know we truly loved each other. I’ve learnt a lot about myself. Now I know I need to live my life for me and share love when I can. Thank you Laurell, for sharing your life with us and my apologies for such a long post.
I know that love and marriage is hard work like you said. I was only married for three months when he told me he wanted the divorce. He was deployed for that whole time and I suffered a miscarriage. This put a lot of strain on the relationship. Looking back I should have just given him the divorce instead of forcing him to remain married and to try working through it. I was also pregnant with our daughter, so I wanted to stay together for her too. What I have found out is that if only one person does all the giving and takes care of all the mess, then that is unfair to them. It is a give and take compromise and you have to find what works best in the relationship. We have now been married two years and are looking to file when we get the money to. It will not work if one person doesn’t want it to. They go to someone else and then it creates more strife and a lot of pain and suffering on the other. I will be the best parent I can be for my daughter, and I hope her father realizes that she ahould be the center of his world like she is mine. I am not looking for someone else for a while because I need some time to think things through. I just know that whoever comes into our life next understands that I will not be doing everything for them, and that I need pampered every once in a while. I need to know I am loved. I never got the big romantic gestures, though I do give them. I think instead of going younger than me, I will try older and responsible. Even though I am only a year older than her father physically, it seems he still has a lot of growing up to do.
I have always tried explaining this by telling people who ask that it takes communication and understanding to make a relationship work. I learned that when he checks the oil in my car he is saying he loves me and wants me to be safe. I have also learned that when he says he doesn’t want to do the thing I have asked him to do that he has a reason for this and it does not mean he does not love me. A lot of people read things into behaviors of thier spouse without ever asking why? or what was behind that for you? what did you mean by that. I also find that if I explain how I feel in certain circumstances my spouse gains a better understanding of where I am coming from and we both work to limit harmful behaviors. Having said all that I really enjoyed your well written version because I know I can send the link to my friend who has never understood my version and she will finally get what I have been trying to say. So thank you.
A lot of men that are great on special occasions and will sweep you off your feet in that romantic way, suck at the every day= my husband. But I still love him. 🙂
The third factor is exactly how unloved you feel in any relationship. There are relationships that aren’t quite what someone had wished they would be, but aren’t horrible. There will always be husbands who no longer bring flowers or wives who no longer have time to pack a special lunch with a note, and that kind of thing can be the beginning of not feeling quite as loved any longer.
Love is the best and biggest thing we can do in our lives. It is the only thing that will always make us happy, and make others happy too. Isn’t it funny that the only thing that is absolutely free to everyone in the world is the one and only thing that will make us really, really happy? When we love our family, we make them a little happier. If we love our dog or our cat, we can make them happy. We can even love the sky, or love the wind. Have you ever loved the flowers, or loved the ocean or the waves? Did you feel happy? Did you feel like you were a part of those things? Everything needs to be loved, if you want to help make them happy. And do you know what else? They are all loving you too, even though sometimes it is hard to feel it.