Relationships have been in the news a lot lately. They always are, now I think about it. Married At First Sight. Matildas players falling in love and getting engaged. The end of year recap on all the celebrity relationships that failed (hmm, we are a cynical lot after all). Remember how the new Queen Mary met her King-in-waiting in a pub at the Sydney Olympics. Speaking of which, can we claim the monarch of another country as our own? I guess we do that with entertainers and actors, why not a foreign royal? Oh, and there was a personal celebration as well!
This line in the Desiderata is a curious one to me, another one I think I mis-read early on and have come back to see in a very different light. You see, originally I read it to say that you should hang on to a relationship. No matter what, do not be cynical, because it will be there even when you think the love has been lost. An admonition of sorts. Do not give up. Do not walk away, the survival of this marriage is up to you and you cannot give up. It seemed strangely two dimensional.
As I grew older and began to accumulate the early stages of wisdom I started to question this one further. What about when things go bad, for they certainly do and no-one should remain in a bad relationship. Surely not even Max Ehrmann himself would encourage someone to stay in a dangerous marriage? Although he did live in less-enlightened times I choose to believe he wanted the best for everyone.
Yep, there has definitely been aridity and also a wee bit of disenchantment over the years but we have also come to understand what it means not to be cynical about what is a huge investment in life. My favourite story of longevity in a marriage is one I can no longer find the source of but which is nevertheless ingrained in my thoughts as words to live by.
A couple celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary were interviewed by the local television news. The reporter, young and eager, asked them the secret to such a long marriage. He glanced at her and she grinned. “Well,” she said. “It’s easy. We just never hated one another at the same time.”
Now hold your horses! Don’t screw your noses up at this one. It’s not as negative as you think. OK, maybe it does sound a wee bit cynical. Hate is a strong word, I get that, but hear me out. In the same way that I’ve been choosing how to interpret lines of the Desiderata I feel I have licence to choose to take this one as advice from a wise elder. She’s reminding us that we will have difficult times. We won’t always be in sync with one another. Life will test us out when we least expect it and not always affect us in the same way at the same time. She’s saying, remember that things will always get better…
That’s how I hear it. That’s how I remember it when things get a bit tricky.
Perhaps Ehrmann was thinking of humanity – kindness and caring and the love we have as a people? Perhaps, too, he was telling us that it’s easy to give up but be prepared to do the work, play the long game? Perhaps. The more I talk to people and understand all the myriad different ways to create and nurture and weather a long term relationship, the more I realise that maybe what the Desiderata is reminding us is to try, keep improving, have hope, always, that things will be better.
That realisation reminded me of my favourite photo from our own wedding. We chose to have our parents stand with us to commence our ceremony to represent this concept for us in the vows we were about to take. For love to be perennial a long term relationship takes time and work and not a little bit of effort. And we had these two crazy couples at our sides showing us the way forward. How lucky are we to have such role models?
Marriage isn’t one simple model of forever after and happy endings. It’s a journey to work on together. Sometimes that together means to be a part. Challenging societies expectations of what marriage is can in itself be a test of your resolve. If it doesn’t fit the norm you must be in trouble. What’s that… you live in
Separate countries… that must be hard. 😎😎 we have our own lives and look forward to one day again being 24/7. But for now, life is good, it’s quiet, it’s mine, I call all the shots. Contentment.
Love your words Mel. Always gets me thinking.!!
Such wise words!
Every relationship is so very specific to itself. We forget that sometimes (often?!) and ascribe the beliefs from inside our own relationship onto what we see from the outside of the relationships of others. And the two just cannot be compared sometimes!
The one thing that runs through all is persistence…