The Long Road

The other day I came across a blog entry on characteristics of good relationships, which draws on the work of Harville Hendrix (author of "Getting the Love you Want"). I don't agree with everything there, but one particular passage struck me:

You accept the difficulty of creating a lasting love relationship. In an unconscious partnership, you believe that the way to have a good relationship is to pick the right partner. In a conscious partnership you realise you have to be the right partner. As you gain a more realistic view, you realise that a good partnership requires commitment, discipline, and courage to grow and change; creating a fulfilling love relationship is hard work…”

In writing and thinking about my time with Jen, I realise that I have focused more on the final state, the relationship we had in 2009, rather than on the process that brought us there. If you are or were in a long relationship, you'll know yourself that the changes that occur rarely make a simple narrative. Of course there was the BC era (Before Children), when we were only dealing with the needs and insecurities of two people. In those early years we argued, as most couple do -- not all the time by any means, but enough to be an issue. In all but a handful of cases I can't remember what we argued about, which is usually for me an indication that the actual flashpoint was incidental to some underlying disagreement or stress. In time we found better ways to communicate, we came to trust each other more deeply, and the conflicts died down a bit. At the end, in Jen's last ten months, there was an unspoken pact not to waste our precious time with arguments - I can only recall a couple of such disagreements, which is not bad considering the level of distress that we were all experiencing.

When I see now couples - both friends and family - who have been married for 50 years, I feel a mixture of emotions. There's undoubtedly joy for them, mixed with admiration in having made it so far. There are crucial moments in relationships -- how we rise to meet challenges and disasters -- but I think those responses are a reflection of the everyday work in a relationship: how we look out for each other's interests, how we serve, how we listen, how we give and receive compliments, how we express love in a way that's understood. Those golden wedding anniversaries also give me a sense of loss - it's an experience I can't now imagine having, and certainly not with Jen who is dead. Not that time always improves people or marriages - it could equally embitter and destroy them - but I would have liked to see where Jen and I could have been in another 35 years.

What then am I left with now that Jen is gone? Is there anything to show for the daily work of almost sixteen years? In an immediate way, so much of a relationship is specific to the needs and circumstances and personalities of the couple, and seems not to be transferable. I learnt to live with Jen and look after her, and she similarly learnt to live with me. But in that process I have become a quite different person, marked by love, and I have learnt a small amount of what is involved in loving and listening and serving. More importantly I have two sons with Jen who grew up in the midst of our relationship, and who are similarly marked by Jen's love.

I don't know if I'll ever remarry, but one of the tasks of grief for me is to sift through the ashes, to learn what I can from my time with Jen. So I reflect on what made our relationship work and what that tells me about myself and my needs. One of the illusions of time is the temptation to project the end onto the beginning, to focus on the ease of relationship after many years, and overwrite the memory of how it was at the start. This is especially important in imagining starting again with another person. Even then, knowing how long the road is ahead, it's daunting to imagine being back at the beginning. Yet it wouldn't be the same beginning, for the past always casts a shadow, and I am a changed person.

Being single again, I face the another perplexing question: is there anything else I can do now that prepares me to be a better partner in a future relationship - one that might never eventuate? One of the blessings of being a parent is that I'm continually forced to consider the needs of my children, and I think a focus on serving the needs of others is healthy for me. I can work on being a more caring listener, a less selfish person, a better friend. In a small way it's like the running I do to train for far-off events: I may not enter the race, but the benefits of the training may be more important, and I can enjoy them now.