Confessions of an Anti-Romantic
February 14, 2006 at 4:12 Melanhead tagged me to do the Perfect Partner meme, which is a list describing everything you love about your partner or, if you’re unattached, everything you want in a prospective partner.
I’d seen the meme at other sites--but I didn’t really want to do it.
And that made me wonder why I had an aversion to it. At first I thought it was because it seemed trite to try and wrap words around a relationship I’ve been in for 27 years. I couldn’t reduce why it worked into items on a list. Having been with the same person since I was seventeen, I can tell you the qualities that inspired me when I was a teenager aren’t necessarily the same ones that I’d place on a list now.
But on further examination (because hey, in V-Grrrl’s wrrrld, the unexamined life doesn’t exist), I realized there was a deeper reason for my reluctance to write about my “perfect partner.”
That reason is that I don’t believe in a “perfect partner.” I don’t believe in “soulmates.” I don’t believe in the whole concept of “one true love.” I’m quite an anti-romantic at heart.
But I do believe in love.
Years ago, my father-in-law, with a smug tone in his voice, implied I was forever indebted to him for adopting and bringing my Belgian-born husband to the States. If he hadn’t done that, he claimed, I never would have met my one true love. “And then where would you be?” he added.
“Married to someone else, I’m sure!” I replied with more than a little laughter bubbling up behind the words. Really, the question did strike me as absurd.
My father-in-law was completely flummoxed by my response. (We spent a lot of our relationship misunderstanding each other.)
My point was that I don’t believe E is my destiny, the only man in the universe I could ever fall in love with, marry, and be relatively happy with. Do I sound like I slut if I dare to say there are probably several men I could have loved and married with varying degrees of success? Sure, a different partner would have made a different life with different strengths and weaknesses—and perhaps different end results. After all, loving someone intensely in itself doesn’t guarantee a good marriage.
Being an anti-romantic and a practical Grrrl, I’m a big believer in compatibility, in marrying someone not just that you love, but that you can live with--really LIVE with--day in and day out, year in and year out. I tell my kids not to marry someone just because you love them: marry someone you can build a life with, who will let you remodel that life from time to time.
It’s easy enough to fall in love, staying in love is harder and far more important. Bit by bit over the years, nurturing love requires a commitment not to put your relationship on automatic pilot or cling to what you felt in the past but to get up every morning and make a decision to love the one you’re with and cultivate the relationship between you. It’s a type of long-term courtship.
I’m probably one of the few women in the Western world who hated the movie Titanic. I couldn’t stand the premise that Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio were soulmates united and divided by their drama on board the Titanic. I know I was supposed to cry at the thought that they each lost their one and only true love when Leo’s frosty face slipped under the waves.
Oh please.
They only loved each other for 36 hours! Loving someone for 36 hours doesn’t impress me—not even a little bit. I’m not sure I’d even use the word “love” to describe a 36-hour relationship. It was more like a really long, first (and last) date.
Here’s the flip side, a not-too-sentimental glimpse of what my 27-year-relationship means to me:
E, if you’re reading this, let me just say this: I’m glad I fell in love with you and you with me. I’m glad we chose each other and continue to choose each other, day in and day out, year in and year out.
We’ve grown together and grown apart. We’ve made each other laugh and made each other curse. We’ve shared the most romantic moments and also the most mundane tasks. We’ve shouldered many burdens together. We’ve held each other when everything was coming together and when everything was coming apart. We’ve offered one another comfort and acceptance on a level we could find no where else. And we’ve done that for a really long time, in the best and worst of circumstances.
So while I may not embrace the idea of a one and only “perfect partner,” I do believe in a (near) perfect partnership. I have had a wonderful life with you. Moment by moment, day by day, month by month, year by year, we’ve functioned with amazing grace.
Happy Valentines Day, E. This blog’s for you.
© 2006 Veronica McCabe Deschambault. All rights reserved.
February 14, 2006
Reader Comments (6)
I wish everyone would see love in this light, perhaps then, there would be more of a willingness to work things out.
Interesting how you met in the US, but ended up back in Europe...
When Alex and I were newly engaged, I remember my aunt asking me if I couldn't bear the thought of living without him. I had to answer her truthfully: "Yes, I can imagine it, and I think I would feel like that with any one." Rather than one soul mate, I think there's more like 3 dozen people out there who you would more likely get along with than not. It's practicalloy unbearable to think there's ONLY one! I mean, the world population is uneven, I am sure. People die accidentally. If you look at it as only one person for you, why then, you probably have a better chance winning the lottery! :)