“We love each other. There’s no fear, there’s no ego, no attitude. When I look at these young people today, my heart bleeds. Looking and wanting love so bad. Not knowing how to find it, not knowing anybody to show them what it is and how to get it. If you don’t remember anything from us tonight, remember this: love, pure love, will never return to you void.”
— Porter Jones , Why did I get married?
I've been in my current relationship on and off for about three years now, and when I say on and off I don't mean that we've broken up 50 million times; we've only separated once my freshman year of college. The separation was mainly due to us having a rough time transitioning from our teenage years into adulthood. During this time we both needed time apart to mature and figure out if what we had was real. I kind of relate this chapter of my life to the part in the quote that says "Love, pure love, will never return to you void". The process of finding love happened to me by coincidence and in actuality, I wasn't trying to find love at all. I kind of live by the saying, “One doesn’t find love, love finds you”. So finding love was the easiest part, keeping it was the challenge. As I stated earlier, I come from divorced parents, but so did my significant other. This put us in the dilemma of not really knowing how to be in love. He struggled with the necessary manly duties, while I struggled allowing him to perform them. I had to relinquish my independent women mentality and allow him to lead me, lead our relationship. I had to let him make mistakes and truly step back and allow him to grown into becoming a man. This was without a doubt the hardest thing I've ever had to do in a relationship, but it was important if I wanted our love to last. Upon doing so, I quickly realized that just because I let him lead didn’t mean that he had any more or less saying power. Yes, as a man he made the decisions and determined the direction of our relationship. However he also did not dictate, he instead listened and communicated with me, his partner, his rib. We both made every major decision together, him acting as the leader and me as the manager.
Now that we have passed the teenage stage of our relationship, it doesn't mean things have gotten any easier. The ability to keep loving someone through various trials and tribulations, every relationship encounters, will always be a challenge. However, I've learned that every successful relationship must not only embody the basic love, trust, communication and affection characteristics, but must also embody selflessness, forgiveness and a strong work ethic. If you live your life putting the emotions of your signification other before your own and they also do the same, your relationship can only prosper. At the end of the day, there is no such thing as a so called "perfect" relationship and by no means is mine anywhere near that. As somebody who is in love and wants to stay in love, I just try to learn from my past mistakes and take love one day at a time, appreciating every moment together along the way.