What Are Our Chances?
Maybe this rings true for you, too: If we were able to continuously feel our partner's deep love for us, and if that feeling could continuously be reciprocated, we would be able to handle just about anything life dishes out. This is not a foolproof statement, but it comes close. And for some of us, this may even be a reality.
Obviously there are moments in time during which loving feelings are less detectable. That can't be avoided. So in the absence of a 24/7 demonstrative love-fest, and in keeping with the construct of reality and challenges and organic differences, by love I mean the love that we feel that does not keep us guessing. Love that feels safe. Love that allows us to feel seen and felt, cherished, irreplaceable and deeply understood. Love that comes accompanied by acceptance and gratitude.
If this is the kind of love you have and give in your life, then you can stop reading. This is the love we crave growing up, and the love we humans hope to receive from one or both parents.
However, for the majority of couples, that, by definition, are not each other’s children, this is a love that needs to be cultivated. And for many, it Can be. If we can find a path in that direction, it's a game changer for us and for everyone around us.
If you look around, you may come across couples that are clearly on their second marriages. You can spot them instantly by that thing on their faces we coin as a smile.
When observing couples well into their second marriages, what can often be sensed is a form of "lightness" that takes shape after shedding a part of their former selves. After leaving behind, and never having shown each other, their survival-mode worst.
That version they gave, generously, to their former partners - the ones with whom they raised children. And by worst I mean that fatigue-infused state of being that comes with the little ones being little and sleepless and needy and draining. That comes with us being sleep-deprived on an ongoing basis. And I mean that instinct of ours to put their wellbeing before everything else, leading us to put our partners' needs aside. And I mean the toll it takes on our being to know that at any given moment in time, someone with short limbs and an even shorter temper can burst into tears and send the family into a spin. And I mean the way we sometimes behave when we are tired. And the way we speak to each other and sometimes to our children when we are stressed and overwhelmed. It's not the stuff of social media posts. And there are no home-life filters to apply in the real world.
So these couples, who have the "gift" of skipping over those challenging years together, by not raising a family together, have something others may not. As if they got to show up to the relationship fresh out of the life shower. Looking good, feeling good, smelling good... after a good scrub-down of those Formerly-Known-as-Me years.
There is no parallel to the joy and love and adventure we experience as young parents. That's a topic in itself. Parenting is, hands down, one of life's greatest joys. Which is why we often repeat the reproduction process. It's just that nobody can prepare us for what can really happen behind the scenes, to our relationship, if we're not paying attention. We were warned by numerous sources of the “hard work” involved in maintaining a marriage or relationship. But, just like everything else, we need to feel it first hand to believe it.
Case in point, most of us have met or heard of at least one person who survived some form of the unsurvivable, possibly a disease or personal tragedy, and who reports the desire to now live each day to its fullest and in gratitude. Unfortunately for the rest of us, that feeling is not transferable without the experience that accompanies it. The obvious point being that it's very challenging to internalize, deeply, a struggle that is not ours. And when we enter into a relationship, the last thing we can imagine is how “hard” we will have to work to maintain something that at first feels relatively effortless. The wisdoms passed on to us are rarely truly relatable at the time.
For that reason, it's hard to imagine that the woman or man with whom we chose to live our lives, with whom we chose to raise children, that person we trusted to help get us through the hard times, who we saw as destined to share in the good times, that person who was "The One"... could turn into one of the main sources of our anger and resentment rather than be our main source of support. We were warned that life and love were not simple, but the majority of us could not conceptualize this statement. We may have seen our parents in various unpleasant moments as we were growing up. Yet it was crystal clear that that would never be us. We were warned by plenty of people, either through personal stories or silly marriage jokes, but... it wasn't going to be us.
So, what do we make of post-first-marriage couples who get a second chance at a loving relationship? Is that without a doubt our best option? Or is there a way to allow for our imperfections as young partners, as young parents, as human beings, to be incorporated into the sum of us, as we live and learn, and as we allow ourselves and our partners the freedom to grow? Can we make room for the people we were, the people we are and the people we will be all in one relationship? Is there a way to survive catching each other with our emotional pants down?
If there is a foundation of mutual love (even if you need hypnosis to remember it ;), if both you and your partner are in an objective state of relative and reasonable emotional health, are willing to do the repair work, and, last but not least, can see some of the ways in which you seem to be a "good fit" for one another, my answer is: "Yes. Absolutely."