I was single most of my adult life until 2002 when I met Bill, my current husband. I dated on and off for probably thirty years. I learned a lot about men, myself, what I was willing to accept and what I could definitely live without. There were several missteps on my part, blindness to the “red flags”. I think many of us have trouble either seeing them or walking away once we know they are there. I used to think I could live with one or two red flags or change the man so that the flag would eventually disappear. Foolish thinking on my part.
I paid the price for my foolishness. I married a man with red flags. We were together long enough to have my second child. I told myself everything happens for a reason and my son was a great reason for that marriage. Nevertheless, all of us paid the price for my decision.
And then there was a man I dated for two years after the breakup of my first marriage. He worked with my sister. She never introduced us because we were so different from one another, red flag #1. I ignored it and we started dating after meeting at a party. There was a strong physical attraction for both of us. That is where the similarity ended. He smoked pot. I thought I could fix that. He even promised to quit if I would move in with him. I did, for eight months. Guess what? He didn’t quit. I left. It hurt for a long time. After all, we loved each other. One night we sat on the floor in my new apartment, crying, with a box of tissues between us. We were very different people. I should have listened to my sister.
The second relationship lasted three years. He had never been married. He was in his 40’s. Red flag? I was crazy in love with him. The red flags in this relationship were more subtle. I missed some of them and ignored the others. One afternoon I was completely caught off guard when he suggested a one month trial separation. I knew there was little hope for a reconciliation but I clung to it, romantic and unwilling to give up. Of course at the end of the thirty days he broke up with me. He was already dating someone else. He then had the audacity to get engaged to this woman. Clearly she was very different from me. They were engaged for seven or eight years and then got married. She must have wanted him more than I did to wait that long.
What am I trying to say here? Love is important, a key component in a happy, healthy relationship. But if that is all you have holding you together, it won’t last. You need friendship, respect, trust, common goals, common values and morals. In other words, you need a solid foundation to weather the certain storms that will come at you. Just being in love is not enough.
Don’t build your relationship on moonbeams and rainbows with love songs playing in the background. That might work in fairy tales or the movies, but not real life. What’s love got to do with it? A lot, but you need much more to live happily ever after. The End. :))