Getting real love #17: about commitment
Long term couple relationships are often best looked at from a distance and over time, for they are often filled with seasons of change, change that brings both difficulty and delight. In these seasons love comes and goes, frozen in a relational winter, rising again in spring, blousy and fine in a loving summer and falling apart in autumn like a turned leaf spiralling down to earth.
In long term couple relationships-surely the goal of all romantic couple partnerships-we need to be prepared to weather the changes in providence and attitudes that love’s seasons bring. We need to be both in the relationship and yet have a couple vision that transcends daily, weekly struggles, the external slings and arrows that are perpetually fired at us, such as the stress of raising children (as well as the joys), losing our own parents, our own personal developmental milestones such as promotions, reaching 50, 60 or 70 and losing the vigour of youth.
In long term couple relationships, we need to meet, engage with and reconcile mutual disappointments and retain a robust sense of communication and connection.
How do we do this? What helps?
Commitment.
By having a long-term vision of how our couple relationship could be in 5 or 10 years’ time, of sticking with each other when times get tough, of being there for the long haul; this is a commitment to longevity beyond fleeting pleasure and helps create a mature long-term couple relationship.
Commitment is more than an idea, it’s something that couples do-we need to show our commitment visibly and audibly, in deed and work too-in carrying each other together even when we are apart, choosing to see each other and live the value of this relationship on a daily basis; commitment is a kind of love in action for those who want the long haul. Trust, which commitment might be seen to be based on is a feeling, but commitment creates, and it creates lasting relationships.
Sometimes in its seasons, love flounders and partners disappoint each other (well, we’re only human); it is commitment that can remain constant and help energise with compassion and wisdom a partnership that can serve a mutual wellbeing and growth for the decades to come.
And that’s getting real love.
