Our kind of marriage

Now the neighbours are starting as well…

This morning as I leave the house I bump into the lady next door. I say “Hi. How are you?” and as always I’m hoping to get away with that and not end up having to engage in any kind of deeper conversation. This morning, she doesn’t let me off, though. She has obviously picked up that Tony’s not here. (Thinking about it, I might even have volunteered that information myself the other day when I was mowing the lawn at the front and couldn’t avoid making conversation). “So when’s your husband coming back then?” she asks me and I say: “In the middle of July.” “Oh…” she says. Feeling like I owe her some sort of explanation, I say: “Yeah, he’s on a meditation retreat in Belgium, you know?” And then I add “And when he comes back, I will be off on retreat.”

I don’t know why I threw that one into the conversation but it seemed a compromise between not saying anything and overwhelming her with the whole extent of the situation. As I’m making my escape towards the car, she tries to be funny and says something like: “Well that’s the kind of marriage to have” and I reply: “Yes, lots of freedom.”

I’ve seen the expression on her face on many people’s faces before when they hear how we lead our lives and the freedom we give each other.  It’s a mixture of disbelief, pity and something else that I can’t quite put my finger on.

The thing is, that when those same people tell me that they and their partners are “always together” or “have never spent a day apart” it makes me shudder. It’s the worst I could possibly imagine.

I need space and freedom and I hate commitment. I also get bored quite easily, love to ride the waves of change and am full of desire for new, exciting experiences. As a friend of mine put it: I’m not really marriage material and I actually never intended to marry.

So how did I end up being married to Tony? Well, it wasn’t really a rational decision. I just suddenly knew in my heart that it was what I wanted to do. So I did.

I do have “my phases” (as Tony calls them) that I periodically go through; times when it all gets too much and I just want to quit everything and run off somewhere.

I think it was difficult for him in the beginning of our relationship and back then he often made the mistake of trying to stop me from feeling that way – which of course just made matters worse. Luckily Tony’s quite stable and confident in himself which helped and nowadays he’s more like a rock against a raging sea when I get like that. It just washes over him and when I calm down again he’s still there and so am I.

He can bear my unstableness and the fact that I’m unwilling to give him any guarantees. That in turn, makes me feel like I’m loved the way I am and makes me want to stay. On top of that he enjoys his own company as much as I enjoy mine and is more than happy for both of us to do things on our own – something I really need in a relationship.

So, no: I don’t need pity from anyone who thinks that what we do is really difficult - or even dangerous to our relationship - because from my perspective it’s not. Quite the opposite.

The truth that Tony and I are fully aware of is that there are no guarantees in life or in love. You cannot promise someone that you’ll always be with them and I refuse to do it because it would be a lie. My relationships to anyone are based on honesty and truthfulness. It’s not that I don’t want to always be with Tony but I simply don’t know what the future holds and neither does he.

I don’t find that scary. I find it liberating! I believe the challenge in life is to accept the fact that we don’t have control over how things develop, that things change and that the future is uncertain. To become comfortable with that knowledge brings great peace of mind and makes you appreciate the present moment more fully.