"And if it should happen, I want my children to be prepared for it."
Notes to Self are longer journal entries from Seven Yrs Ago. Read Sticky, “must have been very good” for more on divorce. I was 21 in early 2014.
Modern marriage:
We’ve come to a point when I think we can accept that many marriages are not going to last, that the concept of “till death do us part” will come sooner, a metaphorical death of the spirits and not bodies. I can believe that I may have a marriage that will run its course 11-14 years before branching off separately. The date may be due to my own experiences, but I just consider that time somewhat of a halftime.
And if it should happen, I want my children to be prepared for it. I want them to be taught that they too can move on. (Not to face the brunt of it alone and with broken faith like I did.)
To my future husband:
And you know, if we have to divorce, we’ll know it’s time. It’ll be the time past mill, when things have been bad for a while. We will have tried, really tried, because it’ll be for the kids, for our families, for our mutual soup of friends. It may also be because we still love each other, a little is enough, beause we want to stoke the fire. (But even embers fade among coals.)
I think divorce is okay if marriage/staying together at that time will only make your relationship worse.
I believe in growth and how other people can help you grow when one person can’t tend to you now.
And even when our kids are taught to move on, and we adapt ourselves to as well, I’m not a complete unromantic, a pragmatist a-hole.
To me, time is permeable. That “love ‘em, let ‘em go” quote. We can grow in between, doing what we need to do, then intertwining again.
Keeping the love alive does not mean burying it alive.
For commentary seven years later, go here.