Before my current relationship, I was a solid eight-month dater. I had determined that all of the best parts of a relationship happen within the first year, or the honeymoon period. You meet, you flirt, you go on dates, you get together, you fall in love. Maybe you go on a few trips together, meet each other's families and post sickeningly cute pictures on every social media platform to everyone's envy. And then, after the first few fights, you break up. But you weren't together long enough to end in complete disaster—you're usually able to end things amicably, with friendship sometimes a possibility. It was a working system for me, and I was convinced that it was what I wanted. Three years ago, I fell in love for real, and I found that a relationship is much more than the honeymoon. This is what I learned.
First of all, love is a lot more than the electricity between two people. It's coming home from a long day at work and having your significant other there to listen about your day. It's sick days in bed, watching movies together while you cough out your lungs and go through entire boxes of tissues. It's falling asleep late and night and knowing that they'll still be there in the morning, already akin to your bedhead and morning breath. It's comfort in the best of times and the worst, and it's so much better than the initial sparks between two people.
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Also, I learned that fights end. Instead of looking for the first excuse to bail, you find that you listen to the other person's needs and repair the damage before you. You can yell and scream until you're blue in the face, but you know that they're not going to run away from you and your anger because they care about what you're saying. You're not fighting for the makeup sex and the drama, you're fighting to keep your relationship intact so you can continue to build a future together. It's the worst part of a relationship, but it's not a death sentence. Fights happen, but you'll be okay.
Most importantly, a long term relationship means truly knowing another person, and have them know you. They know about that time you got too drunk and made a fool out of yourself. They know about your high school crush on your teacher, the one you never told anyone else about. They know what makes you self conscious, what makes you happy, and what gets on your nerves. And you know all of those things about them, too. You significant other is your ally, your best friend, and the only person you want to talk to when something goes wrong. That's what a soulmate is.
I'm not going to tell you that every person needs to fall in love and get married. I'm not going to tell you that the eight-month to a year-long relationship is wrong. However, I am going to tell you that I was wrong about love. By walking into every given relationship knowing that it was going to end, I closed myself off to the possibility that it wouldn't. Maybe I was afraid of getting my heart broken again, and maybe you are too. But I implore you to give it a chance when you're ready, because it's the best thing I ever did.
