Today’s Random Prompt: What is the best thing about being either single or partnered (whichever you are right now)?
I’m married, happily, for the second time to the only wife I’ve ever had (or ever will), my beloved Amy Sanders. I’ve taken a more romantic view to writing about our relationship and marriage in numerous blogs and Facebook posts, so I want to take a slightly different tack to this reflection.
With apologies to Jerry Maguire, we complete each other.
I’m the logical side of our relationship. I take time to consider the multiple implications of important decisions, and I try do what’s best for the long-term health of the family. I tend to be uncomfortable with my own emotions, and I’m terrible at reading emotions in others, and I’m often at a loss in how to respond to emotional situations.
Amy, on the other hand, is an empath. She relates to people on an emotional level, and she can do all the things that I find difficult or uncomfortable in this area. Over the past several years, I’ve come to rely on her to explain how to approach situations from an emotional standpoint; what’s different now is that I listen and act on her advice in ways that I was resistant to in the past.
That’s the other level of our partnership where we complete each other. I’m selfish by nature, often in the extreme, which comes in handy for her when she needs to make a decision in her own benefit but doesn’t want to hurt other people’s feelings. I can encourage her to opt for self-care over self-sacrifice when necessary.
Being a sacrificial person by nature, she tempers my selfishness with an overriding concern for others that doesn’t come naturally to me. Again, I listen to her counsel and do what I can to put the needs of others ahead of my own.
Those who know us know we split up in 2017 after 21 years together, mainly because I ignored her emotional and sacrificial side in favor of my logical and selfish tendencies. She made the courageous decision to set out on her own, and I was faced with the decision to either change or stay single.
Being single sucks. It sucked before I met her, and it sucked by orders of magnitude during the time we were apart.
I changed, she changed, and we both changed enough to complete each other again. We’ve been back together since 2018, proving that our separation was an abject failure.
Besides the differences in before and after I’ve already mentioned, there’s one big change that is wonderful about us being together. For years, I wanted space in the bed and would only snuggle at night for a few minutes. Since we reunited, I go to sleep every night with her arms around me. I wouldn’t want it any other way.
Comments