Love Gone

I've been thinking lately about the high rate of divorce and wondering how a couple could be so much in love, marry, sometimes raise a family, and then discover that the love has somehow slipped away. From experience, I know that once love has dwindled, it usually can't be re-ignited. Love gone is love gone for good.

Our partner is never really the person we at first think they are. The eyes of love see only what they choose to see and anything that detracts from our preferred image is easily ignored in favor of more exciting aspects of the relationship. It's almost funny to later on muse over those faults and wonder how we could have been so blind. Sometimes Adonis burps and watches too many sports programs. Those who want only a perfect Adonis might become very disappointed.

I know a lot of senior couples who seem to be happily married and, from what I've surmised, they are obviously committed to each other and just take for granted it's for life. They are friends and sail along as a couple, not as two individuals living together but going separate ways. There appears to be a lot of give and take with happily married seniors and also a lot of love in their eyes when they look at one another.

I guess with some people the love fades away to nothing over the years but with the lucky ones it simply softens. Cher once sang a song about the way to know if your partner loves you that's called, "It's In The Eyes". It really is. You can usually tell if a couple is in trouble by watching their eyes when they look at one another. What you'll see is either warmth or indifference (indifference being the polar opposite of love) and the recipient of those cold, uncaring looks is probably in for a hard, hurtful time in the future.

But does love disappear just because we originally blinded ourselves to faults we can't live with? Or is it a natural evolution for some who grow in non-converging directions than their mate? I read somewhere that people need a new mate every ten years because they develop different needs in those ten years but that would only work for couples who never had a strong commitment in the first place.

I believe a couple must be true friends as well as lovers in order to forge that unbreakable commitment to each other. Friendship can outlast all the other passions we encounter during our lifetime and couples who are not also friends might not make it.

I hate to see marriages crumble but I've never seen it happen overnight. There's a lot of soul searching before a person will choose to go their own way and it's seldom an easy choice to make. There's so much to lose on both sides and for many their future is frighteningly uncertain. But once the choice has been made and the separation set in motion, the possibility of a new life more in accord with one's present needs and wants can be a happy time. It all depends on the determination of the escapee. Life is what you make of it.

I sometimes wonder if "love gone" is really "love that never was", though.