Love and Solitude

There's a quote I've always loved that describes my attitude toward love and marriage perfectly:

Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction.
~ Antoine de Saint Exupery

Our twentieth wedding anniversary is this month, a pretty impressive milestone. We've always joked that the reason we've stayed married so long is that we don't spend all of our time together, but there's actually an element of seriousness to that remark. We have both kept our independence, and have never felt obligated to participate in everything the other does. There is, of course, the requisite amount of "gazing at each other," and somehow we've managed to continue to not just love each other, but to remain in love with each other.

A good marriage takes work. It doesn't just happen. I've always considered our marriage a "thing" separate from each of us as individuals. There's him, and there's me, and there's the two of us together--the marriage--what Joseph Campbell called "the grace of participating in another life." We don't take each other for granted; we know we have something special.

We have rough times and difficulties, like everyone, but there has never been any question but that we would stay married, not because of any societal convention, but because we love each other. We've made a commitment to the marriage and to each other and any problems can always be worked out. Our marriage is the base from which we go out into the world. Coming home is truly "coming home," breathing a sigh of relief that we have come through another day safely and safely returned.

In one of Rainer Maria Rilke's wonderful letters, he said, ". . . marriage is, to my feeling, not creating a quick community of spirit by tearing down and destroying all boundaries, but rather, a good marriage is one in which each appoints the other guardian of his solitude, and shows him this confidence, the greatest in his power to bestow."

In every good relationship there is compromise, and our relationship, and our ways of relating to each other, certainly have changed over the years. But we have remained individuals, each with our own beliefs and interests, and neither of us have changed significantly in order to accommodate the other. While we enjoy being together, we're not afraid to be alone. Our solitude remains important to us, and there are solitary pursuits that we each enjoy apart from the other.

We have learned to respect our differences and not feel threatened by them, even the ones we don't agree with. To value each other, and ourselves, enough to know that while we could each survive on our own, together we can create something else, something meaningful, even beautiful.