Love and marriage.....

Oh, to feel loved is something that everyone strives for.  Really, what is love?  We all know that it is an emotion that surpasses all other feelings two people can share.  When a person finally finds love, we tend to feel invincible to the challenges of life.  It is what people believe that endures everything and never falters.

I have been married for almost 14 years and I wonder where that young love has gone.  I can state with complete honesty that I do love my husband, but it is no longer the type of love that I had in the early years of our marriage.  Probably because even though love endures, the intensity does fade.  I remember going through what people call "the red tape" of classes that Catholics go through in order to get married in a church setting.  In young love, two that become one is such a wonderful concept, but the Catholic faith does try to forewarn you that there will be challenges that you will face along your journey called marriage.  While money and other outside forces test the strength of a commitment, there are points that never become considered.  I call this... change in perceptions.  Communication is key in sharing thoughts, feelings, desires, and goals.  Young love has no problems with communication.  Little do people know, it is when young love matures things become difficult.  Communication becomes less, sharing becomes strained, and the concept of what love is changes.

I had to learn this the hard way.  What I felt was so important in a relationship really means nothing once time changes a person.  All of those little things you felt that you can live without become a major problem in growth from young love to mature love.  The time frame for love to mature does not exist.  You can be with a person for 20 years and maturity will still not be there, or you can be with someone for 6 months and have maturity hit you like a brick wall.  It is all in how two people connect.  While I like to see myself as "young at heart", I tend to find myself unhappy quite a bit.  I have become sensitive to my environment and weak in my composure to dealing.  I am not sure how this happened, but I am really quick at finding excuses.  A big excuse that I have been hanging onto is expectations without verbalization.  I just cannot find the words to share my feelings without sounding crass, rude, or demanding.  As I have searched deep within my soul to find a way to express myself, to be heard, to be understood, or to even justify why I feel this way... I feel like I have hit a brick wall too high and too strong to overcome.  While the thought of going around such obstacles seems far easier than to overcome, I know that any sense of accomplishment would be destroyed and in the end makes me a weak person, or guilt-ridden.

But how does one accomplish something that is impossible?  When two become one through marriage, how is it even remotely possible to feel detached?  Easy....  It is acceptance in the face of need.  Accepting that feeling that you cannot be heard, accepting that your significant other lost focus on your needs, accepting a role that has been placed upon you and dealing with less interest in who you are.  While perceptions vary from person to person, nobody can seem to expand their focus on the whole picture.  When one component of a whole thing is the main focus, it is far easier to let things, albeit what you feel is insignificant in your eyes, become very significant in another's and cause a rift between the two.  Another way of explaining it is what role a person takes in a union...  Caregiver or provider, is very possible to feel not understood of your sacrifices you do on your own compared to what both actually do when they are melded together.  Being told that your sacrifices of being the provider are not appreciated once money has been spent, or telling someone that you have given all that you can in caring for an unappreciative family unit...  Two separate components never melding into one.  This can cause for separate thinking into only wanting to do what makes you happy and never considering the other person, thus creating a rift that may not be repairable.

When communication breaks down, appreciation diminishes and the desire to seek out what you feel is lacking becomes almost consuming.  No longer feeling that young love really hurts.  What mature love offers is companionship and nothing else.  Romance is gone.  While love still exists, it is... different.  Not exactly what you figured it would be or all that you hoped for.  It almost feels more like an obligation compared to something offered freely.  In fact, it feels similar to detachment of deep connection.  All it takes is for something scary to make you realize that even though mature love lacks the feeling of young love, you still have a connection that cannot be denied, but you still hope for better anyway.  Now only if both people realize this at the same time, there is a distinct possibility that what was feeling less than sufficient can become adequate or more.  I just wonder when that would happen in my life to see if it works because something is putting a major damper on growth in my marriage.  I do love my husband, I strive for more from our commitment to each other, but I feel as if my earlier desire for someone that was not all clingy or sappy in the romance department could be the reason why I feel I need more and his desire to not see it.  Maybe that is where love seems to be so elusive to attain....  The expectations of growth.