Wild: Marriage

I believe in relationships. All kinds, traditional, and non. Either way, we're in it for as long as we want to be in it. We believe.

But it isn't going to work without trust. If you don't believe that you can throw your lover into a room full of what tempts them, naked, have everybody else look like supermodels, and come out victorious, you shouldn't be together. If you don't want your lover to go out with their friends because they might get too drunk and rape somebody in a corner, don't be together.

If you have to smear the filth that you 'only have eyes for them' every morning, as certain as babies' breath at weddings, you shouldn't be together. Be honest with yourself. Look at your life. You don't only have eyes for them. Oh, right now, sure. But in ten minutes, when s/he walks by and your genitals set themselves on fire, is forever as sure? You have a flicker of doubt then, the smallest one, like a little tint of smoke over glass..

If you don't, you shouldn't be together. Your relationship isn't healthy or stable. Your love is a part of this world, not all of it. Otherwise you've been mentally fucked, either by yourself or them, and you need to get the fuck out of dodge.

Yeah. See what I did there?

If you wouldn't sacrifice for your lover, you shouldn't be together, either. Oh, I don't mean heroic sacrifices; you can wipe that smug grin off your face right now. I mean the type of sacrifices that are hard to do and easy to get wrong. I mean, suppose you aren't the right person for your lover. Would you leave them if you knew? What if you're keeping them from bliss and true happiness for a lie, just so you aren't lying alone in your bed at night?

Guess what, buddy. That isn't love.

Or maybe, you and your lover have been together for years, and they've gotten into a horrible accident of some kind. They're a vegetable on life support, and you remember their words: "Never let me live like that," or "Never let me live that way!"

But you keep them alive, or you kill them, anyway.

For you. Because that's easier.

If love emerges from the guilt, from consequences, then it is a bittersweet love and twice as hard to leave it.

Even if you should.

Sacrifice.

Now, Trust and Sacrifice aren't all you need to make a relationship work, but they're the two that pop into my head for the situation I'm thinking about right now. There are others, others we must master. Ego; betrayal, Time, Faith, Balance, a prevailing sense of self-identity throughout it all, fuck it if there aren't countless more....






But you have to remember the one that's harder than self-doubt is.



Sometimes--my God, not always, far from always--sometimes, it is their fault this isn't working. Their fault they push you too hard or they take things from you, their fault that you lie to keep fire from each others' lips, their fault you plunge into a future life hasn't prepared you for yet. No matter how fast you've grown, how much you know, sometimes it isn't enough.

Humility. Another on the endless list.



Realize that you are hurting both of you if the situation calls for it. Realize that you aren't necessarily the best cure for them, no matter how uplifting it is to think (in your most secretive thoughts) of them throwing away their flaws for pure and selfless love.

That isn't how life is. You have to accept them--Acceptance. That goes for them too, is the thing. They have to accept you, as you are, as you will be and were. They can't be pissed that you have a past or are growing into a future that isn't the one they wanted. You have to be free.

Freedom. Another on the endless list.

Every relationship has flaws, but you need to stop and recognize when those flaws are poisoning the both of you, making your pure and selfless love a sure-fire way to end any relationship you might have, ever. Just because you're selfish. Just because you're doing that "life support" brand of wrong--
you have to listen to what they tell you. Same for them.

Both of you have to change to be together. I'm not talking the simple things, either, the "don't leave your dirty socks out and take your medication on time" things. The hard ones.

But you have to be who you are, or it destroys the point.

So you think on that, before you promise forever and just think it'll all be fine because you're a selfless hero who can take on anything. You think on that. Remember what happens when it all goes wrong, as, sometimes, it does; it must.





Think.













And not just for yourself.