I know a thing or two about fabulous intimate relationships

I think back to my youth and the desperate cling and grab for love and relationship. The need to be wanted and desired by another. To be the exclusive in the eyes of another.

I think about the early days of what I thought was love. More like the clay mould of love, hollow on the inside.

In my marriage, which was short, I wanted my partner to be different, but I wanted him to accept me as I was. I only realised the hypocrisy of this two years after our marriage ended. The realisation was a whiplash to my being and had me recognise that before I sought to denigrate another, I needed to look for the same expression I was denigrating in the other within me. I usually find it.

Once found, you then get to clean up that behaviour, belief or habit within yourself.

After my last dating experience in my mid-forties, I made a vow to myself. (vows are very different to promises — read the distinction here.)

I was going to live my life and find happiness as me, on my own, living the best version of my life, no longer looking for someone else to ‘complete me.’ What a load of BS that hope is. We need to complete ourselves before we can find a truly healthy partnership. We need to be happy with who we are and with the life we are living. With the choices we have made.

My vow included that if I were to meet someone, it would be in the course of living my happy life. They would have to get on well with my daughter — she is an excellent judge of character.

And that my life would be amplified and richer because of the relationship.

Happy life, happy me, not needing anyone + my partner = super happy, we are better together, true partnership = synergy in action.

I kept that vow for 13 years. I never raised my head to look for love out there. I never even noticed.

My love entered my life casually, stepping into the coffee shop my daughter and I frequented for many years. He became a regular, and we had many conversations, often as I was writing this blog. We were friends. The friendship emerged over 8 months or so. (We do not know when we met exactly.) I never considered him other than as a friend during that time. There was no effort, no strain. No dating.

One day, it changed from friends, just like that. But the platform of ease and respect was built as the foundation and that endures and strengthens to this day.

Five years later, I still pinch myself. I never imagined this type of love and partnership possible.

It is, indeed, a great love story, the type of love story I didn’t know I aspired to. No striving, effort, pretence. Just two people being fully themselves and synergising together to become something even better because of their togetherness.

Photo Taken December 30th 2024, Article written December 30th 2024