I love the concept of the “momentary love of strangers”. So many forms love rakes and we do ourselves, partnered or not, a disservice in celebrating only one at the exclusion of all others.
Thanks Elina - yes you are right - it is still love. I do think our language needs more words for love, so it would we could talk about the feeling of love in the context of work or friendship or hobbies with specific terms which help us articulate ourselves. I know other languages have this, but English is still so stuck on romance.
This made me think about how I use it in Finnish (my native language). We don't really have a spectrum of words for different kinds of love - which doesn't surprise me, ha - but I use it quite freely in different situations. So maybe this is partly a cultural-linguistic thing? Or maybe it's just me? 😄 Fascinating.
I am happily married but didn't meet my hubby until I was 35. Before that, I was very briefly married but left quickly after an abusive incident. I was and still am SO proud of myself of ending that relationship but I could count on one hand the amount of people who felt the same. Many, many people urged me to go back and 'try again' which was utterly unbelievable to me. After this, I spent five years re-building everything and promised myself never ever to settle for anything other than bloody brilliant. By the time I was 35, I had created such a beautiful life for myself and knew I didn't need anyone.
You keep doing you and never ever let anyone feel like you have failed. Many people in relationships wish they were single, that's often what no one admits to.
Hey Louise - thanks for sharing your own story here. Well done for walking away from abuse - especially when you were already married. I think its the sort of decision which is not celebrated enough.
I am also glad I made the choices to leave abusive partners, but like you found a lot of people minimising their violence, or saying, after the fact, I always knew he was manipulative, but they didn't mention it when I was deep in the struggle of it.
I do see examples around me of friends in relationships I wouldn't want to be in and I think the fact that it took a lot of courage to walk away in the past has made me determined not to settle, I just don't think I have the energy to put up with anyone who isn't collaborating in co-creating something beautiful for the both of us.
Being single isn't always ideal, but these days I barely think about it, whereas when i was younger, it felt like a state that had to be immediately rectified. And there are so many ways to celebrate love outside of relationships and generally enjoy life, that the romantic love just seems one part of that these days.
A lot of thoughts bubbling in my head as I read this lovely piece.
Some of this is probably too personal, so feel free to ignore them - I'm putting this out in public so that others might weigh in.
re: "Once again, businesses work hard to remind me that I have failed for not yet finding a life partner. I am 42. Yet, weirdly, at 42, I feel much more at ease with being single than I have at any other time of my life."
How widespread, I wonder, is the belief that not finding a life partner by a certain age is considered a failure? Is there societal pressure - still - to find a partner? Maybe my perspective is skewed because of my own life events, but I'm curious as to how many people in their 30s, 40s, 50s, etc feel like failures for not finding their partner (yet).
I'll be half a century old later this year (I can't bring myself to type the number) and I see my divorce as more of a success than a failure. And all my love, as cheesy as this sounds, goes into my daughter and that's all I need. Does having kids play a factor?
One of these days I want to put together a piece with a range of perspectives from people who do not have children, whether by choice or other circumstances. Is being childless also considered failure? (many of these are rhetorical, no need to answer!)
Hey Daniel, thank you for reading and for sharing your own story. To meditate on your question - I think the age stamp on finding a partner is a narrative that weighs heavier on women because of our biological clocks, which really only give us a certain window to locate someone with whom to create a certain sort of 'conventional' life. Once that has passed, we have to accept we are creating a life outside those standard narratives, whether it is what we wanted or not. And I still have grief and mixed feelings about that, even if I am quite at peace with being single.
In my 20s I never thought about this, I just assumed I would meet someone along the way. And I did meet people, but they were mostly not very nice. After a big relationship ended in my mid 30s, I took years off from dating, then another relationship ended and I felt more pressure, especially as people around me all got coupled up and had kids. I think living in Yangon, then Dubai over my 30s often amplified this because there weren't many dating opportunities. In Yangon lots of expats came in couple units and the cultural divide was huge with local men, so I was often the only single person at dinner parties, which is more what you think of Bridget jones rather than the excitement of early political change in Myanmar. In Dubai, we just worked all the time, i met people but they were all in relationships and it was hard to make friends, let alone date - and let's face it - my dating pool in Dubai was tiny because I didn't want to meet someone whose life was rooted far from my cultural roots in Western Europe. I had done enough cross cultural relationships at this point to be very un-naive about this.
Over the past couple of years, I have processed this more or less, not perfectly, but while having a kid would have been great, I would not really want a kid with anyone who I have dated in the past 20 years. So I feel happy that I am not stuck in complex negotiations about someone as precious as a child with people who would not keep their word about more basic things. Given my current financial pressures, I am also glad to not have to also worry about keeping another human alive. I also feel it was an unrecognised success to have walked away from abuse - not the sort of thing that wins awards - but it costs you more than our world likes to recognise. And I am also glad to not have wasting any more time dating incompatible people, so I can focus on doing things I do enjoy, which feels more love-filled to me than modern dating apps.
So yes I agree with you that walking away from your marriage is a success, even though it may not be rewarded in conventional terms. And I think having kids is a factor, because you met one of those big social milestones, which I do think makes a difference and is still something I feel mixed about probably not happening. Hopefully that gives you my perspective on your question?
I love the concept of the “momentary love of strangers”. So many forms love rakes and we do ourselves, partnered or not, a disservice in celebrating only one at the exclusion of all others.
I really like this expanded take on love, Catriona! I'd still call it love - it just reaches far beyond romance for me.
Thanks Elina - yes you are right - it is still love. I do think our language needs more words for love, so it would we could talk about the feeling of love in the context of work or friendship or hobbies with specific terms which help us articulate ourselves. I know other languages have this, but English is still so stuck on romance.
This made me think about how I use it in Finnish (my native language). We don't really have a spectrum of words for different kinds of love - which doesn't surprise me, ha - but I use it quite freely in different situations. So maybe this is partly a cultural-linguistic thing? Or maybe it's just me? 😄 Fascinating.
Love this! Thank you.
Thank you for your comment Rachel! Glad to know you enjoyed this piece.
Really beautiful, Catriona.
Thank you Maria. And thanks for stopping by to read.
Yes, yes yes :-)
I am happily married but didn't meet my hubby until I was 35. Before that, I was very briefly married but left quickly after an abusive incident. I was and still am SO proud of myself of ending that relationship but I could count on one hand the amount of people who felt the same. Many, many people urged me to go back and 'try again' which was utterly unbelievable to me. After this, I spent five years re-building everything and promised myself never ever to settle for anything other than bloody brilliant. By the time I was 35, I had created such a beautiful life for myself and knew I didn't need anyone.
You keep doing you and never ever let anyone feel like you have failed. Many people in relationships wish they were single, that's often what no one admits to.
Hey Louise - thanks for sharing your own story here. Well done for walking away from abuse - especially when you were already married. I think its the sort of decision which is not celebrated enough.
I am also glad I made the choices to leave abusive partners, but like you found a lot of people minimising their violence, or saying, after the fact, I always knew he was manipulative, but they didn't mention it when I was deep in the struggle of it.
I do see examples around me of friends in relationships I wouldn't want to be in and I think the fact that it took a lot of courage to walk away in the past has made me determined not to settle, I just don't think I have the energy to put up with anyone who isn't collaborating in co-creating something beautiful for the both of us.
Being single isn't always ideal, but these days I barely think about it, whereas when i was younger, it felt like a state that had to be immediately rectified. And there are so many ways to celebrate love outside of relationships and generally enjoy life, that the romantic love just seems one part of that these days.
Absolutely. Love come in many, many different forms ❤️ You keep doing you and absolutely never settle! 🫂
A lot of thoughts bubbling in my head as I read this lovely piece.
Some of this is probably too personal, so feel free to ignore them - I'm putting this out in public so that others might weigh in.
re: "Once again, businesses work hard to remind me that I have failed for not yet finding a life partner. I am 42. Yet, weirdly, at 42, I feel much more at ease with being single than I have at any other time of my life."
How widespread, I wonder, is the belief that not finding a life partner by a certain age is considered a failure? Is there societal pressure - still - to find a partner? Maybe my perspective is skewed because of my own life events, but I'm curious as to how many people in their 30s, 40s, 50s, etc feel like failures for not finding their partner (yet).
I'll be half a century old later this year (I can't bring myself to type the number) and I see my divorce as more of a success than a failure. And all my love, as cheesy as this sounds, goes into my daughter and that's all I need. Does having kids play a factor?
One of these days I want to put together a piece with a range of perspectives from people who do not have children, whether by choice or other circumstances. Is being childless also considered failure? (many of these are rhetorical, no need to answer!)
I might get carried away here, so I'll just leave you with this little ditty: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYsACdyMxRs&list=RDgYsACdyMxRs&start_radio=1
Hey Daniel, thank you for reading and for sharing your own story. To meditate on your question - I think the age stamp on finding a partner is a narrative that weighs heavier on women because of our biological clocks, which really only give us a certain window to locate someone with whom to create a certain sort of 'conventional' life. Once that has passed, we have to accept we are creating a life outside those standard narratives, whether it is what we wanted or not. And I still have grief and mixed feelings about that, even if I am quite at peace with being single.
In my 20s I never thought about this, I just assumed I would meet someone along the way. And I did meet people, but they were mostly not very nice. After a big relationship ended in my mid 30s, I took years off from dating, then another relationship ended and I felt more pressure, especially as people around me all got coupled up and had kids. I think living in Yangon, then Dubai over my 30s often amplified this because there weren't many dating opportunities. In Yangon lots of expats came in couple units and the cultural divide was huge with local men, so I was often the only single person at dinner parties, which is more what you think of Bridget jones rather than the excitement of early political change in Myanmar. In Dubai, we just worked all the time, i met people but they were all in relationships and it was hard to make friends, let alone date - and let's face it - my dating pool in Dubai was tiny because I didn't want to meet someone whose life was rooted far from my cultural roots in Western Europe. I had done enough cross cultural relationships at this point to be very un-naive about this.
Over the past couple of years, I have processed this more or less, not perfectly, but while having a kid would have been great, I would not really want a kid with anyone who I have dated in the past 20 years. So I feel happy that I am not stuck in complex negotiations about someone as precious as a child with people who would not keep their word about more basic things. Given my current financial pressures, I am also glad to not have to also worry about keeping another human alive. I also feel it was an unrecognised success to have walked away from abuse - not the sort of thing that wins awards - but it costs you more than our world likes to recognise. And I am also glad to not have wasting any more time dating incompatible people, so I can focus on doing things I do enjoy, which feels more love-filled to me than modern dating apps.
So yes I agree with you that walking away from your marriage is a success, even though it may not be rewarded in conventional terms. And I think having kids is a factor, because you met one of those big social milestones, which I do think makes a difference and is still something I feel mixed about probably not happening. Hopefully that gives you my perspective on your question?
Wow, Catriona, what a thoughtful and articulate response, I appreciate you sharing your experience and these insights 🤗
(There’s much more I could say/ask but I shall save it for future chats, this is a topic that will always be something to discuss)