Ive been in one relationship my entire life. A first love relationship that is now going on 19 years.   That’s a whole lot of time to do the things we said we would never do – if and likely we did.  Married now for only 4 years.  That should tell you something.

I think it all started when it took us 7 months to tell each other that we wanted no one else.  Or it could have started when we promised each other that we would never say the words “break up” unless it meant forever.  Not bad for two kids just trying to get through high school.  And we kept this promise of never saying “we should break up” unless it meant forever.  But we did break up.  That should also tell you something.

Over and over again in unsaid ways, we did break up. And we never could say it to each other’s face.  I take that back.  We’ve said it to each other’s face but it always took on the form of some long explanation of why we did what we did.  And then those words found its way to making us miss what we were still not willing to let go of.  That is, until one day, years down the line, we said it to each other in the car for the very first, and only, time.

In that car, we knew that what the two of us became could not be fixed and that continuing to be girlfriend/boyfriend would ruin us.  So we let go.  For a time in our lives, we were free to love anyone else because no title was holding us together.  We told each other that if we were ever going to be in this relationship again, it would only be because we were married.  And just like that we were both officially single.

Then something happened.

Every single day, we made one more choice to be in each other’s life.  We were two people no longer committed to each other but wanting to be around no one else.  And we lived this way for years.