“Love is healing but hurting also fast
A wonderful feeling that can lead you into death
Nothing, Ever
Holds you back like this
Nothing, Ever
Remembered like the first kiss
I can’t stay even if I try
Make my way without you on my side
Shelter me, please don’t let me go
I can’t stay.”

I can´t stay – Fallen Sanctuary

Hello my dear reader, 

thank you for returning to a new part of Allys Adventures. After i shared my thoughts on friendship today is the day to talk about another kind of relationship the romantic kind. 

When you think about the great love stories in literature i am sure, Shakespeares Romeo and Juliet will be somewhere on the list. When in fact it is not classified as „love story“ but as „tragedy.“ Yet millions and millions of tourist travel to Verona to see the balcony where Juliet spoke the famous words: 

„O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?
Deny thy father and refuse thy name;
Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
And I'll no longer be a Capulet.“

Two young people fall in love at first sight, despite their families being sworn enemies. And as they cannot be together the kill themselves, because they cannot cope by being separated from each other.  And all of this happens in the very small time span of five days!

Another famous story is certainly Janes Austens „Pride and Prejudice“. Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy meet and are fully of pride and prejudice until they eventually fall in love and marry. The book ends with both of them moving to Pemberley. What a happy ending! 

If you aren’t that much into classics lets take a look at modern rom-coms like Bridget Jones, When Harry met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle, Notting Hill and many more. They all have a similar plot: the two main characters are overcoming their difficulties to become an item. Just like in fairytales when in the end they all live „happily ever after.“

But here is the thing: do they really live happily ever after? We will never now, because the book or the movie ends before we get to know. Do you believe that Romeo and Juliet would still be together if they did not kill themselves? Or that Prince Charming and whatever princess he married are really that happy? Isn´t it more likely that Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy had their problems after all? There is a funny little BBC series from 2013 called „Death comes to Pemberley“ based on P.D. James novel. Set in 1803, six years after our sweethearts have married. And although this is a murder mystery you can catch a small glimpse in the every day life of this glorious couple.

When i was at school we of course talked about those novels and movies. Still young and maybe a bit naive i told our english teacher that if you love each other you can overcome every obstacle. Nowadays i tend to agree more with the saying  „Oh darling, life isn’t a fairy tale. If you lose a shoe at midnight, you’re drunk.“

Do not get me wrong, i do believe in love and in relationships, but i just think there is more to the success of a relationship/marriage than romantic feelings. 

In my home country the divorce rate 2022 lay about 35 percent.¹ Reasons for a divorce due to Forbes Advisor² are: 

Well, according to this statistic i would say, it doesn’t look to well for our friends Capulet and Montague: Lack of family support, financial stress (due to the fact they would have been cut out of their families) marrying to young…. 

There it is – at 7th place- the one thing i find more important than romantic feelings: commitment! One of the most inspiring couples i know is a very good example of being committed. They are now married for over 50 years! Which means they are married a longer life span than i am even alive. Yet i know that they had their ups and downs and still have. When i once asked the wife why she was married to her husband for so long already, she said: well, with time you be able to tolerate more and more. They stood together trough times of financial insecurities, through times of sickness, through times of family conflicts and supported each other. And still do. Which doesn’t mean they are not angry at each other from time to time. But they made a commitment and they stick to it. Which in my eyes is the real form of love. Stories like this are the real love stories in this world. 

One of my favorite triller authors Harlan Coban lets one of his fictional characters state that a good relationship/ marriage is never always 50/50. It will be 30/70, 80/20 and everything in between. 

And you know which other thing it is? Work! It is a lot of work. But i can assure you it is worth it. 

My perfect partner is not the one who writes me a sonnet or who lays me down in a bed of roses (by the way, did anyone else than me think about the thorns???). I’d rather have a man who is my teammate in this game of life. Who shares the same political values, the same thoughts about society, who gets along with my family and with whose family I get along. Someone who has the same life goals and someone who simply is the man I want to spend my life with until I leave this current one. And I am quite happy to tell you that I indeed have this someone in my life. For quite a while now. No, it is not always easy, quite the contrary sometimes. But I made a commitment to him. And I intend to stick to it.

I had a similar conversation with a friend during on a nice sunny afternoon while having a bottle of wine. Which leads me to a very delicate sub-topic in this post. Wanna check the Forbes statistic with me once more? There, on second place, winning the silver medal as reason for a divorce is infidelity or extramarital affairs. And no… do not panic: this is not ending in me telling all of you i had an affair as i did not. Nevertheless it takes me to fact that you can be attracted to other people whilst being in a committed relationship. According to Relate³, the UK´s largest provider of relationship support, it is not only perfectly natural but inevitable and much more common than you might think.  A friend of mine lately told me that he would never pay attention to married people or those that are spoken for. Pretty awesome if he manages that. For me the topic of being attracted to some else nearly did my head in. (I already wrote a bit about that in my post: The importance of being earnest or about being true to yourself) 

And not only did i lie to myself, i did some pretty good lying to my friend as well when talking about relationships quite a while ago. No, it was not a lie, that i told him that there is no one else but my husband with whom i wanted to be with. Neither did i lie when i told him that a relationship between someone like him and me would ever ever work out. I lied when i told him that the thought of kissing him made me feel awkward. As kissing him was something that from time to time crossed my mind. And yes, maybe there has been more of an attraction than i initially would have believed myself. I would never ever have acted on this as i am in a committed relationship (and yes, there it is again: commitment). And nothing good would have come out of this anyway. But maybe it is time to admit it: To myself, to my friend (if you read this and i am pretty sure you still do) and to you my readers, for all of those you are in a similar situation. 

Do not war with yourself but choose wisely if you wanna have a relationship like Romeo and Juliet or more like those couple i used as an example. Because yes, maybe you meet someone and you fall in love but the pure emotion itself is not enough and you are just not supposed to have a happy ending. 

So whatever you choose i wish you nothing but happiness with your decision and leave todays post with the suggestion for one of the best rom-coms there is much to my humble opinion. If you wanna watch something about deep romantic feelings but with an ending so well done go and watch La La Land, the award winning romantic musical film from 2016, written and directed by Damien Chazelle. 

Do you agree with my thoughts? Are you a romantic person? Let me know in the comments. 

Thanks for reading and until next time 

A.

P.S. This post is dedicated to the following persons:

• my husband, who isn’t the most easy person on this earth, but who is my person. 
• my parents, who somehow are still married after all this time and i hope they will live long enough to celebrate their 60th, 65th and 70th marriage anniversary and so on.