For those of you in need of a translation, that’s “Love, True Love” with an accent. It’s a quote from the delightful movie, The Princess Bride. If you haven’t seen it and you like silly, rather ridiculous movies, I highly recommend it. It’s a classic.
In the movie, there is a wedding scene, and the officiant says,
Mawwiage. Mawwiage is what bwings us together today. Mawwiage, that bwessed awwangement, that dweam within a dweam. And wuv, twue wuv, will follow you forever, so tweasure your wuv.”
What does this have to do with anything? Nothing really, except that I am here to talk about marriage today. Well, more specifically, weddings.
Wow that took a long time, but it’s OK, we’re here now.
This is probably something I haven’t mentioned before, but I work weddings as a day-of coordinator. The company I’m with, Velour Wedding Design & Coordination (VWDC), started in 2021, and I’ve been with them from the very beginning. Although I had aspirations to become a Wedding Designer on the team, I found that the time commitment was too much.
It’s getting to the point where day-of coordination is becoming too much of a time commitment. Since Luna’s care falls to me 100% of the time now, it’s more difficult to get away for 8 to 10 hours on a weekend day.
But I love it. I really, really do. It’s fun, it’s high energy, and I get a lot of new experiences with each wedding I work. There’s always one disaster or another that needs mitigating, one cool tradition I’d never seen or heard of, or an amazing gesture of love that leaves an imprint on my soul.
It’s truly amazing how much I’ve learned over the last two years of working with VWDC.
When I started with VWDC, my own marriage was coming to an end. If you’ll remember from my Divorce-aversary post, I was on the brink of asking Dmitry for a separation, months away from leaving him for good, and less than a year away from being divorced. Needless to say, the weddings made me really sad at first. I felt so sad thinking about the romance I’d dreamed of, the relationship I had, and everything I’d lost.
They also made me really happy and hopeful at first, too. I felt like there was a lot of hope in the relationships I was witnessing, lots of love in the expressions of family and friends as the couple joined together. It seemed like these relationships were truly based on love, like they would last.
I remember one in particular. New Year’s Eve 2021. Katie and Zephyr. The way they looked at each other, they were clearly deeply in love. Their personalities were so soft and easy-going, it seemed like they were each other’s missing halves.
And as I observed them, it seemed to me that there was an unbreakable bond between them.
But then as the night went on, I started to wonder. I started to wonder how long it would last. I started to think about the big bombs that destroy relationships, the random out-of-left fielders that blindside relationships, and the little ninjas that sneak in and slowly saw away at the unbreakable bond.
I wondered if that would happen to them.
Statistically speaking, I knew that it was likely that it would, despite the connection they so obviously shared.
So I stopped wondering if and began to wonder when and how. I wondered from which side the relationship would fall first.
It’s terrible, I know.
But now I can’t help it. Gradually, the cynicism took a stronger and stronger hold. I don’t even cry at the ceremonies anymore, which used to get me every time.
There have been a couple of instances when I was truly moved and no cynicism found its way into my heart.
The first was when the son of the bride, who was a young teen, made the surprise announcement that he was going to change his last name to his new step-father’s name. While I am against the patriarchal practice of taking the groom’s or father’s last name, the symbolism of this gesture and how utterly touched the bride and groom were tugged at my heart strings.
Though it also struck a bitter chord. I’d asked Dmitry to change his last name with me, to start a new family name for us to share as a symbol of the creation of a new family unit. Although Matt’s mother would never agree to allow him to change his name with us, Dmitry and I were confident that he would nevertheless know that he is part of our family without a doubt.
We made the announcement at our wedding ceremony.
And then Dmitry’s father and step-mother lost their shit. “What’s wrong with our name? Why are you changing your name? Your sister loved her last name so much that she named her son after it! Why are you doing this? Is our family name not good enough for you??”
Eye roll.
But Dmitry backed out.
His last name stayed the same. I sure as shit didn’t take his last name. And Luna’s is hyphenated with both of our last names.
An apt harbinger to the fractured state we are in now.
Anyhow. The second moment when I was truly touched was when a bride gave her groom a sweet surprise at the reception. His mother, who had been a big part of the groom’s life, had passed away a few months before. The bride orchestrated a dance where any mother figure in his life could come up and dance with him since he couldn’t have the mother/son dance.
It was heart warming and heart breaking simultaneously, and I shamelessly cried my eyes out. It was a purely beautiful moment I will never forget.
Most often though, I feel very little at these weddings now. There are those in the industry who never stop feeling the tugs at their heartstrings. They cry at every ceremony, tear up at every first dance, and their hearts swell at every grand entrance as the newlyweds are announced for the first time.
But me? Now it’s just another job. One I enjoy, but that’s the extent of it.
Since my divorce, I’ve been asked if I still believe in love.
I believe in love, but not in the way that I think most people do.
To me, love is not marked by a need for someone. It is marked by a want for someone. You want them around. And you want them as they are, not as they could be or as they should be. Simply as they already are.
Love is without the expectation of anything, really. You don’t expect them to do something for you, to say something to you, to give something to you. Love is not something you receive but something you yourself do.
By which I mean that if you go into a relationship expecting to gain something from it, even if that something is to be loved by your partner, then to me, that isn’t love. That’s a transaction.
And there can be no love in business.
When you love someone simply for the sake of loving them, that is love.
When you want someone to be around you simply because you enjoy pouring into them, you enjoy their company, and you want them exactly as they are, that to me is love.
I’m not saying a relationship based upon this will be without conflict, that there will never be instances when an issue needs to be addressed or when an adjustment needs to be made. What I am saying, however, is that when someone approaches another with this mindset, this is love.
What I believe most people see as love is the “I can’t live without you” mentality. The “I am nothing without you” mindset.
If someone can’t go on without you in their life because they “love” you so much, then that is true love. You always find your way back to each other, you always fight your way through the pain to be with one another, and there ain’t no river wide enough to keep them apart.
This is romantic for some reason.
This is true love to some.
To me, that’s infatuation. To me, that’s codependency. To me, that is a recipe for disaster.
When instead, one is able to meet someone exactly where they are, this is love.
Before I continue, I want to make the very clear distinction between meeting someone in an unsafe or unhealthy situation by way of engaging in an unbalanced dynamic versus acknowledging someone’s situation, allowing them to make the right decision for themselves, and knowing when to move forward without them. I say this because there have been so many times when I rationalized staying in toxic situations by misunderstanding perspectives like the one I am presenting. So I want to make it abundantly clear that I do not put the burden of accepting toxic people exactly as they are and inviting them to stay comfy in the lives of victims on anyone. That is not love, that is codependency.
Where they are could be a lot of things. It could be:
- Ready and willing to be in a relationship with you
- A deep and meaningful friendship
- Unable to reciprocate your feelings
- A desire for a relationship but unwilling to start one
- Willing to be in a relationship with you for a season, but not forever
- A short and fleeting but deeply meaningful encounter
- An inability to be in a healthy relationship, despite willingness and desire
And it could be yet many other things. However, when you are able to recognize and accept the situation of the person you love without an agenda, that is true love.
I recently came to the realization that in some ways, I still love Dmitry. And this is because I have accepted where he is in life and what he is both willing and able to do. There is still pain around him and our relationship, but I can separate that pain from the person now that there is distance between us, now that I have accepted who he is.
I mostly find myself with more than a little love for his inner child. There was so much pain and abuse that he endured as a child that no one should have to experience. Yet he did, and I just want to offer him so much love because of it.
He’s never been able to heal from that, not fully.
How can you? After all he’s been through, I can understand how he has such a warped view on reality, how he could be the way he is now.
And I wish I could be his friend.
Unfortunately, given the violent nature of Dmitry’s actions, I’ve been forced to take the position of Luna’s protector in this situation, which means that I do need to hold him accountable for Luna’s safety. Although I know why he is the way he is, it doesn’t change the fact that he is a danger to Luna. And she comes before anything else.
Which means that I’ve taken the role of another villain in his life, and I can’t be his friend.
Which makes me endlessly sad, but it can’t be helped.
I’ve gone off track again.
My point is, love has evolved for me. It is not what I once thought it was. And if I understand people, it is not what most people think it is either.
As a matter of fact, I don’t believe marriage is healthy or natural for most people. I think that monogamous relationships are great. But I also think that they are meant to be experienced in seasons.
Lifelong partnerships seem like an awful lot of a stretch to me. As much as humans change and grow throughout their lifetimes, how could one person still be the right fit after 30 to 50 years? I’m not the same person I was 5 years ago, and I sure as hell won’t be the same person as I am today in another 5 years, let alone 20 or 30 years from now.
How can one person who is also growing and changing still be the right person for me in that span of time? Why do we force ourselves to be with the same person forever when we are always morphing, shifting, growing, changing, all at different paces from one another?
It seems to me that it would be much more natural to have a partnership with someone for a season and then diverge paths once that season is over. Perhaps that season is one of a wandering adventurer. Perhaps another is one of parenthood. And perhaps yet another is one of mid-life. And finally, another season or two might be when one has retired.
That’s just one example. There are so many seasons, shifts that you can experience. It’s unreasonable to think that as you change, the same person is going to still meet you where you are and walk the same path as you.
That’s what I think anyway.
I don’t anticipate ever getting married again. I may change my mind about marriage, but I really do think it’s like pouring water into a cup of ice and asking the ice cup to hold the water forever, knowing the ice is going to melt.
It’s just nonsensical.
And I will certainly never have another wedding again, whether I get married or not. That is for damn certain. They are a waste of money, time, and energy. Absolute waste.
Which is, I realize, where part of my income comes from. But if more people would put their $30-60K towards an investment rather than a wedding, they’d be far better off.
Just saying.
I know I sound incredibly cynical. And to an extent, I am. But I truly believe that there is a healthier way to approach love and relationships, and I believe everything I’ve said wholeheartedly. I’ve used the non-expectation approach first hand and can tell you that it feels so much better than the way I approached love and relationships before.
You may be wondering who it is that I’ve loved without expectation and with full acceptance since my divorce. Well one, as I’ve said beofre, Dmitry to an extent.
But as for who I fell in love with after my divorce, that will be a story for another day.
All in all, I do believe in love. And I believe in a better way to love that brings a lot more happiness and fulfillment than anything else I’ve ever known claiming to be love. I am still capable of loving, and I will love again. I may even find a long-term partner again. We shall see.
But twue wuv?
Hell yeah it exists.
**READ ME (please)**
Two things!
One, please note that the names of everyone in this blog have been altered to protect the people I write about. My main goal is to explore my experiences and my growth, not air anyone’s dirty laundry out. Any likeness to people you know in real life are probably coincidental. (I mean what are the chances? It’s a pretty big world!)
Two, the thoughts and opinions I express in this blog are merely a result of my personal experiences to this point in my life. If there is anything I have misrepresented, overlooked, or have a blind spot for, feel free to leave a comment or email me at contact@livingbetween.net. (Yes, this includes typos. Let me fix my typos, please!) All I ask is that you always remain respectful.
Talk soon!
– Lynda –
Living Between 