Will Our Love Last?
I just posted this over at Desiree’s place, in response to her request for feedback on the book Will Our Love Last? by Sam R. Hamburg.
I’ve not read Will Our Love Last? but the general topic of what kinds of relationships remain happy, and which ones don’t, is one that interests me a lot because of my own marriage.
After more than seven years together, Kathy and I remain remarkably happy together — and, to my regular amazement, it still gets better each year. I often find myself struggling to find adequate words to share the experience with friends. Sometimes it seems like we can’t not be happy together, something just clicks at such a deep level.
We all expect to feel that way in the beginning. But what makes it last so long for some couples, and vanish for others? I’m not normally one to be stuck for language, but it can be hard to describe in any kind of universal terms because all I know is my own individualized experience; I don’t know how much is idiosyncratic and how much is universal.
More than once I’ve copped out with something cheeky like “All I can say is marry someone exactly like Kathy.”
More seriously, I do think one important ingredient is to choose someone whose goodness you can feel, mutually, at a very deep level. And then don’t let anything obscure your connection with that goodness you see in your partner. Stay alive to it, because it has a way of softening those hard places inside that we develop during difficult times.
That said, for whatever it’s worth, Hamburg’s book (as evidenced by the Publishers Weekly review/blurb and several of the readers’ comments) comes about as close as anything I could have articulated to describing my and Kathy’s overall experience. I think he’s right about some of those key areas of compatibility, in particular.
I’m actually adding the book to my own Amazon wish list, because I think it will be some fun reading. Thanks for the tip!
