real life

"Now we make each other better."

Rebecca Wolf and husband Hal

By MIA FREEDMAN

Wandering around the internet this week I popped in to visit one of my favourite bloggers, Rebecca Woolf at Girls Gone Child. Rebecca had her first child Archer pretty young and quickly followed that up with Fable and then last year, twins Boheme and Reverie.

Rebecca is a writer and her husband works in TV and she always writes so beautifully about her family life and the mental, physical, emotional and financial struggles she has, struggles which are so typical of women who are trying to navigate this stage of their lives.

I read what she wrote about marriage – in relation to a blip she was having with her husband, nothing major, just the usual temporary disconnection you can have when life is busy tossing you both around like a salad.

She writes:

Marriage is HARD. It’s hard and it’s weird and it’s terrifying and lonely and all of these things we do not discuss when we repeat our vows. “For better or for worse” is a little on the vague side I think.
Anyway. I was listening to this song and thinking of Hal and what it felt like in the beginning of our relationship when the biggest challenge was who was going to sleep at who’s house and how nobody really fights in the beginning of relationships because everyone is too busy posing and perfuming their assholes instead of you know, farting.
Rebecca and Hal’s 4 kids

None of that exists anymore but it didn’t ever anyway…

In the beginning, we made each other “happy”. Now? We make each other BETTER.

I love that and I can totally relate. Can you? So much in our culture is geared towards the rush of excitement and fun times that kick off a new relationship when we really are trying our hardest, masking our faults and being our ‘best selves’. Heady times.

But true intimacy comes later, when you drop your guard and reveal the parts of yourself that aren’t necessarily the shiny, happy, sexy bits so ostentatiously on display in the early days…….
Do you and your partner make each other better? How has your relationship changed over time?