A long conversation. I love that.
we must be willing to submit ourselves to a process of falling in love with each new version of our partner and vice versa.
Yes. I think a lot of relationship misery comes from being unable to accept these changes or expecting your partner to stay the same (or finding perhaps you've both changed to a point where you're irreconcilable with the other).
They say hate isn't the opposite of love, indifference is, and that certainly seems right to me.
I agree. I guess at the end of the day, we all just really want someone who sees us and cares that we're there.
I saw that Nietzsche quote a few days ago and I really thought it summed things up perfectly. The long conversation is sometimes, "What would you like for dinner?" or "Are the dishes in the dishwasher clean or dirty?". Lol. At the end of the day you really have to make sure you like the core of your partner's personality.
Totally! I've heard that most men enter into relationships assuming the woman will never change and woman enter into relationships thinking they can mould the man into what they would like him to become. I know that's a generalization because I've known men who want to change women and women who expect a man never to change but it illustrates the misconceptions people have about long term relationships.
It's an over-generalization, for sure, though I think there's some truth to that. It's very necessary and powerful to understand that you can't change people in the way we expect (at least). You can obviously foster good behaviors and help someone towards the better aspects of themselves, but some people go in thinking "oh I'll just do away with X, Y and Z traits, and that's just not how it goes...