FALLING IN LOVE IS EASY. It involves butterflies and long walks on moonlit beaches. You hear wedding bells, see fireworks and fall into something that feels perfect.
Staying in love, however … now, that’s not so easy. in fact, sometimes it feels downright impossible!
I was talking about this with a couple who were celebrating 60 (yes, you read right – SIX-T!) years of what they said was a really happy marriage. They summed up the success of their milestone really simply …
They’d got through these 60 years because they’d made their love a verb … a living, breathing thing that requires feeding.
For them, it wasn’t a one-off experience that happened – a moment or thing that once was. He told me how they would tell each other every day that they loved each other – and then went out of their way to show they really meant it. They both did things that they’d learnt over the years, things that really brought happiness to the other person.
However, they hadn’t always been like this …
Early in their marriage, it almost went pear-shaped. But with the crisis came the realisation that if they were going to reach the end of the race together, they needed to be intentional … very intentional!
With tears in their eyes, they told me that, “Falling in love only requires a pulse … but staying in love: that requires a plan.”
