Older, but Better, but Older by Caroline De Maigret & Sophie Mas

Author:Caroline De Maigret & Sophie Mas
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2019-12-30T16:00:00+00:00

REDEFINING

THE

RELATIONSHIP

Since your early childhood, you were told that a couple was always a man and a woman, and that they’d be together forever. Marriage and fidelity included. Your grandparents set the tone: married at twenty and until “death do them part.” For life, then, for better and for worse. Your parents’ arguing opened a new chapter in your understanding of the construct—until they got divorced, and the tension at home was replaced by relief. So you ended up with a shaky view of it all: Should you believe in it, and, more important, was it still possible?

And what about good old monogamy? One person there with you through every stage of life, evolving at your side? A comforting theory, but in practice not so simple. After the sexual revolution of the seventies, the introduction of birth control, and the frenzy of divorce as an almost anarchic freedom, would you tear it all down and change everything, or instead take refuge in more conservative values?

In retrospect, your love life hasn’t exactly been a straight line. It wasn’t what you expected or like anyone predicted. It wasn’t always fun, but you’ve experimented, hesitated, and made mistakes so as to better understand yourself. Through the good and the bad, you did things your way.

There were the transitory companions, and partners you loved passionately while knowing you could never live with them. You raised other people’s kids until you met someone with whom to have your own. You fell madly in love with a woman. They all watched you grow, encouraged you, and loved in their own way. And you realized that time, longevity, the commitments it entails, isn’t everything. These different kinds of love were a spectrum, never the same twice, but never wholly unique either.

In short, while the official definition of a relationship once comforted you, your experience has shown you that you contradict yourself and are constantly changing. That you’ve had several lives.

What will the next one be, and ideally, will you build it to last?

As if for guidance, you start observing your friends’ relationships more closely and how they get by (alone, as a couple, or sometimes more). In addition to traditional relationships, you see new arrangements hatching. For example, a couple might be together but living apart. Better to have two studios than one big apartment, and a relationship that lasts. You also inquire into their experience with solitude and routine, with daily life. Some openly admit not needing sex anymore. Others affirm their lack of desire to have children: They’re happy with the balance in their single life or their relationship, and the responsibility of caring for someone else would threaten that harmony. As for fidelity, many tell you that they believe in it and they adhere to it (that reassures you), but also that there’s value in keeping some of that intimacy a mystery. And that it’s possible and even common to love someone, to fall out of love, and then to fall back in love with them again.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.