I found this anonymous writing floating on Facebook.
“Living with the person you love is not what everyone thinks it is. It’s not waking up early every morning to make breakfast and read the paper together. It’s not walking hand in hand while your kids skip down the sidewalk in front of you. It’s not cuddling in bed together until both of you peacefully fall asleep. It’s not a clean home and a homemade meal every day.
It’s waking up to your left overs you saved for lunch already eaten. It’s slammed doors and a few harsh words, fights and the silent treatment. It’s wondering if you’ve made the right decision.
It is, despite all of those things, coming home to the same person everyday that you know loves and cares about you. It’s laughing about the one time you accidentally did something stupid. It’s about eating the cheapest and easiest meal you can make and sitting down together at 10pm to eat because you both had a crazy day. It’s when you have an emotional breakdown and your love holds you tight and tells you everything is going to be okay.
It’s about still loving someone even though they make you absolutely insane. Living with the person you love is countless fights about absolutely nothing, but is also having a love that people spend their whole life looking for.
It’s not perfect, but it’s amazing and comforting.
It’s the hardest thing yet the best thing you’ll ever experience.
It’s love and life.” – Anon
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I come home to a person I love.
I’ve committed my life to this person. My experience has shown me that wanting this kind of life is “normal,” or at any rate common. Nearly everyone I know seeks, or has settled themselves down with, a nesting partner. Married or otherwise. Some come home to a loving pet, and this suffices for them, but this seems a bit rarer.
Regardless, pair-bonding appears to be a natural desire with social creatures; and humans, for the most part, are social. Moreover, it’s in many, many ways easier to bond by sharing time with a person within the same space. Therefore, yes, I would say that writing applies to most of us.
But the writing made me nauseous.
Never mind that we are not a homogenous amorphous blob all wanting the same things. I instinctively cringe whenever someone says “everyone” wants something. Unless that’s food, water, shelter, and a feeling of being safe and loved. And even some of that is likely up for debate.
Even for someone like me who actually wants to live with someone else, it’s terrible. If I could find that writing, crumple it, and throw it in a wastebasket– I’d take great pleasure in the act.
“Living with the person you love …It’s not a clean home and a homemade meal every day.”
Thank you for that wisdom. Really? Your apartment doesn’t automatically shine and home cooked meals don’t spontaneously burst into being when you sign a lease together?
Amazing. I’m shocked– as I’m sure most people are.
‘It’s waking up to your left overs you saved for lunch already eaten. It’s slammed doors and a few harsh words, fights and the silent treatment. It’s wondering if you’ve made the right decision.
Anyone living with me knows better than to eat my leftovers, but this part I actually semi agree with; there are fights and there are slammed doors and there are even moments where you wonder if you made the right choice.
Just don’t forget that it should be mostly good moments!– maybe even a few perfect idealized sugar crystalline moments! and not just the overwhelming moments of doubt and anger. I don’t want to hear how “daily living is miserable, but, you know, that’s living together?” Because it doesn’t have to be.
Most evenings, I spend comfortably curled up with my partner, in my giant fuzzy blanket; after ordering Chinese or Indian or maybe even cooking a nice meal; binging our latest Netflix or Amazon Prime show. Boring.
“It is, despite all of those things, coming home to the same person everyday that you know loves and cares about you…It’s when you have an emotional breakdown and your love holds you tight and tells you everything is going to be okay.”
Okay, yeah, you’re coming home to the same person everyday. That’s not exactly a selling point. Or maybe you’re just a bad salesperson? “Get this home and then– you’ll have a home!” Cool, what else you got for me?
The part about your love holding you is touching, but do we really have to imply you can’t provide emotional support unless you’re living with someone? Because you can.
“It’s not perfect, but it’s amazing and comforting. It’s the hardest thing yet the best thing you’ll ever experience. It’s love and life.”
Dear, God, no! First off, not everyone wants to live with someone. Even if you do? I love my partner, but choosing to share the same bathrooms and bed with someone is not the “best thing I’ll ever experience.” Well, it is a freakishly comfortable bed. Never mind that, though, it’s not important.
I have a million best, most perfect moments, in my life and not a single one is me chopping vegetables while you smile longingly, your arms wrapped around me. Living with you? That’s an amazingly convenient way to spend time with you, because I don’t happen to be the sort that likes too much alone time– but it’s not my world. It’s pretty cool, though.