Written: 2018
Quote from a movie I recently watched… I just love this…
“I like because, I love despite”
WARNING: Long boring segment about my almost separation from Nikki, skip to next paragraph if you wan’t. I won’t judge.
A few years ago (around 2010) Nikki and I nearly separated. We had been married for 9 years or so ( I recently read 47% of divorces happen before 10 years of marriage. Don’t quote me). I was struggling with the business, studying and at the time I was a counsellor at LifeLine. I had been introspecting and seeking to improve my life so much I lost contact with reality (words to the wise… don’t introspect too much, in my opinion understand the past, don’t try and change it). As we “adulted” our marriage ended up operating on a misguided autopilot, we both lived together but our lives were separated by “adult thinking” and ways. What came next was a rollercoaster from hell, with no seatbelts I might add. Much heartache and pain as we battled through what was to be the test of all tests. I was an emotional mess, an impossibility to deal with and an all round “asshole”. I made Nikki’s life a misery, all because I wanted her to leave me. Yes you read correctly. I wanted her to leave me! I didn’t care anymore, I didn’t want to continue being this disappointment in her life and mine. I won’t lie and say suicide wasn’t on the list of the lengths I would go to, to end what seemed an inescapable nightmare of self hatred.
Luck must have been on my side, because when in a moment in time, what seemed to be rock bottom, ended up being the first time I was able to put my feet down and stand up. Tony Robbins says things happen in a moment, but they build up over time to the moment when you make a decision to change, the moment you “concrete” the reality you now choose. (Sorry if I got the wording wrong Tony, but I am sure this is what you meant)
What was my moment you might ask? Rock bottom was my moment. When I finally felt the earth below my feet, in that moment I made a pact with myself, brought on by the relentless love and care Nikki showed me. It was a sacred vow if you please, more sacred than any wedding vow I could have taken. That vow was simple, based upon one Nikki and I had made the day we got married. Not the one in the church, the one in the garden at the venue where we had our reception. “I accept you today as you are, and will never try to change you”. We were just children then, but those words rang true then and they ring true now. I decided to listen to my younger self and adapt the saying to, “I will never change because I know you accept me as I am”. I realised the power that was held in knowing that the person you love, accepts you for who you are, without judgement or ill intention. Just simple, uncomplicated, meaningful faith in your partner.
Today eight years later my life is good. Sure Nikki and I don’t (can’t) have children and sure we aren’t as well off as most of our friends and family, but we have something amazing. Something that came from a tragic event in our marriage. Do I regret what happened? No I don’t. What happened was a wake up call to both of us, and we woke up. We woke up because our love for each other was still there, hidden under the rubble of neglect and now revealed by choice. A choice to be happy and not to give up on who we loved.
Love is as simple as the day you saw your husband, wife or partner for the first time. When I saw Nikki for the first time (4 years after school, we did go to the same school she was just two years below me), I fell in love right there, and when she tried to introduce herself to me, it wasn’t necessary, because for some reason I knew her name. Of course she probably thought I was a stalker.
My point is that love isn’t complicated, life’s complications interfere with loves natural course. Love is simple maths, one plus one adds up to two… it get’s complicated if you take away a “one” and replace it with an “X”.
Average Me 