I have known the most ideal couple. An uncle and aunt that was the ideal people to me growing up. They were generous, kind and genuinely concerned. As far as I can remember, they were the couple that I wished my own parents were more like. Compared to my own parents, their marriage seemed perfect. I believe it was at that time. They were successful, loving, privileged and lived abroad in posh areas.
A couple of years ago something happened. My relationship with my aunt became strained and as a result I distanced myself from them to avoid any further damage to anyone else. I just quietly walked away. To this day I remained silent for the sake of their generosity and kindness that they extended to us as a family.
Recently I learned that they were no longer in speaking terms, for years. They were living separate lives. The love was gone.
Now even though I accepted my loss of an aunt, that was still sad. They have been married more than 40 years.
I also have a friend back in college. He was the youngest in their family. When he finally told his parents about his finishing school, his parents in turn told him that they were separating. They were just waiting for him to graduate. Shocked, he learned that his parents kept this from him for the sake of his sanity and finishing his education being known to be a very fragile kind of person.
Someone I dated also seemed to have it all with her ex-husband. Money, kids, fancy house yet in the end it wasted away along with the possessions. To the world they were the power couple at one point. In the end with the kids barely in their teens it was ugly and unacceptable. They left their father. Traumatic for the wife, harder on the kids.
Why am I writing this? My previous entries on relationships were generally happy or romantic. This time it is all about the most ideal couples not "working it out". Now this is reality. No fairy tale endings here.
I just do not know how a couple, so loving, so kind each other, great or even perfect matches that have relationships fall into disarray after so long. I deduce that they must have been suffering. Day by day they wore masks for their children, relatives and the general public. They were lying to themselves, their families. It was all one big, ornate sham.
Really sad.
How could this be? Why would they tolerate each other if in the end it was just one long masquerade? What price did they have to pay? Did they even know that this was their fate? Haven't they weathered all storms as the years passed? What made it fade?
Why? I will never know. Actually, I do not even want to know, ever.
It is just so sad to have the most ideal of relationships (at least in my eyes) to crumble in time, and after a long, long time at that.
As an aging bachelor, it only reaffirms my acceptance that in all likelihood I will remain as such for the remainder of my life. I would rather that I live in solitude than to suffer with someone that I used to love and pretend living in total bliss all of my remaining life. Being alone must be hard but being with the wrong person and lonely for sure must be worse.
Seeing my parents and knowing myself, it is just not me to hold long term relationships. Some say I am just being negative, commitment phobic, scared even misogynistic. In response I say nobody knows me better than myself. It is not in me. I lack the skills or qualifications for this one. Besides, I never met anyone I would willingly take that chance with. Same goes for the ladies. No one really came forward when I was there. There is no sadness anymore on my part, just acceptance and gratitude.
Thank God I was never subjected to a love gone bad, too late for I would be able to bear the pain.
Sad to see fairy tales turn into horror stories or tragedies. But then again, that's just the way it is, I guess.
So very sad.
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