As I write this, my girlfriend of the last 6 months is on her way to a new life in Toronto, where she will undoubtedly continue a brilliant academic career for the next several years, and then move on again. During our time together, we spent much of it keeping to ourselves, for a number of reasons. She lived at home and did not want to exacerbate an already difficult arrangement, nor did she want to cause anxiety for her younger siblings by fighting with her parents. We both had recently come out of long-term relationships and did not want to make our exes feel badly or contribute to awkward feelings for mutual friends. So, we agreed at the time to keep our relationship between us.
Eventually, we came out of our shell somewhat and by now, of course, everyone who would care knows the fact that Nicole and I had a relationship. What they might not know is what that relationship was like, and why it was important to us. We agreed long ago that when she moved away, I would write this so that our friends could know more if they wanted to.
Before I continue, I want to add a caveat. I’m writing this post to compliment and celebrate a young woman who made a big difference in my life. It is not meant to slight the importance of the relationships I have had before. I am blessed to have been loved and supported by several good women over the last 25 years, and I feel fortunate to be on good terms with them still. As they know, my life has been affected by a series of abandonments, poor choices, and other factors that have caused me to struggle long and hard to get to a place where I care enough about myself to be a good partner for someone else. Poor communication and self-control from my end, however well-intentioned it may have been, has contributed to disasters in the past.
That’s why I feel compelled to write this now; to celebrate the fact that finally, a relationship is ending – or rather changing – in a positive way. I want to recognize something that went right.
Nicole and I leaned on each other during some difficult early times. We were quite aware of the discomfort people have with May/December relationships. Some assumed that I was going through a mid-life crisis and that she had some other issues, or that we were just each other’s rebounds, or that there was some kind of weird power imbalance between us. We didn’t bother correcting them. The real difficulty of our age difference, we knew, was that we were at different places in our lives, and that meant that she would soon have to move away to continue in school, whereas my circumstances require me to stay here in Saint John. I could no more ask her to change her plans for me than she could ask me to move away from my son. We knew that whatever happened, we were going to have to part at the end of the summer; so we resolved to enjoy the time we had, and redefine our relationship after that.
What we did not count on, to say the least, was falling in love. What was originally meant to be a casual, summer-long relationship evolved into one that has permanently changed the course of our lives, giving us new benchmarks for how we will treat others and how we want to be treated by others. It made me examine myself closely and has given me a new strength. It wasn’t always easy or light, but our connection and ability to communicate and work things out kept putting us back on track, allowing us to relax and enjoy our time together no matter what else was happening around us. As spring turned to summer, we felt comfortable enough to start being more public about the relationship, spending time with small groups of friends, going to dinner or movies, and taking short trips.
I won’t discuss our relationship on an intimate level here. Suffice to say that as we drew closer, I reached what was, for me, a new level of trust and self-respect. I have been guilty in the past of holding partners at arm’s length or feeling deep down as if I did not deserve to be loved, which must have been frustrating to them. I finally felt completely free, in my own mind, to just be myself; and I felt loved as myself.
The love we felt for each other fed into passion, which fed back into love, growing as it repeated that cycle. We were often surprised at the depths of our feelings; sometimes it even scared us. I tried in vain to explain to friends how important this relationship had become to me, to us; how good it was, and how much better we are for having had it. As much as I miss her now – and I do more than I can say – I am comforted knowing that I was good for her, as she was for me.
We don’t have any plans for the future as a couple, except to build and maintain our new friendship as determinedly as we did our relationship. We don’t consider it to be some sort of demotion; we are building on a foundation of love and trust and happiness. We are keeping our options open and will continue to truthfully examine our feelings.
Will we ever be a couple again as we were this summer? I don’t know. We were the right thing at the right time for each other once; it is perfectly possible that we could be again someday, and that is a comfort. For now, we each have new challenges to face and we will support each other however we can, because above all we want each other to be happy.
We appreciate the support and friendship that many of you have shown us. After a while, the only moments of unhappiness we shared were rooted in the fact that we could not always be together, both at the time and in the future. It forced us to appreciate the moment we were in, and that is a great gift. I know I speak for both of us when I say that I hope you will make the most of the time you have with your loved ones too.
