Someday, Forever.

I think it's no secret that Yoshi and I have had our fair share of struggles, some of them in the very recent past.

Being with him is easy because we get along so well, but being in a relationship where thoughts and feelings and opinions are valued is not.  Not every day is easy.

To be honest, there have been times where I've really genuinely thought about leaving.  After we moved in together that got a little more complicated, but during the rare instances where we've had really bad fights and I get overly emotional there are still times during which a stubborn and independent part of me thinks, "Meh, I don't need you.  I can survive on my own.  I can do whatever I want.  I'll just leave, then you'll see."

But that's not how a long-term relationship works, is it?

In a long-term relationship, a real partnership that becomes a pillar on which to base your life, you don't get to just leave because there was a hard day or a hard week or they said something wrong or they didn't pick the movie you wanted.

That would be silly, not to mention a waste of a tremendous amount of effort.  Those are things you can do, in my opinion, up until your one year anniversary.  After a year you should probably be putting more thought into your reasons to leave, like you both aren't compatible on a level that matters and causes you to be unable to continue in the relationship.

I understand there are many reasons to break up.  You're monogamous and one of you cheats.  One of you becomes drug dependent.  One of you has to move for work or family.  Sometimes even family is the reason, whether they dislike your partner or your partner cannot accept your family.

I've even had moments in which I knew I had real motive to terminate my relationship, but I couldn't do it.  I wouldn't just be turning my back on the lover who had been there for me through all my issues without trying to understand him in return, but I also would have been losing my best friend.  So in the days where I was really and truly thinking about leaving I would pretend everything was fine instead.  When he was gone my heart would be breaking but when he was home I seemed okay.  Instead of going to bed and crying I would sit closer to him on the couch.  Eventually, we grew closer again emotionally, too.

I'm not saying if you're considering leaving your relationship that you shouldn't.  Each relationship you have is different and different to each person in it.

I'm saying that when I have childish thoughts about ending mine because he isn't perfect I subconsciously find reasons not to do so and things get better.  That's how I know he's right for me.

I no longer look at him with youthful eyes and think about what he could be to me.  I see him with eyes and a heart that have experienced years with him: multiple moves, illness of various types, depression, anxiety, a million meals, an equal number of miles on the road, staying up until dawn and going to bed while the sun is still in the sky in the evening...  It isn't just the initial emotions and little compatibility tests you give each other that become love; it's the milestones you celebrate, projects you complete together, and moments that pile on top of each other year after year.

When I started this blog I was just another damaged girl in her mid-twenties who figured she'd be single forever and ever.  I had finally reached a place where I was comfortable with being single and had started to accept and release what I went through with my ex,  I liked who I was and I liked my freedom.  Later that year I met Yoshi and a year after that we started dating.

The secret is that I never really thought the relationship between the girl who always dated older guys and the dude four years younger who always dated younger girls would last.  I thought it would just be hanging out, maybe some decent sex, and then it would fizzle.  Somewhere along the line we started learning how to be with each other and really working at it because neither of us was willing to give up on the fun we had together.

So, yes.  There have been rough patches.  There will be more.  I don't think either of us would be happy if there wasn't some kind of challenge in being together.  But there will also be more moments that I will never forget and moments that I will forget that I thought I never would.  Somehow the negative never piles up as high as the positive.  I think that is as it should be.

I can't say for sure there won't be a day in the future that one of us says we can't do this anymore, but I can say that if that day did come it wouldn't be a surprise to either of us.  There would have been a lot of damage along the road we took to get to that place.

I think it's more likely we'll wake up in our seventies and wonder where the last 50 years went and how they could have passed us by so quickly.

Who knows?

That's for Future Bunny to worry about.