IS ‘THE ONE’ A MYTH?
A survey suggests that finding the “love of their lives” might do some people more harm than good, writes Linda Kelsey
WHAT is this thing called love? After an evening drinking and wallowing in the lyrics of love, loss and longing in the company of a Broadway chanteuse, I found myself sighing like a lovesick teenager all the way home.
Reality quickly bit. My partner was already asleep with his earplugs in. “Right here, right now,” I hummed, slipping into bed, reprising the words of a song I’d just heard.
I liked that this song seemed to concentrate on the here and now, the love you’ve got, not the one that got away, or the one that might have been.
Something I’ve never felt the need to ask myself about my five-year relationship with the man I met in my mid-50s and with whom I now share my life, is whether he’s actually the love of my life. It hardly seems relevant. He’s my right here, right now man, and hopefully here to stay.
But according to a survey published last week, not only is one in seven of 2 000 adults polled in a long-term relationship with someone they do not class as the “love of their life”, it’s also something that clearly troubles them. Of those, 73% have “made do” with their partner because their true love slipped through their fingers.
We are such cuckoos when it comes to love. The notion of a love of your life is one of those myths that make relationships so hard to maintain. I’d contend that there are many The Ones out there. This is not a rallying-cry for people to go out and seek multiple partners; in fact it’s the opposite.
The notion of The One puts too much pressure on said One to be perfect. And if you think your partner is perfect, you’re going to be sorely disappointed.
Hearts do get broken, but over time hearts should be allowed to heal. If you’ve been walked out on, it’s only once you’ve got over the notion that the person who left you was the “love of your life” that you can enter into the possibility of a new relationship.
A relationship ending when you don’t want it to can lead to anger and hurt, but it can also lead to idealisation of the one you loved. I have a friend whose fiancé died in a motorbike crash at the age of 27. Regaling me with tales of subsequent relationships over the next 20 years which failed to match up, she has often used that phrase “he was the love of my life” to sum up her sorrow.
There is no denying that it was a tragic loss, but the real point is one she refuses to acknowledge: that her memory of him is preserved in aspic, fixed at a point when the two of them were wildly, and newly, in love. Passion had not had a chance to give way to the realities of living with someone on a daily basis. She experienced none of the pressures of earning a living, raising children, and the inevitable disagreements that set in when two individuals throw in their lot together.
Another woman I know, widowed after a happy marriage of 30 years, seems to have dealt far better with the unhelpful notion of there being a love of your life. She has, years down the line, met someone new who has asked her to marry him. “He’ll never replace my husband,” she says. “He’s neither as funny nor as clever, but he brings joy into my life and I’m open to that.”
There’s been a lot of love in my life, but no one, true, all-consuming love. And I’m glad for that. — © The Daily Telegraph