‘Passion has been turned from fire to a steady, gentle warmth’
Lotte Jeffs explains how friendship, kindness and compassion are what she and her wife give each other now
Who would have thought the frozen-food aisle in Sainsbury’s could be so romantic? My girlfriend J and I had been dating for a few weeks when we first went shopping together, and I remember how exciting it was to be doing something ‘domestic’. Being somewhere so public together for the first time, in the harsh light of a supermarket rather than in dimly lit hotel bars, made our burgeoning relationship feel real.
Suffice to say, a decade later, supermarket shopping is lacking such a frisson and instead involves toddler snacks (we have a two-yearold) and Post-it notes with ‘bin bags’ written on them. That doesn’t mean we love each other any less. But what was once a novelty – cooking, sitting next to each other on a bus or J bringing me a cup of tea in bed – is now well-trodden territory. And on the rare occasions when we find ourselves in the restaurants, hotel suites or cinemas where our relationship took shape, I’m reminded of those intense feelings.
The long-term relationship I had before J was dysfunctional and with a woman who, when I said, ‘I love you’, never said it back to me. I was 18 and my ex was 30 when we’d met, so I just figured love was painful and heavy. With J, I realised how good and easy it could be, with a joy and lightness I’d never felt before.
J and I first met at a work party. We kept in touch as friends, and when I split up with my ex, she was a great support and our friendship turned into something more. In those early days, I was euphoric. I had gone from an emotionally controlling relationship to one in which I was completely free to be myself. It was a relief to be with someone who could show me and tell me how they felt.
We both had jobs that allowed us to join each other on glamorous trips abroad. We merged our friendship groups, and hosted parties in the flat we shared (we turned the basement into a tiki bar). We grew and changed as individuals, and as a couple.
By the time we were married, our love had softened into a deep happiness; an anchor. Some people think it strange that we don’t argue, but we have similar temperaments and consistently think the best of each other. We always try to understand why the other person has said or done something, rather than jump to anger.
We also talk about everything, so we pre-empt issues before they escalate. We’re friends, and I believe it’s this, more than anything, that will carry us through to a happy old age together.
After our honeymoon, we fell into a heteronormative narrative that started with buying a house and moved on to the next chapter: having a baby. I’ve never been in relationships with men, so can offer no comparisons, but I can say this felt like the right direction for us and never was our gender a hindrance.
My wife’s pregnancy took our marriage into a new space. We shared something intimate, beautiful and occasionally scary as our baby grew inside her. The birth and the week following it was the most challenging time of our lives. It tested our strength and resilience. We followed our instincts, hunkered down, and slowly we re-emerged into the light as a family of three. Things then changed; gone was the foreign travel and midweek parties but, more than that, we were no longer each other’s number-one priority.
Life right now is about someone else, a tiny person who needs us more than we need each other, and that’s okay; our love feels strong enough. We take care of each other still, but we can do without the undivided attention we were able to give each other before we had a child. The arguments my straight friends who are mothers have with their husbands tend to centre on him feeling sidelined and her feeling like she’s trying to please everyone. Maybe it’s because we’re both women, but J and I have no issues with putting our relationship lower down on the priority list. I don’t think it’ll be like this for ever and I look forward to focusing more on ‘us’ again in the future. We’re moving with the undulations of our lives, rather than trying to fit our love into the same shape. This, to me, is a recipe for long-term happiness.
The thing I love most about marriage is that it holds you to something; you can veer from it, reach further from each other, return. You can evolve, make mistakes, explore who you are together and apart, and there’s always something good to come back to. It is friendship, kindness and compassion that we need from each other. Love now is like home. Passion has been turned from fire to a steady, gentle warmth.