“No!” we shouted together, Christopher and I, “absolutely not!”
“But when you get married, when you are with someone you have to compromise, right? You have to think of what the other person wants and give up some of what you want. That is what marriage is, isn’t it, a compromise?”
“No!” shouting again, “no, no, no!”
But …
Our friend was frankly perplexed at the heretical approach to relationship we presented, yet she could not argue with our 11 years of being together and still liking each other. We couldn’t argue with it either, so we didn’t.
“Do not compromise” we said instead, “do not ever let go of yourself. In relationship or not, this is you, this is your life and you have to have the freedom, the absolute freedom to do and be whatever you wish to be, in relationship, especially in relationship!”
“But what if I don’t like who he is, or something he does bothers me …?”
“Well, that is your problem, not his” we stated, “you choose”.
Relationship is a choice, your choice. You choose how you relate and, always, you choose if you relate.
“This is the way it works, the only way it can work, as far as I can see” I said to the dear friend of mine, “Christopher is free to leave. At any moment he is free to leave, at any moment he can leave. And so can I.”
It is not the structure of marriage that keeps us together, it is not the vows, the traditions, the culture, the promises nor the expectations. We are together because we are free to leave. Always.
