the art of loving someone long-term (part 1)

finding answers [on love, day 3 of 10]

The shade and tone of love that a lot of us are looking for is one that is enduring. One that lasts a long time. But what does it mean to love someone long-term?

“To love someone long-term is to attend a thousand funerals of the people they used to be. The people they’re too exhausted to be any longer. The people they don’t recognise inside themselves anymore. The people they grew out of, the people they never ended up growing into.” - Heidi Priebe

To attend a thousand funerals of the people they used to be. When I first came across this quote, I instinctively flinched at the word ‘funerals’. The mere thought of a loved one dying (although it’s beneficial for us to occasionally confront our own mortality) can be so jarring, if not devastating. But I think the choice of word here was sheer genius - and sufficiently bold to shock us into the commitment we unknowingly make whenever we enter a long-term relationship (here I am referring to the relationships of all shades, including the romantic, platonic and familial).

Funeral. We attend a funeral when someone is no longer present in this world. In the same vein, to be with someone long-term is to bear intimate witness to the versions of themselves that they have outgrown or left behind. It is to contend with the fact that you are never loving the same version of the person you fell for. To be with someone long-term is to watch the ways they show up take different forms over time. 

The people they’re too exhausted to be any longer; the people they never ended up growing into. To love someone long-term is to realise that we may have fallen in love with an idea of someone, rather than who they actually are. We grieve when we are presented with the task of reckoning with the person’s true self, when we are eventually forced to abandon the imagined identity of the person that we have come to love. We may mourn the loss they will never be the person we want them to be, and decide if we can still love this imperfect version of them that we have for a long time, unwittingly ignored.

The people they don’t recognise inside themselves anymore. To love someone long-term is to know that there may come a day when a loved one undergoes an evolution so drastic, that their new self is worlds apart from the previous. This change, whether due to circumstance or deliberate choice, can strike us as a loss so great that it wracks our bodies with grief. A loved one whose memory is lost to an illness. A loved one who succumbed to addiction. A loved one who has abandoned the shared values that were foundational to your relationship.

Most of the time, however, we may not notice that our loved one has changed until we look back and reflect deeply. Therefore, to love someone long-term is to grant permission. We move between periods of highs and periods of lows, traverse between excellence and failure and oscillate between stability and uncertainty. My loved ones will change. I will change. And so it is comforting that the quote gives us all (the lover and the loved) permission. Permission to let go of a previous identity. Permission to outgrow the people we once were. Permission to relax into a version we think suits us best for the current circumstances.

✿

And so, that is day 3/10: the art of loving someone long-term (part 1). See you soon for day 4/10!

warmest,
shiying