Are 28 Years of Marriage Worth Celebrating?

I notice that often when people post about their wedding anniversaries on social media most of the comments start with "Congratulations!" rather than "Happy Anniversary!"

Longevity in marriage is seen as an accomplishment.

This makes sense given how challenging intimate relationships can be, and I guess it is some kind of accomplishment that Angus and I have been able to stick together for 28 years. It definitely has not always been easy, and we nearly didn’t make it, but I don’t think the longevity of our marriage is something to celebrate.

Truth be told I am not committed to staying in my relationship.

I am committed to living with an open heart and doing my best to stay true to my natural state of love.

Currently, and maybe for always, there is no conflict between me being married to Angus and me being true to the wisdom in my heart.

This has been the case for our entire relationship. I imagine it will stay true, but I don't know for sure.

Up until now the laboratory of our marriage has by far played the biggest contribution in my life to learning about love. Not just romantic love, but also the impersonal love of my true nature.

Angus wasn’t the only relationship that stirred up my unresolved issues, but it is in our relationship where there was enough kindness and compassion as well as a mutual commitment to learning and growing that I was actually able to feel safe enough to unlearn some of my fear-based conditioning. This allowed me to open to intimacy, dependency, and trust. And yes, I do mean dependency. We do also have independence and interdependence, but I have a dependency on Angus as well. My life would be shattered if he were not a part of it, and I am okay with that.

I am immensely grateful for our love and the learning and growth I have experienced in our relationship. That is worth celebrating, and it would have still been worth celebrating if we ended our marriage in 2005 when we separated.

The end of a relationship is not a failure. The longevity of a relationship is not a success.

Life unfolds as the mystery it is. There are no guarantees.

I am not more virtuous because I stayed in my marriage. Nor am I less virtuous because I wanted to leave it when I was having an affair.

All I have is this moment. Every moment before this one was the best I could do at that time, and every moment after this one will be the best I can do then.

And I'm not going to be a curmudgeon. I do plan on celebrating my love for Angus and our marriage today. I am grateful for the blessing of our container of love that is framed by 28 years of marriage. I celebrate the love that is expressed in that container and how the container supports me in knowing my true nature more fully.

If things go my way, we will be celebrating with family over a delicious Devon cream tea. I am a cream-first gal, but I love cream so much that I would be happy to put it on after the jam as well.

Cream is a fitting way to celebrate our love and love in general.

It is not really about celebrating time, marriage, or form.

It is about honoring, respecting, and valuing the formless intelligence of consciousness that is the source of who we all are no matter what unique forms we decide to express it in this lifetime.

Marriage can be one of those forms, but it is certainly not limited to that form or to the length that that form stays intact.

I can choose to celebrate love in all of the magnificent ways it is experienced and expressed through our humanity every day not just today.

And I encourage you to do the same no matter what form or experience love takes in your life.

This article was originally published at https://www.therewilders.org/.