Love Lessons

Where are your socks, Sterling? I'm waiting for him to put that as the first question. Is your wife bossy? Yes, yes, yes. Are we on now? Yeah. Oh. Okay. We're always on. Antony, is there a secret to a good marriage? Yes, I make the coffee for her in the morning and she makes the tea for me at night. I think somebody said at some point, getting married will change your life. That was in a kind of admonishing kind of way. And I remember saying, well, I hope it will. And it has, you know, and it's continually kind of evolving. I think we're finding it more exciting the older we get. You know, we're a bit more frail and sort of incompetent about things, but we don't seem to mind that. At least I don't. I'd recommend it to anyone. It's probably because we've lost our marbles. I think the first thing that I was grateful for, that somebody wanted to marry me. Somebody thought I was marriage material. I'm married to a man that has an incredible sense of humour and that has helped me to be lighter. I was quite a quiet, serious person before I met him. The first time I met Antony, I felt like I'd found myself in him. That there was something that felt so at home. This was the first person that I felt I could be completely who I am and be accepted for that. So for me, that has been the biggest lesson and the biggest gift that I've received, is somebody who accepts me completely for who I am. I hear people say, yes, you need to know yourself in order to bring that into a marriage. And I'm sure that's true. To me, it feels slightly different. It's more the willingness to find ourselves in the marriage. That feels a little bit more forgiving and a bit more allowing. Let this relationship change me in whatever way becomes natural in the interaction between us. Can I become such an integral part of this world that it and me are one thing? That we're just willing to allow this flow to become us. One of the wonderful things about having a companion is that you see the world through their eyes. It kind of broadens your vision. I can share the things that excite me and I can share the things that excite her. And sometimes it's difficult to find that excitement and we share that as well. By the same token, you see when they're suffering or when they're having a hard time. That's part of seeing it through their eyes. And so immediately there's a sense of reaching out or putting a ladder down into a hole where they've climbed so they can climb out, you know. Or one can climb in and dance down there and say, well, that darkness is quite fun. Holes in ladders. We play holes in ladders all the time. Our relationship is not different to others. Sometimes we have the wind behind us and we sail on and other times we tack back and forwards across the choppy waters and we feel we're going to drown. We make mistakes all the time and getting stuck is sometimes part of the flow. And those are often the times that teach us the most when I'm really in an uncomfortable place, I've messed up, I've disregarded somebody, I've turned away from intimacy in some way. And then to say, I'm sorry, or can I make you a cup of coffee, or let's go for a walk, whatever it is, to just see if it's possible to move past that point together. The tolerance comes from knowing that that person is lovable, even when you want to kill them. The older you get, the more tolerance you have to learn because your own tolerance gets less, your own patience gets less. So the little things that come up in marriages and relationships, like don't wear your best pants to paint in, one doesn't hold on to stuff. You let it go very quickly. I've seen what happens when I don't do it, when I let it fester, when I take it inward and don't let it out. I've also seen what happens when I let it out in a way without reflection beforehand. I think reflection for any human being is vital. And I think that is something that people struggle with now because one is bombarded so much that you don't stop enough to reflect on your life and what you can change or what doesn't feel right, and then make that effort. And I think the fact that we're working on that daily, that's the fruit of it. It does happen that strangers come up to us sometimes and say, we were walking behind you and that's what I wish for myself. And all I can say is I wish that for you too. I'm just grateful that I have a companion in this life. I realise that for many people it's not something they have. Lucky is one of the many words to put it. Lucky, grateful, infuriating. Sure, just a breath of fresh air. I think the word is just flood me. And that's what feels real about it. If it was a romantic picture postcard, sort of sunset over the sea kind of life, that sounds terribly boring to me. If you ask me would I like to change anything now, the answer is no. I would just like to go into this with as much enthusiasm as I can figure out so that when I die, not if, when I die, I'm happy to feel that I've led a full life and had great friendship along the way. Margie, would you be OK if something happened? To him? I would miss him terribly. But I feel that I have enough of an internal life that has been fed by my love for him and his love for me that will sustain me. I don't even know what it means to say this is destiny, this is the answer to my life. It's the life I have and she's my life, if that isn't too romantically put.