The promises of love
When we are in love, we do not skimp on the promises of love and the attention we dedicate to our partner, except then, once we have established a daily life, to find it difficult to continue to keep what we have promised. Not because we love less, nor because we don't have the desire, but because the routine breaks into the bubble in which only the two of us existed and the world, with all its problems and its needs, returns to require our attention.
A case
I remember a friend who travelled a lot for work. He had come back from a failed marriage, precisely because of his continuous movements. He often had to get up at 4 or 5 in the morning to be at the airport. The new girlfriend, every time, got up, made him coffee, wanted to say goodbye. But, almost immediately, he made it clear that he would have preferred that she did not grant him "vices" that then he could not maintain over time. Naive and in love, the girlfriend was sincerely happy to get up at the most unthinkable hours to be able to say goodbye, swearing to him that she did it with her heart and that she would always do it.
Yet, in the long run, he was right. When the intoxication of the nascent state was consolidated into a stable coexistence, she began to feel that, in addition to the pleasure of getting up for her man, there was the burden of having to face a day full of commitments anyway, that often the lost sleep was not recoverable. And then came a son. And so he began, little by little, not to get up again.
The man, perhaps more mature, or simply because he had already been there, did not consider the promises of love as broken and, when their routine settled down, never accused them of never getting up again to prepare coffee. She would greet her the night before, in the morning she would call the taxi and silently leave the apartment.
The promises in time
This example leads us to consider how at the beginning of a relationship we load ourselves and the partner with very high expectations. Because at that moment all the promises of love are sincere, dictated by the heart, it is as if we crystallize time and space: it is the nunc aeternum. We are convinced that things will never change, that everything will remain unchanged forever in substance, as it is in the moment in which we are living it.
But this is not the case. The daily routine necessarily leads us to come to terms with the principle of reality. Too often partners complain, during the quarrels, the failure to respect the promises of the early days. "At the beginning you did this and that", or - especially men - "At the beginning you were always willing to make love".
So, what to do? Shouldn't we make any more promises?
Should we no longer live the intensity and vibrant energy of falling in love? No, absolutely not. We welcome the promises, even if it is necessary to understand that it is not the impetuosity of the rising state that is the compass in a relationship. That extraordinary energy is necessary to build a strong bond, a couple based on love, to put oneself to the test, to build a common project. But the nascent state of love is an 'extraordinary' moment, that is, 'extra ordinem', out of the ordinary, it cannot be perpetuated indefinitely.
Should we abandon all illusions and expectations?
Once again, the answer is no. Everything that arises during falling in love must be guarded with care and revived as often as possible. Couples who manage to devote themselves to time, who make plans, who are accomplices, do not feel regret for the lost paradise. Because they have the flexibility - cognitive and emotional - to welcome change as something positive, to look ahead and rethink the early days of their love with a smile and emotion and not only with nostalgia.