Throughout your relationship, you are guided by your understanding of who you are together, what you want and where you’re going. Your commitment provides the vehicle and the fuel for your journey. But, some of your best intentions — no matter how inspired, no matter how effective and fruitful — will ultimately exhaust themselves. They inevitably run out of gas. Sometimes because that part of your journey together has been completed. Other times because there is a change in the road. This isn’t tragic and it’s not dysfunctional. It is quite normal, because nothing lasts forever.
After the initial rush of romance fades, many people believe there is something wrong with their relationship. They have never been taught that the unavoidable fade is simply a signal telling them that a stage in their relationship is coming to an end. Instead of using this time to consider where they have been together, who they are now and what’s next for them, they either leave or they collapse into despair. They become prisoners of the question, “Is this all there is?”
In a fully committed, spiritually alive relationship, change and transcendence are the foods for the soul that nourish how you live with and treat each other. You know and accept that what you have at any given time can only carry you so far. When change begins, you can remain sensitive to the signals. Rather than panic, you can treat what is happening as an exciting, normal life process. You can let go and open yourselves to whatever is coming. That way, during your life together, you can transcend your relationship, renewing it any number of times. That’s a fundamental aspect of the new intimacy, what we call serial monogamy with the same person.
We have had three major transitions in the ten years we’ve been together. The first had to do with the development of the business we formed when we first met. Soon thereafter we both realized that what we had learned about love and intimacy before we met was not enough for who we had become together. We had to let go of a number of beliefs we had depended upon and explore new and more fulfilling ways to live together. The third transition began when we started writing this book. We welcome the changes to come, because they assure us our love is alive, that who we are is evolving and that we are not stagnant or stunted or boring.
We know a couple, both in their seventies who have been married for thirty years. On the twenty-ninth of every month, they set aside time to do what they call “renegotiating our relationship.” When they were first together, they used their negotiating time to determine if what they had was still working. Through the years they have expressed appreciation and delight with one another, as well as their complaints and desires for change. Now they continue to use their ritual to celebrate one another and express joy at simply being together.
The idea of serial monogamy with the same person, having a number of different relationships with your spouse, embodies both change and stability. It allows a relationship the room to grow, to peak and subside and transcend, giving way to the freshness of whatever follows.