Is this love?

Over dinner last night, I experienced the husband's best friend do an ex-gf bashing. Except that it wasn't his own ex, but my husband's ex.

She was so materialistic. I tried to tell him but he was so defensive of her.
What is with her eyeliner? She looked like a panda.
She told me he had to marry her if not she would cut off his balls.
She said she saved all her own money for "their future", and she's only going to use his money for everything else.

All the while I sat there and wondered. If she were really THAT bad, how did they stay together for 5 years?

Then again, I stayed with my ex for 7 years. And it was one of those ho-hum, we're getting by type of relationship. Where I'm not exactly happy, but I am not exactly unhappy either.  Still we stuck together for 7 whole years before I decided maybe, just maybe, I want to be deliriously happy. So I packed up and left.

Why do we do this to ourselves? Stay with a partner we are not entirely happy with but we tolerate because we are comfortable with how things are, and much too petrified to venture out into the big scary world of dating?

A week ago, a friend of mine sent me a text "N has broken up with me for good. After 11 *bleep bleep* years of being together".

My first thought was, finally. Now they can both find someone else that can make them both happy.
I always thought their relationship was sort of a ho hum, we're not really lovers or friends, but somehow we are together type of relationship.

They lived apart for the past 5 years of their 11 year relationship. He across the causeway and she here. They meet possibly once a month or less. And there was never any passion in their relationship. It was more like a friendship but with WAY more emotion involved.

How important is passion in a relationship? As we all know, most if not all relationship starts with a fireball of passion which eventually sizzles into little spurts of passion. But there must still be passion, right? We must feel passionately about someone to the exclusion of others. If not, what makes this particular person so special?

When I talk about passion, I do not mean passionate love making, but passion in sharing everything that the other person is. His ambitions, his fears, his beliefs, his everything.

I have always believed that we are all entitled to be happy. And that means that if someone leaves because he or she has found someone new, then its something we have to accept because he is no longer happy. Why stay with someone who no longer wants to be with you? Why threaten suicide? Why say I want my blood on your hands? All you will ever get is resentment.

The sooner we accept the reality of the situation, the easier it becomes to open our hearts to someone else. There is always someone out there who will understand your moods, accept your quirks and habits, enjoy your company, love your family, appreciate your intelligence (or lack of it), laugh at your jokes and swoon over your looks.

And if you can find that someone why wouldn't you give yourself the chance and have the courage to go out there and find it??

So for the new year, do yourself a favour. Resolve that you will find happiness. Resolve that to do that you need courage to break free from all the things that hold you back such as complacency and fear. And I hope you find love and I hope that you discover passion. And most of all, I hope that you will find contentment.