Love Is — Unromantic, Mundane & Ever-Changing

And there’s nothing more exciting than that.

My husband is the most unromantic man I know in the grand scheme of things. He’s awkward about grand gestures because he doesn’t believe in your fairy-tale love, but he still tries because he knows I love romance and I love butterflies and rainbows.

But in the end, it’s the most unromantic moments I find the most memorable.

Like the fact he agreed to help tidy up “down there” when I’m too pregnant to see or reach over the bump. Or when he filmed the entire birth of our son secretly with his Go-Pro and then made an (edited!) movie out of it when our son turned 6 months old. Or when he catches our son’s vomit with his bare hands to stop it from hitting our couch. Or like when he forced me to start getting up at 5 AM to work on my writing because I wouldn’t stop complaining about how little time I had to write.

Those are the things that really make me appreciate my man. They’re signs that he cares. I could go on and on — yes, my man is awesome — but that’s not the point entirely of this article.

The point is that my views around love were distorted growing up. I fell in love with romcoms like Dirty Dancing, Valentine’s Day, Maid in Manhattan, Love Actually, 50 First Dates, The Proposal…

All great movies, but all completely unrealistic, obviously.

Not so obvious to me as a girl in my late teens when I was just starting the whole boyfriend thing. It is *so* easy to influence girls in their teenage years, I was convinced I would find my prince charming. And when those expectations not only were unmet, but I became disappointed and hurt, I was shocked.

I had to both lower and heighten my own standards of the concept of love. I learned to tell the difference between fake, unimportant, gestures; and genuine, authentic (self)respect.

Through some tough relationships, I learned what I really valued in a partner: honesty, loyalty, and acceptance of my entire being. And that doesn’t revolve around sparkling diamond jewelry and awesome Valentine’s Day gifts — even if my husband does splash out on these for me sometimes.

Love Is About The In-Betweens

There is a saying that goes something like this:

“If you can’t be there for me at my worst, you don’t deserve me at my best.” — Marilyn Monroe

I absolutely agree with this. If you can’t be there for someone through the mud, then you sure don’t deserve to be there when things are going well for someone.

But what about the bits in between? What about the everyday mundane, stressful, busy, and quiet life? After all, most of our lives are made up of those routinely, habitual, and samey moments. You don’t live through ups and downs all the time — the waves settle eventually.

The times where arguments are provoked because someone asked their partner what they want for dinner and they didn’t respond appropriately. The wake-up alarm might sound too annoying and make you snap. It might rain for the 20th day in a row and send you into a spiral of negativity that you take out on your partner. You know, those kinds of everyday “mild” annoyances that accumulate and potentially lead to resentment.

You might not have anything planned after work during the week and you both fall into the same routine of giving into the comfort of your couch to watch that Nextflix show — which helps only to avoid eye contact and conversation until one of you goes to bed.

Is this you? Are you content?

Both possible answers are right.

But if you’re not currently happy with your present situation with your partner, it doesn’t mean the relationship itself is doomed. Life is full of the mundane. Hell, I like to think that even Oprah and Will Smith feel that some aspects of their lives are mundane. No one is immune to routine.

We aren’t supposed to be there for our partners through only the highs and the lows. It’s about all the bits in the middle.

It’s about how we react to those. Yes, it’s normal to feel a bit bored about your everyday routine. It’s normal to feel a bit “meh” after a while of doing the same old same old.

But you can change how you feel about them, and thus, change your situation.

Being Happy With Mundane

“It’s the simple things in your life that make up the bulk of it. The mundane is where we live and we end up missing most of it. We find it again in the silence and in attention of everyday life.” ― Eric Overby

I love going out on the occasional date night with my husband. But damn, we’ve not gone out on a date without our son since Valentine’s Day 2020, right before the pandemic. The fact that life is getting back to normal does not mean that we however can go out — we have no childcare that would be easy enough to set up yet, and no family in the country.

But I’m not that desperate for one. I’d love one, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t feel the absolute need for that quality time with my husband in that kind of setting. I don’t feel that not having a date is detrimental to our marriage.

In fact, during our year of lockdown in 2020, our life turned very samey and predictable, as it might have for many couples out there. But my husband and I thrived. We talked a lot.

We were both pumped with enthusiasm and excitement about our futures. We rekindled a friendship that had somehow been put on hold when our first son was born because of sleep deprivation and various other things. Banter became a daily occurrence again.

Our situation hasn’t changed much, other than our social lives picking up a bit more again. But we are still good. We are more than good because we cherish those mundane, samey routines. We take advantage of the special powers of gratitude. We practice deliberate, genuine love, and we show it consistently.

Because Love Is A Decision

People assume that love is a feeling that comes naturally, and we can fall in and out of love. There is definitely an element of attraction that needs to be present before you pursue someone. But, once again, that’s not love.

Love is what comes after all of that. Love is built on the foundations of that basic attraction. Feelings come and go. If we treated love as a feeling, it would be too erratic. Love is a choice we make every day for the person we’re with, even when we don’t love their actions or behavior at that time.

It is this choice to love and to keep loving throughout the years that sustains a marriage.

My husband and I have been together for a decade now, and we are by no means the couple that fell in love back then. Love takes effort on both our parts. It is about working on our own needs as well as the other person’s.

Sidenote: this is my greatest lesson — no one, especially not your spouse, can maintain or be your main source of happiness. That’s up to you. And it is only when you’re happy, on your own, that you can shower your partner with that same love. And the same applies to them.

You can be as incompatible as you like. Heck, I know we are. We are opposites in many ways. But we somehow just work. Because we wake up, and we choose to love the other person.

That might mean making them a coffee, spooning them first thing, or letting them sleep in while you take care of the kids for the morning. It might mean not asking them what they want for dinner and just taking care of it when you’re feeling beat.

When a couple goes through rough patches, it is normal for both of them to seek distance and space away from each other. Normally, their attitudes towards each other get worse and spiral into a testing territory.

But when my husband and I go through those “lows”, I show more love than ever. Because it is ultimately the choice of love despite those tough moments that allow for relationships to continue to grow. During the middle of an argument, we often tell each other we love each other. Because there is no better time to be kind than when you’re fighting. It is a reassurance that, no matter what, love is still there.

Love Changes And Needs Regular Evaluation

Over the years, my husband and I have had different roles to fulfill. Promotions, house moves, old habit breaking, new habit-forming. Life just happens.

We became parents a couple of years ago. We had to take on a team-mate approach to parenting because it was more about sleeping schedules and meal prepping. It was about taking the load while the other took some time off. Like shift work in a warehouse with a little more flexibility.

The changes in our identities as individuals and in our family dynamics definitely tested our patience and emotional maturity as time went on.

But what kept me going was the fact that I knew this was temporary. I knew I would be alright once our son had more of a routine with sleep. I knew I would be good once I had some time back to myself. I knew that I needed to take responsibility for my own happiness first for things to improve. That’s when I really started to give journaling and writing a go.

This was the first step into our marriage's transformation after our first “rough” patch. That, and the fact we sleep-trained our son.

We didn’t go back to how things were pre-parenthood — we changed. We changed together, and we got used to our new roles together, but not without a tonne of talking and a tonne of trialing different ways of being.

Even today we are still changing the way we do things to help us both reach our family and personal goals. For example, as a stay-at-home mum, we decided to send our son to daycare two mornings a week so I could spend more time working on my writing career.

When our second son is born, the dynamics in the family will change again, the daycare arrangements might need to change, my writing might slow down, and it’ll inevitably have an impact on us as a couple once more.

But it’s the anticipation for change that will help us take a more observant approach instead of an offensive one. I might need more affection or less of it. He might need more space or less of it. Whatever it is that we both need, we will accommodate. That’s love.

Besides, we’ll also have a newborn to pour our love into while keeping up that deliberate but unconditional love for our 2-year-old. We’re going to be busy.

Whenever our situation changes, so does the type of love we need from each other.

It is the ability to understand this that takes your relationship to deeper, more meaningful dimensions.

Takeaway

Love is about the whole of life. The ups, the downs, and the in-betweens. We have to appreciate all of the mundane because that’s what mostly makes up our relationships. Yes, we can make more of an effort to spice things up, of course — but taking the time to appreciate the bits in the middle also helps to shift your perspective on your relationship.

Gratitude has a tremendous power to improve and sustain relationships. Use it to boost your level of happiness in every aspect of your life.

The deliberate choice to love each day is what will send your relationship to new levels of excitement.

No one is immune to change. When we don’t take it personally and we choose to go with it, we actually take control of it. We can rein in the emotions that could potentially spiral or damage relationships by taking an observant approach so that we can adapt.

Most importantly, love for yourself is the kindest thing you can do. Only then can you love your partner entirely, and accept who they are.

“There is no more lovely, friendly, and charming relationship, communion or company than a good marriage.” — Martin Luther King

Sylvia Emokpae, thinker and philosopher, is passionate about self-love, relationships, and motherhood. See more work like this.

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