I’ve known Louise for over 10 years, and we’ve just celebrated our 3rd wedding anniversary. She is my friend, my lover, and my wife. She will be the mother of my children (soon darling…soon), and carer of numerous puppies/kittens and maybe even a parrot(?). We have been through a lot together, and survived it all. We now have a relationship that will support us.
We can be friends when we want, lovers when we desire, and if it wasn’t for that funny choking thing she does when she brushes her teeth in the morning, the relationship would be perfect (I don’t have any faults…)
To outsiders, we may not seem close. We are not a ‘coupley couple’, we don’t go in for large public displays of our love, and we both respect each others space and boundaries. Admittedly I’m not as demonstrative as I could be, but I’m a lot better than I was. We understand each other, almost to a psychic level – Keith can confirm two occasions – and are comfortable in each others silence.
Our long history helps us, experience and hindsight guides us, and neither of us can imagine not being with the other. I was once asked, how I knew I loved Louise. I struggled to put it into words, how do you qualify love? The best answer I could give was:
I can see us growing old together.
Doesn’t really capture the magic does it? But it is the stability, the reliability, of our relationship that we both thrive from. Day-to-day our love flows smoothly, always present, burbling in the background, every now and then swirling noisily, splashing, gurgling, but always flowing, carrying us onto our future.
Three years, so far so good (well for the most part), here’s to the next three, and the three after that…but let’s not plan ahead too much, who knows where our river will flow?