Everyone Woman's Dream: A Long And Lasting Love?

Claudette Esterine

It could be described as a shotgun wedding but in actuality there was neither an irate father nor an bible- thumping mother holding one to our heads.

He already had a child out of wedlock; in order for us to have private accommodations in the then socialist republic we need "papers" and we were in heat. Those were the reasons we got married. Very clinical and practical.

Image: ukrainian-n-things.com

I was 22 and he was a year older as we stood before the marriage officer and friends, rushynk draped over our hands and exchanged vows.

This, however, was no everlasting love??

Married for not so "holy" reasons, our much coveted marital home (really a large studio apartment in a students' hostel) began unravelling rapidly. Our love was hot and passionate. We could hardly keep our hands off each other during the summer of our coming together. In fact, we were rabid enemies prior to those fateful months of June to August when neither of us had the resources to escape the vicious Kiev sun.

By the end of the Ukrainian summer, we were the much-talked about couple of the student community. The winter of 1986 did nothing to freeze our passion and by Spring 1987 we were married and expecting our first child.

Looking back, our missteps are more clear to me. We, like so many others continue to do, thought:

• Being in love was enough to make a marriage work
• Having a baby, in or out of wedlock, would bind us tighter
• Great sex equals great love
• Being married would cause the other person to change into the perfect husband or wife

Despite the beautiful song we opened the dance floor with at our wedding reception, we did not cherish our love or each other. Frustration, too much responsibility at too early an age and unhealed wounds in us both eventually led to deceit, infidelity and domestic violence.

Twenty plus years later, our relationship cannot be described as a friendship but a mutual understanding, I venture to say, that we were too young, too wounded and ill prepared to be hitched.

“It is possible to love your friends, your competitors, and even your enemies. It is hard, bitterly hard, but there is a long distance between hard and impossible.” ~ Herbert Welch 

As I watch my daughter over the years, see her transform from child to woman, growing through her bumps in the road, I harbour no resentment and have no regrets.

Maybe that is what everlasting love is? 

Loving not the person but the act of coming together, growing through your emotional challenges and seeing the fruit of the seed you planted thrive?

Awaiting the arrival of Kitten, my daughter's first child, that is my perspective and I now, indeed, "cherish" the love her grandfather and I shared.

Do you believe in everlasting love? If yes, with whom do you share such a love? Do share your story with us here or on our Facebook page.

Continue to have a love-filled day and month!