‘Hot’ Love for a Lifetime and Trust the Key

“Years of commitment to one another are like a well made fire that glows against the chill of old age.”

~Juliet Janvrin & Lucy Selleck.

This sort of quote is meaningful to just about everyone. It’s felt at personal experience, or it’s pined for (for those who’ve lost it), or it’s sought by those who aspire to it. A lifelong marriage is what every starting-out couple wants, not least of which because it represents less hurt.

Pictured as a mature fireplace, stoked and reliably hot, the fire of commitment is steady and boisterously pertinent in its purpose.

Each person in the partnership is not fazed by the other, gossip or innuendo. The trust issued is wholly confident and resilient against the wiles of the wrangling hour, but partners are under no false illusions. It took years of hard work to get there.

Holding Out for ‘The One’

I’ve heard many stories of decades of marital bonding and I’ve seen it in practice—as has everyone.

It can seem a pipedream or something that’s hardly anything but reality. The latter, of course, either got lucky or they held out for the right one. It’s fair to say these were blessed and remain so. But love is all too easily lost. So far as love is concerned, life can be fickle.

We know it makes sense to hold out for the right one, to seek active signs of love as a relationship initiates and forms, and not commit unless we feel it’s right.

Retaining Passion is a Function of Embodied Trust

There are many couples who do have the right mix of chemistry as well as the legacy of love. They’ve been together for longer than they’ve been apart. Some others are incredibly intimate, defying their short expanse of years together.

But passion is a mysterious quality—one that evaporates and returns in scant, unpredictable flickers. It’s tantalising for one or both partners.

Could it be that trust buoys passion? I asked my wife to comment and she said, “Your passion bears more weight if I trust you.” From personal experience I’m inclined to agree.

Entire volumes have been written on passion in spousal relationships. It’s a subject that shouldn’t be simplified. The chief point is, it’s an individual thing. Passion is obviously beyond sex (though it can include that) because it’s the resplendent glow of intimacy forged over years.

Trust cannot be overstated and it’s certainly not static. It’s maintained, destroyed and rebuilt. Of all things, trust is hard-wearing and capable for whatever we throw at it, in faith.

© 2011 S. J. Wickham.