This description of love opens our hearts!
Long relationship, less passion - is that an alarm sign?
This is probably what all couples will ask at some point if they have been in a relationship for some time. The hot phase of being in love ends, and instead a new feeling comes up. Then every look of the partner no longer makes for soft knees and blissful smiles - but is that bad? Is love coming to an end gradually?
No of course not. On the contrary, love is changing and becoming even stronger. Tumblr user Elo beautifully summarized on her page how good love feels after five years:
"A post about romantic relationships"
Well, I've been in a relationship for five years. And I see a lot of contributions on how people think a relationship means having butterflies in their guts forever, their hearts pounding faster and faster as their partner enters the room, clinging to each other with their legs twisted each other One is so happy to live together that one sleeps together in a double bed every night.
But that's not how it is, at least not for me.
If you live together, the butterflies disappear. Your heart does not beat faster when you see your partner. Instead, everything is calmer. If you are in the same room with him, you will feel relaxed and secure. When you cuddle with him, you feel how slowly your heart beats, and how his breath sounds carry you deeper into the comfort. It does not feel like a roller coaster anymore, but like your home.
"... as if I were satisfaction and security for him."
You do not sleep in each other's cuddles every night, your legs so tight that you hardly even know where your legs begin and yours stop.
Instead, you sleep comfortably next to each other, sometimes facing away from each other. But every night you find yourself slowly pushing yourself back on the bed until you nudge him. You cuddle up in your arms or stroke his hair while he falls asleep. There are nights when my friend stretches out his arm towards me in his sleep and hugs me, like a child pushing his teddy bear as if I were content and secure for him.
In the early morning hours, before the sun rises, when the world is still blue, and you look through small eye-slits, you cuddle up against your chest and snort at it before you drift back to sleep.
Kisses are no longer full of fire and romance. But there are so many more of them now. There are cold kisses when you eat ice cream in the summer, and sticky kisses at the breakfast pancakes. There are "I'll go now" kisses, and "One last kiss before you go" kisses. There are sleepy morning kisses before work, if you do not remember that your alarm rang, but that you started the day with your lips pressed against yours.
There are kisses before falling asleep, and "what you do is so sweet" kisses. There are kisses because you are so gentle with animals, and "I'm so glad I'm with you and not with anyone else" kisses. There are quick kisses when shopping in the supermarket, when it is loud and you drift towards each other, when you no longer each have their own distance to people, but you have a common "bubble" in which you are, in the you cuddles his chest and together they need less space.
"... your own little world versus the big one out there."
You do not write to your smartphone as often as you did in the past, just how much you love each other, because that's just a matter of course. Instead, you're sending weird insider jokes about the life you've built together. You exchange exasperated or amused looks in public, your own little world against the "big one" out there.
Relationships are not always a fairytale. They are not always sparks and fireworks, at least after the beginning.
But they are a gentle rhythm of love and care. It is not a fire in your soul, but a fire in your personal hearth that surrounds you warm and comfortable, giving you a sense of security as you slide to sleep.
And I love that.
Happy together, just in the little moments of life
Lasting heat instead of a short straw fire - this is exactly how true love feels when a few years have passed. And that's not an alarm sign - that's just beautiful.
