Dear Daughter,

Before your father I was married to another man. It did not work out. My ex husband and your father have taught me about commitment through what each one gave and could not give.

Your father and I are not perfect. We do not fit together seamlessly. We do not agree on a hundred percent of everything, and we do not fill each other up until we each spill over. We are not a classic love story of courtship and magic sealed up in a moment of perfection where we both became one and lived happily ever after.

There is no magic tipping point where a relationship “works” and then never has a problem again.

We are not a snapshot of a moment plucked out of a movie. Yes, he makes my heart happy. But we are not together based on a single emotion. We are together because we are family.

We try harder, forgive more easily, and pull together because we are both looking for something permanent. We are not looking to see if maybe we work out or maybe we don’t. We are not thinking about what some other man or woman could give us. We understand our own flaws and shortcomings, and we understand each other’s flaws and shortcomings.

We understand the commitment that each of us makes to each other. We understand that while we cannot give 100% of what the other person might imagine or want, we can try to meet each other’s needs and give what we can, and that sometimes we will fall short and others we will exceed all expectations.

Past relationships taught me that what we can imagine is the enemy of what we have. I can easily imagine many things that your father is not, but what he is surpasses my ability to imagine. He and I work because we complement each other. We are different. We think of different things, imagine different things, do things differently, and those difference form the base of our relationship just as much as our similarities do.

Sometimes he will frustrate me. Sometimes I will frustrate him. Just as you and your brothers will frustrate and be frustrated by each other and by us. Sometimes we’ll step on each others toes. Sometimes we won’t understand what it is that is needed and will miss something, and sometimes we won’t understand why something is needed and will try to give it anyway.

Sometimes I’ll feel empty and question why I’m with someone who seems disinterested. But then he’ll snap out of whatever it is that is stressing him out, and he’ll make me remember that I am loved. I know that I become fixated on a stress or problem, or end up touched out or tired as well, and I’m sure that sometimes he questions if we are just cohabitating. This is normal.

Sometimes I’ll fall short on every single thing he asks of me. He’ll come home and everything will be a mess and the thing he asked me to do three days ago won’t be done. And he’ll dig in and help. I’m sure that he feels frustration at this sometimes, and sometimes I know he does because it bubbles over. But then sometimes he’ll come home and I’ll have managed to do more than he expected.

Right now it’s probably harder than any other time in our lives, because you are all small and needy and messy and screechy and no-sleepy. We’re still finding our way as parents and as co-parents and as partners. We’re still establishing our routines even as each of you shift it and change it around. We have many stresses, some shared and some that each of us face “alone”.

When one of us says “I can’t”, the other understands. We don’t say “I can’t” lightly, because we understand that the other person must absorb some of our burden somehow. When one of us says “I really really really don’t want to right now.” the other tries to provide a break in the chaos. It’s a balancing game of meeting each others needs and trying to meet each others wants, and sometimes falling short.

I was once told by someone that unconditional love is what two lazy people do.

Unconditional love isn’t lazy. It’s a lot of work. It’s getting up in the middle of the night with the kids and letting your partner sleep in even when you’re tired too. It’s loving someone even when they can’t be there for you in that moment because they’re tired or sick. It’s taking each day as it comes, not tallying up who owes who what and when it will be repaid.

It’s something that two people do together so that they don’t fall apart.

Look for this. Not for the moment that you see in movies. True love fluctuates. True love flexes. True love adapts. True love is a commitment as much as it is a feeling.

What I feel for your father grows over time because it is real, deep and anything but transient.

❤ Mama