I realized today that our relationship is real.

From the outside we appear to be a tight unit.  We laugh and joke and make fun of each other’s bad habits in public.  But inside, we have been reduced to chores and running our household.  Making dinner, laundry, diapers, bottles; everything but us.

We are connected via instagram, facebook, snapchat, text yet we aren’t holding each other’s hands. We check into places together but we aren’t checked into each other.  Life is really taking its toll on us.  The last year, it’s been a challenge.  A struggle to keep from unravelling.  Lack of communication, disinterest, the feeling of being overwhelmed by responsibility has attempted to knock us down.

Has it been successful?

I don’t think so.

It’s been close, oh God knows, it’s been painfully close.  But that’s what I mean.  Real relationships are not cupcakes and unicorns and date nights and hashtags.

It’s the constant struggle to follow along as your partner evolves.  It’s the attempt to stay relevant and to keep up as everything around us changes.  It’s the challenge of learning how to tweak our priorities when we have a new life to take care of.  It’s also dealing with raw emotions because at some point in the last decade and a year, all the walls come down and you are the most vulnerable to the other person.  More so than you will ever be, to any other person in life.  And that is scary.  To know that this one person you are attached to knows you so deeply that they hold the trigger that can either uphold you and nurture and cherish you; or break you completely.

This decade and a bit has taught me that our relationship  has weathered many storms but it has also seen many happy times, times I would not have shared with anyone else but you.  But as we look at our relationship and reflect,  it’s more important to realize that we have been through a lot – and survived , and we will thrive because our relationship is real.