you said she’s driven but very reasonable. Right?”
“Yes. That’s true. I just hate the thought...”
“Adele, do you have trouble telling people no?”
“Obviously,” she said, grumbling.
“That’s a very grown-up thing to learn how to do. It’s not always easy. But if you don’t, you have to suffer the consequences.”
“What consequences?” Adele asked.
“You tell me, Adele. If you don’t say no to Justine or at least give her some boundaries, what will you be living with? You’ll have a muddled-up house that’s half old and half new, and things will continue to be disrupted. Or, you can move forward and give her some room and maybe things get remodeled. And what about this friend of yours, Jake? What if you came right out and told him you don’t love him?”
“But of course I love him!” she said. “I’ve always loved Jake. He’s my best friend in the world. It’s just that... I don’t know if I love him in the way I should to make a commitment of some kind. What if I discover in a few years that it just wasn’t a passionate enough love?”
“Welcome to the real world,” Ross said. “I think it’s fair to say people discover that all the time. God knows why—maybe they change and it turns out your partner isn’t the man you thought he was. Maybe you get bored. The hard truth is, very few couples stay passionately in love for decades. They usually fall in love, get married, learn that love relaxes into a dependable partnership and work at staying together. Love tends to ebb and flow.”
“Then how do people stay together for fifty years?” she asked.
“Some people stay in bad relationships because they feel they have no options,” Ross said. “I did that for about ten years. I had no job, no money, very little education...and I couldn’t see my way out. But oh did I have passion. On the good days I had piles of passion.”
“So I guess you’re saying passion isn’t the answer?” Adele said.
Ross folded her hands on her desk. “People travel the world looking for the perfect mate. Some go through a hundred partners in search of true love. That’s why I told you to figure out what love is to you. I know what it is to me.”
“Please,” Adele said. “Tell me.”
“It may not be the same to you. But to me, number one is respect. He would have to respect my feelings, my opinions, my space. He doesn’t have to agree with me, just respect me. And he has to be willing to stay in balance with me—in other words, we have to help each other out. Regularly. There’s got to be compromise—a way to share the load. And if a man ever says a mean word, for me that’s a big red flag. But girl, I am not looking for some man with a good line that makes my toes tingle. I’d rather have the real damn thing.”
“If I could just figure out what is the real thing.”
“There’s a good description in the Bible. Love is not jealous or mean, it is kind and thoughtful—something along those lines. Good relationships seem to boil down to people who are good to each other and thoughtful of their partner’s feelings and needs. I have this friend I met in group when I was getting divorced. She was leaving her husband and she loved him madly, though he didn’t deserve it and he treated her badly. He cheated, he lied, he was mean and had a foul temper, but she had the hardest time letting him go. But she did. Her survival depended on it. After that she wanted nothing to do with love—I think she felt love had cheated her, tricked her. A few years later she married again, this time to a man who treated her with respect, cared about her, was faithful and kind. He wasn’t anything like the first husband and he wasn’t flashy, but his feelings for her were dependable. She trusted him and relied on him. And she fell in love then, once she knew he was the real deal.”
“Jake is all of those things,” Adele said. “Why do I have doubts?”