Do you need something in common to sustain a long-term relationship?
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It may sound like an odd question but it's one people in long term relationships sometimes confront.
Possibly around anniversary time, and occasionally with blinding insight, depending on the size of the milestone.
It can often lead to moments of philosophical whimsy, followed by bouts of wistful frowning.
I like to think that's because love hurts.
But it could also have something to do with all those years - gawwn!!
Having said that, opposites attract before they attack, and not always each other, but rather this question about what it is they have in common.
At a bare minimum, I'd bet it's time.
Not necessarily time like prisoners of war, because in war movies prisoners get liberated, or escape, or die trying - heroically.
Escape is rarely the goal for long-term partners. Not from each other anyhow.
Nor necessarily doing time like prisoners in jail either because those types are generally there not by choice, and if they are, then it's probably been a bad choice.
You'd hate to think of your relationship in a similar light because hell, you get less time for murder.
No, if an anniversary is looming you need something more profound and poetic.
Something like 'prisoner of love', maybe, because love is a many spendored thing.
Whatever splendored means.
And after checking a dictionary you might realise 'bright, magnificent and lustrous' were the glowing impressions that lured you into this relationship in the first place.
Triggering a glossy romance that settled over time into the enduring welcome matte you're soon to celebrate - whenever your anniversary might be. (Try not to forget.)
If I had to nominate a metaphor that best represents the journey, I'd say a raging river.
And as any geography student will tell you, relationship water under the proverbial bridge inevitably carves landscapes.
Not only in your photo albums, but invariably your mind.
Documenting ebbs and flows, highs and lows and that time you made an idiot of yourself at Origin. Again.
The thing that most sustains interest in this river metaphor along the way, higher than the latest Reserve Bank announcement even, is never knowing what's coming round the bend.
Possibly as you go round the bend, together.
You may well cry me a river about erosion, whirlpools, whitewater and various fish kills that have emotionally enriched or degraded the system along the way.
But you've been to the source, and now you're starting to sound like you're on it.
To paraphrase Old Man River: You don't plant tators, you don't plant cotton, and thoughts of not being together are now long forgotten.
And as the wistful anniversary frowns subside, you realise these are the things people in long term relationships have in common - time, and that ability to just keep rolling along.
