Stubborn Passion

"Tell me of the lady the poet stubborn with his passion sang us." William Butler Yeats

Last year they celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. It truly was a celebration, because these two people love each other and like each other and it shows. Their marriage has passion. It was not always this way. When they had been married sixteen years, they seriously contemplated divorce. Their marriage had hit a major rough patch, and it seemed their differences were irreconciliable. But they both still loved each other and wanted to make it work. One of the factors, they frankly admit, was their daughter who was just in kindergarten. But they didn't stay together because of the child, pushing the anger and resentment down, gritting their teeth, enduring. They believed their marriage was worth saving. They sought counseling and did the very difficult work of changing, as individuals and as a couple. If you saw them today you'd never think that once they teetered on the verge of becoming another statistic. Their marriage, as they will both tell you, is better than ever.

You might say that they had this stubborn passion for one another. The passion burned brightly at the beginning of their relationship. Love was blind and sparks were flying. As the years went on, things started to go south and the flame was almost out. But they gave it oxygen and fanned the flames. It's easy to be passionate about a person when you're under the influence of infatuation, but remarkable to still be passionate about someone you've been with for half a century.

It's easy to be passionate about your relationships, your career, your hobbies, your life, when things are shiny new and exciting, and only human nature to become bored and lack motivation as time goes on. It happens to all of us.

What about you in your life? Do you have a stubborn streak? When you feel the fires of your life's passion start to go out, what do you do to fan those flames?

Susan