This Is What Being A Couple REALLY Means, Because It’s So Much More Than Cute Pictures On Instagram

I’m sorry, but I’ve read too many articles lately telling me the difference between what love is and what love is not; how our society has tainted us and technology has numbed us; how the love of your life left you broken…and I want to say that love will surely break you, but when it’s real, it will never leave.

They say love doesn’t have to be a number of years together; it can be short, it can be fleeting, and I do believe that those can be true, but I also believe that when love is reciprocated – equally, fully, and wholeheartedly – that it lasts. That it might bend, but it mends; it might break, but it also heals. It withstands the ups, downs, and the thing that everyone is afraid to talk about, the plateaus. It lives in the routine, and ordinary, but its presence is there when we need it the most.

I want to tell all those women who have been in relationships since high school that the love they have is real too, and I bet you’ve never doubted for a minute that you want to spend the rest of your with them. That you’ve planned your future and never once imagined anyone else by your side.

I want to tell those men in college that got ‘wifed’ up their freshman year to trust your instincts. That girl is special and she’s worth your time and your commitment.

I want to tell you that you have not settled. Period. When the world knows nothing of your lives together except the pictures on your Instagram, I hope you know that a two-dimensional version of yourself is so one-sided. You are multidimensional, your relationship is vivid, and it’s not always for other people to see your laughs and snuggles or bickers and mood swings.

Being a couple means witnessing all the ugly and beautiful and staying.

I want to tell you that all of the hard work you’ve put into keeping your relationship as solid as it is will go unnoticed by the rest of world, but it matters and you are valid for doing so because putting the work in is one of the many facets of love that people forget in this modern society of instant everything.

Someone recently told me that a short-term view can be really discouraging. It’s easy to look back on a year and not see much change, but when you compile all the many years you spend with someone, you can clearly see the growth, transition, all the breaking and mending, and scars that have healed. You are able to look back and see the big picture and it makes looking forward that much more special.

When we start relationships, we put these grand expectations of what we want our lives to be – who we want our partners to be to fit into our ideal picture, but when you grow into future with someone (instead of picking them out of there story and dropping them into yours) you are able to build a base for companionship, for a COMFORTABLE life, not a complacent one trying to fit a spare peg into a round, sunshine and rainbow filled hole.

When the quality is there, the quantity comes right along with it.