My parents have been married for 32 years and counting! Sometimes I find myself envious of their relationship compared to how my generation dates.
Although they met and started dating in 1988 China, they had no such judgement of each other’s gender roles and expectations. My mom did not require my dad to earn more than her and be >1.8m/5’11” and my dad did not require my mom to cook and clean better than him. This is a contrast to today where, ironically, gender roles and expectations are still pervasive amongst all sexes even in the more egalitarian west.
Too often we expect our future partners to come “completed” with maxed out potential in appearance, finance, and personal development and yet we still want someone we can “grow” with. My mom and dad arrived in the US in the 1990s with $500 and 4 suitcases; she worked at a Dairy Queen and he was a broke graduate student eating plain rice with soy sauce everyday for lunch. They would go on dates once a month where they would get dinner at Burger King (or on special occasions a buffet) and then watch a movie at the discount theater. This hardship and other challenges can be symbolized by the spikes surrounding them in the pictures and yet they are still smiling, having thus endured. Now they are in a much better position to afford luxuries but that was only after they actually “grew” alongside and experienced the struggle life with each other.
I’ve also rarely seen them embrace each other and never seen them kiss. Yet I have no doubt about their feelings for each other despite the lack of showy displays of affection and cheap romantic gestures.
All they requested were each other’s equal time and effort: just reciprocation, and this to me is relationship goals.
“Valami érthetetlen kapcsolat van a barátság és a csillag között.
There is some incomprehensible connection between friendship and the stars.”
-Hamvas Béla 🇭🇺
“Gesund zu sein ist wunderbar, wenn man nicht dazu verdammt ist, allein zu sein.
To be healthy is wonderful if one isn’t condemned to be alone.”
-Sigmund Freud 🇦🇹
“Naděje není přesvědčení, že se něco podaří, ale jistota, že věc má smysl bez ohledu na to, jak dopadne.
Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.”
-Václav Havel 🇨🇿
