Stephen Mosher on Acceptance

My husband and I love each other.  Completely. We are devoted to one another.  We know all the secrets, all the flaws and we are still dedicated to each other.

We watch a lot of television and movies and very often we see characters walk out on each other, turn their backs on one another and leave their loved one hanging in the wind.

What kind of love is that?

On our worst days, after our most gut wrenching arguments, when we have committed our most painful crimes against one another we lay in each others’ arms, tears on our faces, holding each other, kissing and declaring our love for one another.  Our hearts and spirits have been broken and we have been in places of blackest despair and, still, we have put our lips on one another, looked into each others’ eyes and known we would stay together, accept the other’s flaws and love would continue to bloom.

Because we accept each other.

This is the only way to love.

There can be no judgement, only acceptance and love.

We recently had a bad day because I battle both depression and alcohol.  Dealing with it has exhausted him and some days he just wants to walk away from me.  But, then, some days it exhausts me and I think about suicide (another one of the demons I have been battling since my youth and, happily, winning).  As we lay in each others’ arms consoling ourselves for the pain we both feel after our fifty plus years on earth and I said to him “If you killed someone I would help dispose of the body”.  And he laughed.  I told him “If he steal something huge I will be your alibi”.  And he laughed.  He knew what I was doing.

We watch the tv show Good Behavior.  It’s about a drug addicted thieving grifter who falls into a relationship with a hit man.  The two of them have lives one could only label as reprehensible.  They are completely fucked up and completely in love with one another.  No matter what happens to them, they continue to be there to bail each other out.  They are there for each other, entirely.  Each one knows the other’s flaws and secrets; and they don’t always like what they learn but they continue to be there for one another.  It is art imitating life, completely.  Well, maybe not completely because Pat and I have committed no crimes.  I don’t really feature either of us becoming hit men or thieves – neither of us has the constitution for either lifestyle.  The point is that we know each other.  We accept each other.  The Good, the Bad, the Ugly.  Warts and all.  Pick a cliche and apply it to us.  Because we are textbook examples of love transcending everything.

Not like those people on TV who find out their beloved lied about their age, their family, their job or what they know about How to Get Away with Murder … and walked out on them.

Cause there is nothing you or anyone else can say or do to make me leave that man.

And vice.   Versa.