Love & Embracing the Mystery

I've learned much with much more to absorb while still here. So many epiphanies and aha moments that I thought I'd share to this wall of void and pehaps someone reads one day and is helped by what's been wrote.

GREAT ROMANTIC LOVE:
We cannot truly love another until we are made whole (or whole as possible) in and of ourselves. Otherwise, we only bring broken pieces of something that could have been great, to it. It takes most of us quite a long time to get there. Many of us shun the self work necessary to get to any level of emotional maturity; a requisite to marriage.
You absolutely DO know it when you see it. The trick is keeping it mental as long as possible to figure out how everything really fits together long term. And after even a decade, you will probably find some things out that you did not know about this person. Any 'deals' you made ahead of marriage (I'll shop for the groceries and you will cook the groceries etc) will probably get changed.
Letting go of expectations is very hard and also necessary. It is almost ZEN but basically, you have to accept and love the core of this stranger you say you love because everything and anything else around this core being is bound to change. Acceptance and unconditional love is what you gain out of this exercise. (That is to say YOU learn how to do that better, not that you ever get this unconditional love back from the person you are giving that to...but it could happen.

Never settle. If you both are not just totally feeling the need, physically, mentally, spiritually for each other, then it is not worth all the bother....because marriage is quite the bother. :-)
One of my friends, when we were both in our 20's, claimed she would never marry and that, if she actually did, then she would live separately in her own house. I was the innocent spiritual romantic and she the jaded girl. I thought she was just sad and nuts for thinking that way. Oh, but now I see her point, grasshopper! Perhaps a better way is to get a duplex or a house in the same neighborhood and visit each other. It keeps the romance alive, you both get your alone time, and decorate as you wish. If you have kids, then devide up the time equally. Or maybe, if your house is big enough, then it works out if one has one wing and one has the other. Each of us has our 'things' that drive the other bonkers and we all do this, even when we are trying very hard not to.
It helps me to step aside and imagine this person on his own without me...imagining what he would do...would he smoke a cigar occasionally in the house? Would he sit quietly and watch shows back to back on his day off? It helps keep me from saying wifey things like "Can you put out that stinking cigar, turn off the flatscreen and go mow the lawn or do something else useful?"
Finding someone I fell deeply madly in love with is the only thing that has saved us. He fell deeply madly in love with me, too or I would have passed...gotta be mutual. But I find now that mutuality shifts, along with everything else. He has a lot of emotional damage from childhood he is currently working through. Another lesson: If you think you got enough councelling to get past something, or you think you don't need counselling, it is not a bad idea to check into it further. We all need the help now and then because we are an embodiment of all our life experiences and how we saw them...traumatic, fun, etc. Sometimes our puzzle parts need shifting so we can live our best life and be our best for others too. And if you never marry, I completely understand why not now....but I cannot say yet that I regret it.