The Three-Year Itch

How does a relationship sustain?

The first moments of a relationship can only be described as intense. As days go by, you start breaking your firsts - the first date, the first kiss, the first birthday, and the first anniversary. Then the first argument hits and it hurts like the time you hurt your little toe on the side of the bed. And then you also make up for the first time. As more and more firsts begin to happen and to be done, the intensity starts to lose its strength. After two years or so, your mind begins to go to darker places. Were you two really meant to be together?

I have been through that cycle more than once. The last time I found myself in that predicament, I turned to Google like I do with all other problems in my life. From 40 different recipes for omelettes to how to reset the blinds in the windows of the hotel room you are staying in, I have never once been turned down by the fairy godmother we now call Google Search. Anyways, as I literally wrote down “bad time cycle relationship what do please help,” I was introduced to the concept of “three-year itch”. The Daily Guru describes it as “a phenomenon where tensions rise and couples are forced to either part ways, or adapt. Make it or break it.”

Make it or break it. The words remained with me like a haunting shadow as my partner and I began to sink further down the tunnel of our differences. I wanted to swim up and I could also see her trying as well, but something just was not working. At one point, I felt my soul clutching on the remains of the relationship and I could feel we were about to break it. I think it was at that very moment when my partner did something to pause the descent. She talked to me about how the relationship was hurting. I was so much engrossed with the looming fear of break-up and so much into my head in being the person to solve everything, I forgot the simplest solutions that were in front of me. It is an irony that I built a career in communication, yet communicating about my feelings was always the last thing on my list.

At that three-year crossroads, my partner and I talked like never before. We became more true to each other and started to bare our hearts. The more I opened up, I could feel her seeping into my veins and my arteries and my guts. It was not as intense as the first days. But it was the depth that shook me. I began to feel her breath on my skin, her laughter in my jaws, and her warmth on my bedsheets.

The first time we met each other after taking care of that three-year itch, we made love with the passion of lovers who had longed for each other for over a hundred years. We had been intimate before, but nothing compared to that raging fire burning every nook and cranny of our bodies. As we lay in sweat and peace, I watched her beautiful face and I honestly wanted our lives to end then and there. Well, now that I look back, I am lucky that our story did not stop there.

As we continued to move forward, my partner introduced me to her family who accepts her as she is. I was not sure what to expect before I went to their home. I definitely was not expecting the warmth with which they took me in. Eventually, the home became mine. Somewhere I do not need to pretend to be someone else. Somewhere I was loved completely. Every time I start telling her how I feel about her family, I end up choking because of course communicating personal feelings is not my strongest suit.

My partner and I are completely different as people. She is headstrong and I am flexible. She hates maths and I am exceptionally good at it. She is a family person and I stay cooped up in my room. And she and I always look at the same thing from two different angles, which usually shoots the first bullets in new wars of words. I do not want to follow the cliche and say that our differences do not define our relationship. They actually do. Our differences have essentially transformed us into two ends of the magnet. Without one, the other loses its meaning.

I am just so much in love with her. The Daily Guru can go and f*ck themselves and their three-year itch. I am in this for the long haul.