The answers about love
Tonight, Sabreena Daly goes looking for some profound answers. Following the love high from Valentine’s Day, after the flowers have died and the chocolates are consumed, how do couples make the love last beyond the love month? She sat down with two brave couples willing to share their secrets. Here’s On the Bright Side with Sabreena Daly.
Sabreena Daly, Reporting
For some, love is an act, the expression of a union celebrated. For others, it’s an adjective that describes the feeling of not understanding how you existed without a person before. For Pat Benatar, love is a battlefield. The commonality of love is that it’s not one thing alone. To get a clearer perspective, I investigate the complexity of this one word and the commitment that follows. And what better way to get answers than from the experts themselves? The ones that experience love firsthand.
Amber Tillett
Amber Tillett
“We started talking online, on twitter to be exact.”
Paul Lopez
“Yes, it started with a tweet.”
Amber Tillett
“He then asked me on a date and I said yes.”
Sabreena Daly
“Can I ask what the tweet was?”
Paul Lopez
“What was the tweet again? If I remember correctly, I wrote on twitter, “I’m tired of singing love songs alone”. That’s what I said on twitter. Very Cheesy!”
This is my colleague Paul and his partner Amber. They’ve been dating for two years and Paul recently popped the big question to the one with whom he hopes to spend the rest of his life. For this young couple, their relationship started like most new age couples.
Amber Tillett
“We just clicked and I was like main, I can’t believe I’ve known Paul for such a long time without really knowing Paul and we have such a lot in common. I feel like he complements me well and I complement him well. We made a great team and growing up; I knew I didn’t want to be dating someone for such a long time. So, we eventually had that conversation.”
Forty six years later, Ava and Doyle Gillett still remember this feeling. Their love began on a school bus. They met at age fifteen, and four years later, they were ready to tie the knot.
Ava Gillett
Ava Gillett
“I think everything just flowed right into place because when I got on the bus the first time, I saw him and I said, “Oh, my gosh”. He motioned for me to come to the back of the bus. The little boy got out and I slid in. that’s where it started and it just happened that we sat together every day on the bus.”
Doyle Gillett
“I kinda knew that she was going to be my wife. We had choices that came in over and over for both of us but they were just pushed off. We had friends that came along and that I’d like you to meet this person but we never did change our minds.”
Paul and Amber are only just starting this life commitment. But choosing a person to do life with usually comes with the immense pressure of making sure it’s the right one. So, we asked an even bigger question that most of us are still trying to find the answer to. How do you know when you’ve found THE one?
Doyle Gillett
Doyle Gillett
“It’s just a feeling you get. You asked the question about the chemistry; I think we connected right from the start.”
Paul Lopez
“The intention is to get married, start a family, grow together, grow old together, build a legacy. So, we discussed things like that. All right, where is your head? What are your plans for life? The same thing goes for me. We might not have it all figured out but we have just the basics figured out in terms of where we want to go. And because we don’t have it all figured out, we reached out to people that could help us figure it out.”
The Gilletts explained that a big part of their relationship’s success is their compatibility, faith, and family support. But Paul and Amber are taking it up a notch. They’ve equipped themselves with resources that would ensure that their relationship lasts and that it’s the healthiest it could be. For Paul, through consultations with a Belizean author, he discovered it was the right time to propose.
Paul Lopez
Paul Lopez
“He actually has written books, one on dating, The Dating Key and then The Marriage key. So, we approached him together when we got serious about dating and we asked if we could go through some sessions with him after we found out that he does counseling. So, via zoom at the time, we sat through sessions where basically I got to learn alone about my role, my responsibilities but more so who I must become as a man to be serious about dating and the fact that a lot of the responsibilities in the relationship falls on me. When I started that marriage key session, we didn’t even get into marriage until late last year. So, we spent five months just really dealing with my issues and the stuff that I have in my life that needs to be weeded out before I could actually even propose.”
Amber Tillett
“We sat down to eat and I was ending the call with my mom and he was like no let’s call her back because I have something to say. I was like, hold up. He stood up and he began talking and I was still trying to see if this was what I thought it was. Then, my dad used the P word and said be quite, it’s not you they’re proposing to. I was like oh, okay. He was trying to be romantic and get his speech out but my dad was like get to the point. And so he did. He asked the question and without hesitation I said yes. And my dad was right there cheering us on and the entire family.”
But when you strip the romance and butterflies aside, the reality of finding someone you want to spend the rest of your life with means living with the things you don’t necessarily like.
Ava Gillett
“I would be ready for eight, but somehow I have to run back inside. I don’t know why, it always happens.”
Sabreen Daly
“So he thinks you’re never on time.”
Doyle Gillett
“Punctuality.”
Amber Tillett
“My pet peeve is I just feel like dirt follows you around. I could literally just clean the place and he comes over and all of a sudden it’s like, didn’t I just sweep? So that’s, I don’t know how it happens.”
Paul Lopez
“Are you saying that I’m a dirty fella?”
Amber Tillett
“I am not saying that you’re dirty. I just feel like somehow, dirt follows you around.”
Paul Lopez
“All right, let’s not repeat that. Can we cut this?”
Ava Gillett
“Now having been through all these years, we understand each other more. We can look back and see all our mistakes. We are at a point where you can’t say you won’t make another mistake but it’s almost like we’re married again; we understand each other more. Yeah, we still have our arguments now and then but I think we are at a stable point where anything that happened in our relationship was what led us to this. There were broken roads to where we are now.”
And love like celebration confetti but also the mess. And so it is the work that comes after that makes it last.
Amber Tillett
“What makes it work is the work. A lot of people tend to think that because we are in love, it should come easy but that’s just a part of it. You have to put in the work. If you make up your mind and say that this is what we want then we have to put in the work. We have to communicate. We have to have the hard conversations and have them as often as necessary.”
Ava Gillett
“What both of us believed was that, there was no room for anything else. Relationships are hard sometimes, really, life throws you some hard balls. But with that, we fought it and made it up to this point.”
For young couples, emulating who you admire might be an added step to happiness and love. There’s no one answer. For the Gillett’s, it was looking back at the day when their commitment started, that day on the bus and the day they said I do.
Doyle Gillett
“I could remember when her mother was about to go home the evening. They went back on a bus, it was a big crowd. She went in, they hugged and they wouldn’t let go. I know that must have been tough on her.”
Ava Gillett
“I came from a very close-knitted family and even now, we are still the same. So, that was heart-wrenching for me, knowing that I wouldn’t be there with my immediate family. But that day that we got married was one of the best days of my life. I thought and I know now that I have one of the best husbands I know and I am so proud of him being my husband. I wouldn’t want anyone else.”
For now, we know some things for certain; love is the feeling we get, it’s the act, it’s certainly the battlefield, and it’s work. Indeed there isn’t one answer. Love just is. Looking on the Bright Side, I’m Sabreena Daly.
