Relationships are hard

Relationships are hard.  I totally get that.  In fact I live that.  Not a day goes by that I don't fight yet another battle in the eternal struggle to get the man I married to put his socks in the hamper. Unfortunately, according to my completely scientific study based entirely my Face Book news feed, people are completely delusional about relationships.  Why do I believe this?  Basically because my feed looks like this:

.....and write you crappy poetry.

And this:

Especially when he drives a POS car and doesn't have enough money for a shirt with button holes.

This is just a tiny sample of the things I see on my feed EVERY DAY.  And least you think I have a plethora of young woman on my friends list, let me tell you, both of these were posted by woman my age (early 30's) and older.  I suppose "hope springs eternal" but does it have to spring naively?  Don't get me wrong, I'm not down on love and romance.  But relationships are messy.  Compromise is not romantic.  The amount of work necessary for a relationship to grow and weather the storms the universe is going to send your way is ridiculously enormous. 

Your partner is going to disappoint you a lot.  Unless you marry Ryan Gosling.

 
The Tarot totally gets this too. No where will you see romantic love in the traditional Tarot imagery.  It's just not there.  Even The Lovers card is devoid of romantic love.

If Adam could get over Eve getting them kicked out of the Garden, you can forgive your partner for clipping his toenails in front of the TV.

Even for those who didn't grow up in the Judea-Christian religious traditions it'd be pretty easy to tell that things aren't going well in this picture.  Both the man and woman are separated from each other, with a snake lurking just over the woman's shoulder.  Why use this image instead of something more romantic or passionate?  I think it boils down to this:  the story of the Garden of Eden is the story of the greatest f-up in history.  No matter what has happened since, no one's significant other has made a mistake quite nearly as bad as Eve did (we can go into the implications of it being the woman who committed the act and it's affect on society for eternity, but that's another post for another time).  If Adam could get over Eve getting them kicked out of the Garden, you can forgive your partner for clipping his toenails in front of the TV. 

The Lovers card also stands to remind us that no one, no relationship, no love is perfect.  Each will see it's own trials.  In the end, all great loves are continuous love stories, not happily-ever-afters complete with rides into the sunset.  With work, true love continually grows, changes, and becomes stronger.