Timing Is Everything

Timing is the hidden variable in whether relationships survive the middle years. Not effort. Not love. Not even compatibility. It’s whether two people happen to emerge from the gauntlet of obligations at the same moment, still facing each other.

So much happens in those years—children, mortgages, careers, debt—so much that pulls us away from the people who need us most. It’s easy to forget what any of it is for.

Even people doing everything right can lose each other to the sheer weight of simultaneous demands.

The bottom line, we can be kinder to ourselves and those around us when things fall apart. No one grows apart on purpose.