Is love forever?

Debbie, 33, a credit collector for a shipping company, recently ended a three-year relationship. "From the moment I met Jerry, I knew he was right for me but experience taught me to proceed cautiously. After about four months of dating, I decided my first impressions were right; he was everything I always wanted in a man. We had three happy years together and Jerry repeatedly told me how contented he was to have found someone with whom he could share his life. 

"We did everything together, took business courses, went on vacations, even saw the same movies. Living together was comfortable, but for some reason the thought of marriage never appealed to me. We had talked about having a family some day, but whenever Jerry brought up the subject, I felt I was not yet ready. Jerry wanted to take our relationship to the next level but I felt comfortable with the way things were. For the first time in our relationship, it dawned on me that my relationship with Jerry may not be forever. This frightened me because I truly loved him but I knew that I was not ready to get married to him. 

"When I finally realized Jerry really wanted marriage, a strange thing happened. I began to feel uneasy with our relationship. Things were not like before; I lost some of my excitement and desire to be with him. It's as if I was inconsiderate to him after he had been so good to me. I felt like I did not deserve to be with him. We finally agreed to go our separate ways, and even though I miss him, I feel that somewhere along the way the love I had for him was lost. 

"It's been four years since Jerry and I ended our relationship, and I am still trying to understand what happened between us. I've been seeing other guys, but so far I have not experienced the closeness I had with Jerry. My friends tell me I'm not yet ready to settle down with anyone, and maybe there're right. In my relationship with Jerry I felt free to be myself. We lived together like buddies without feeling tied down to each other, (at least that's the way I felt). When he became serious about marriage, I no longer saw him as a buddy, but as someone who was going to tie me down. I just got scared." 

Do you believe this relationship was one of true love? Some may say it was a mistake because Debbie and Jerry were not truly compatible and should not have been together in the first place. 

In my opinion, this relationship was successful because both participants enjoyed three fulfilling years of their lives together. Someone once said if you can have one moment of true happiness in your life, grab it because true happiness is not easy to find. 

Love is a living entity; if it stands still, it could die. To be alive means to move forward and go where life's journey takes you. Love may die only to be reborn again in a different form. Perhaps both Jerry and Debbie will move on to find love in different places, but they will always cherish the love they once shared with each other.