Watching a Partner Change Is Hard. Accepting It Can Be Harder.

We don’t marry one person as much as we marry one version of a person. But accepting the person a partner may become can be more challenging.

The party-going partner now prefers chamomile tea on the couch. The lover of wanderlust has started to cling to routine. The big spender has become a frugal budgeter. Blond turns brown, turns gray, turns bald. Waistlines expand and contract. So do sex drives.

We don’t marry one person as much as we marry one version of a person, a snapshot of who we (and our partner) are individually and to one another at the moment when we say “I do.” Who we are five, 10 or 40 years later is anybody’s guess.

People change. As a result, relationships change, too.