Why do we celebrate 40 years together if 20 of them were spent merely tolerating each other?

By Dr. Leahcim Semaj
Transformational Psychologist

Let me start with what may sound like relationship heresy. Some relationships should end. Not because somebody cheated. Not because somebody was abusive. Not because one partner is a terrible human being. Sometimes two perfectly decent people simply arrive at the end of what they were able to be for each other. The relationship didn’t necessarily fail. It expired.

That distinction matters. Especially in Jamaica and across the Caribbean, where we have inherited some powerful ideas about what makes a relationship “successful.” Stay together. Keep the family together. Don’t embarrass yourself. Don’t let people know your business. Think about the children. After all these years, where you going now? And, of course: “Stay with the evil you know…”

So people stay. And stay. And stay. Sometimes long after the relationship itself has left.

Married 35 Years. But Together for How Many?

We love anniversaries. “Celebrating 40 years of marriage!” Wonderful. But I sometimes want to ask a question nobody puts on the anniversary card: How many of those years were you actually happy to be together? Because duration and quality are not the same thing. We all know couples like this. They have been married for decades. Same house. Same bedroom, perhaps. Same church. Same family functions. Same Christmas dinner.

But emotionally? They have been divorced for years. They don’t really talk anymore. They exchange information. “Light bill come.” “Remember the doctor’s appointment.” “Your daughter called.” “What you want for dinner?” They have become efficient administrators of a household. Roommates with history. Sometimes roommates with hostility. And yet society applauds because they “stayed together.”

Meanwhile, another couple may have shared 15 beautiful years, raised children, supported each other’s dreams, travelled, struggled, laughed, made love, built something meaningful – and eventually discovered that they could no longer grow together. They separate. We say: “The marriage failed.” Did it? Or did it complete its assignment?

Caribbean Culture Has a Complicated Relationship With Leaving

Many of us were raised to believe that endurance is a virtue. And it is. But endurance without discernment can become imprisonment. Our grandparents endured things they rarely discussed. Our mothers were sometimes told to “work with him.” Men were taught to keep their dissatisfaction to themselves – or find comfort elsewhere while maintaining the household. Women were often expected to preserve the family regardless of the emotional cost.

Religion sometimes reinforced the message. Family reinforced it. Community gossip certainly reinforced it. So you could be miserable in your own house, but at least nobody could say your marriage broke up. Think about that. We sometimes fear public embarrassment more than private unhappiness.

The question becomes not: “Are we still good for each other?” But: “What people going to say?” And “people” become invisible members of the marriage. People who don’t sleep in your bed. Don’t live in your house. Don’t experience your loneliness. Don’t know what happens after the smiling anniversary photograph is posted on Facebook. Yet somehow they get a vote.

Sometimes Nobody Did Anything Wrong

This may be the hardest kind of relationship to leave. If somebody beats you, betrays you or humiliates you, there is at least a story society understands. But what if nobody is the villain? What if the truth is simply: We are no longer the people who chose each other 25 years ago.

That is harder. At 30, perhaps you wanted security. At 50, you discovered adventure. At 60, you wanted peace. At 70, you realized that time itself had become your most precious possession. Human beings change. Or at least we should. The person you married changes. You change. You both did not change at the same rate and in he same direction.

The challenge of a lifelong relationship is not merely remaining with the same person. It is repeatedly discovering whether the new versions of both of you can still create something meaningful together. Sometimes they can. That is beautiful. Sometimes they cannot. That is painful. But pain and failure are not the same thing.

Before You Say “Expired,” Make Sure You Didn’t Just Neglect It

Now, don’t use this article to go home tonight and announce: “Semaj say the relationship expire!” Leave me out of it. Because there is another side to this conversation. Sometimes the relationship has not expired.

You stopped feeding it. You stopped dating each other. Stopped touching. Stopped talking about anything except children, bills and problems. You gave your best energy to work, church, friends, clients, WhatsApp and social media – and brought home whatever emotional leftovers remained. Then one day you looked across the room and wondered: “What happened to us?” What happened may not be mysterious. Neglect happened. Routine happened. Complacency happened. Unspoken resentment happened. Life happened. Some relationships don’t need burial. They need CPR. They need difficult conversations. They need counselling. They need sexual honesty. They need forgiveness.

They need two people willing to admit: “We cannot continue like this – but perhaps we can create something different.” That is why I would never encourage somebody to leave simply because the relationship has become difficult. Difficulty is not expiration. Boredom is not expiration. Conflict is not expiration. Even betrayal does not automatically mean expiration if both people genuinely want to repair what has been damaged. But there comes a point when we must distinguish between repairing a relationship and repeatedly resuscitating a corpse.

The Children Know More Than You Think

One of the great Caribbean reasons for staying is: “I’m staying for the children.” Sometimes that is understandable. But we should ask another question. What exactly are the children learning from watching you stay? Children don’t only learn about relationships from what parents tell them. They learn from what they observe. They notice contempt. Silence. Coldness. Hostility. Separate lives. Disrespect. Affection that disappeared years ago.

A child can grow up in a two-parent household and still learn a terribly distorted lesson about love. We may proudly say: “We stayed together for 30 years.” The adult child may quietly remember: “Yes. And you were miserable for 20 of them.”

Staying together is not automatically a gift to children. What children need is exposure to healthy adult relationships – and when a relationship must end, healthy adult behaviour during the ending. That brings me to something I have been writing and speaking about for years.

Constructive Disengagement

I call it Constructive Disengagement. Because human beings seem to have developed elaborate rituals for entering relationships. Courtship. Engagement. Wedding. Honeymoon. Anniversaries. But when relationships end? War. The same person you once called “baby” suddenly becomes “that damn wicked man.” The woman you once said was the love of your life is now described as the source of every problem you have ever had. Children become messengers. Money becomes ammunition. Property becomes battlefield territory. Friends are forced to choose sides. Family secrets suddenly become public information. WhatsApp becomes a weapon. Facebook becomes the courthouse. And sometimes, tragically, violence becomes the final argument.

We need another model. How to leave a lover without homicide or suicide. How to say: “We mattered.” “We had something real.” “We created memories.” “We may have created children.” “We helped shape each other’s lives.” “But we cannot continue as we are.”

Constructive Disengagement asks whether two adults can end an intimate relationship without needing to destroy each other in the process. Not every separation will be friendly. That may be unrealistic. But it can still be civilized. Boundaries can be established. Children can be protected. Finances can be handled fairly. Dignity can survive. And ‘revisionist history’ of the relationship does not have to be written simply because the final chapter was painful.

At 50, 60, 70 – Time Changes the Calculation

There is another dimension to this conversation that becomes increasingly important as we get older. Time. At 30, wasting five years feels unfortunate. At 70, five years is something else entirely. You begin counting differently. You don’t know how many healthy, mobile, mentally sharp years remain. So perhaps one of the questions we eventually have to ask is: How much of my remaining life am I prepared to spend maintaining a relationship that neither of us truly inhabits anymore?

That is not an argument for selfishness. It is an argument for consciousness. There are people in their 60s and 70s who are terrified of leaving because they believe: “Who going to want me now?” But leaving a relationship does not necessarily mean hunting for another one. Perhaps what you are looking for is not another partner. Perhaps you are looking for yourself. Peace. Freedom. Friendship. Purpose. Travel. Solitude. Companionship on different terms. Or simply the ability to wake up in your own house without emotional tension. At this stage of life, peace becomes expensive. Be careful what you exchange it for.

Ask Yourself This

Here is the question I suspect will make some people uncomfortable: If you met your partner today, exactly as both of you are now, would you choose each other again?

Don’t answer quickly. Sit with it. And then ask: If nothing changed in this relationship for the next ten years, would I willingly choose those ten years? Am I here because I want to be here – or because I am afraid to leave? Are we still lovers, companions and friends – or primarily co-managers of property, children and bills? Are we repairing something damaged? Or preserving something finished?

And perhaps most importantly: Is there still enough love, goodwill and curiosity between us to create a new relationship with each other? Because that may be the real task. Long relationships survive not because two people preserve what they had. They survive because they repeatedly create what they need next.

An Ending Does Not Erase the Story

I think we need to become more comfortable with this idea. Something can end without having been a mistake. A friendship can end and still have mattered. A career can end and still have been successful. A season ends without becoming a failure. Why should love be different? Perhaps somebody was exactly the person you needed at 35.

Perhaps you were exactly who they needed. You loved. You learned. You struggled. You built. You travelled. You raised children. You buried parents. You survived things together that nobody else will ever fully understand. Then, somewhere along the journey, the road divided. That does not make the journey meaningless.

Don’t allow a difficult ending to contaminate every beautiful memory that came before it. Some relationships deserve another chance. Some need counselling. Some need forgiveness. Some need reinvention. And some need a respectful ending. Wisdom is knowing the difference. Because staying is not always love. Leaving is not always failure. And longevity is not always success. Sometimes the most mature sentence two people can eventually say to each other is: “What we had was real. What we had mattered. But what we had is no longer what we have.”

Then comes the difficult work. Not destruction. Not revenge. Not humiliation. Constructive Disengagement. Honour what was. Accept what is. And make enough peace with the ending that both of you still have a chance to live – and perhaps even love – again.

MindSpa Question

Has your relationship failed – or has it expired? And before you answer that, ask the even harder question: How would you know the difference?

The Best Is Yet to Come.

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