If You Don't Know Me By Now

This afternoon I had a conversation with my ex-husband about our kids -- about the school that they go to and whether it is the best place for our son to go to middle school. And I felt so grateful, talking to him, that he so clearly has the best interests of our kids at heart, and also that his beliefs about what is best for them are so in line with mine. Which is a happy surprise given that one of the things that didn't seem to work well for us was parenting together -- and I guess I'd assumed it was because we had different views. In the end, though, we didn't work well, and while it was tempting to blame ending up in that predicament on this thing that I did or that thing that he didn't do, I'm now convinced it just happened, and it's ok that it happened, because we served a huge purpose in each other's lives, even apart from the beautiful children we added to this world.

I was talking to a friend the other day who was second guessing whether he and his wife were a good match because of problems they are having now, after being together for 20 years. I don't think it's useful to assess whether a relationship was ever a good match because it eventually turns sour, but I understand why people do it. They're trying to make sense of something with their minds that's really a matter of the heart. And hearts don't respond to logic.

For me, this song, brought to you by my inner jukebox, captures both the futility of trying to apply logic to matters of the heart:

We've all got our own funny moods

I've got mine

Woman you've got yours too

Just trust in me

Like I trust in you

As long as we've been together

That should be so easy to do

And the heartbreak of feeling like the person you most want to understand you, just doesn't anymore:

Just get yourself together

Or we might as well say goodbye

What good is a love affair

When you can't see eye to eye, ooooh

But I disagree with the implied premise of the refrain:

If you don't know me by now

You will never, never, never know me, Whooooa

Because I think what breaks our hearts is not the possibility that our partner has never known us, but the loss that comes when someone who once seemed to understand you better than anyone else doesn't seem to know you anymore.

After he learned I loved the Simply Red version of this song, my then-husband bought me the CD of the original by Harold Melvin and the Bluenotes, which I now agree is the superior version. Seal also covered this song -- you can check out that version if you want to, but the music in the original! Get out the kleenex -- it's a heartbreaker even before Harold starts to sing!