If you love someone, let them go? Julianne Hough posted a lengthy quote about growing apart from the ones you love in the midst of her marital troubles with NHL star Brooks Laich.
The Dancing With the Stars alum, 31, shared an excerpt from personality psychologist Heidi Priebe to her Instagram Story on Tuesday, January 28.
“To love someone long-term is to attend a thousand funerals of the people they used to be,” the quote began. “The people they’re too exhausted to be any longer. The people they don’t recognize inside themselves anymore. The people they grew out of, the people they never ended up growing into. We so badly want the people we love to get their spark back when it burns out; to become speedily found when they are lost.”
The message continued, “But it is not our job to hold anyone accountable to the people they used to be. It is our job to travel with them between each version and to honor what emerges along the way. Sometimes it will be an even more luminescent flame. Sometimes it will be a flicker that disappears and temporarily floods the room with a perfect and necessary darkness.”
Hough’s social media post comes nearly one month after multiple sources confirmed to Us Weekly that she and Laich, 36, were going through a tough time in their relationship. The pair tied the knot in July 2017 after more than three years together.
“They definitely have been going through a rough patch,” one insider told Us exclusively. “They have both been in different places for work so they haven’t been able to spend as much time together this past few months.”
The athlete raised eyebrows when he revealed he was hoping to become a “better version” of himself at the start of the new decade. He shared a list of his goals for 2020 on his Instagram Story, noting that he wanted to be more “open to all things and present in my relationships” and to learn “more about intimacy and my sexuality.”
As the couple continues to spend time apart, the hockey player’s social media page has filled up with motivational quotes about self-improvement.
“One of the most important things I’ve been looking at is how I spend my time every day,” Laich wrote via Instagram on January 22. “I’m redefining my priorities and putting happiness at the forefront. I’m making changes to my daily routine and prioritizing the things that bring me the most joy. Everything else lines up behind those.”
