Love

Love is wonderful. 

I think that it is what most people thrive on. 

Indeed, I think that people that know that they are truly loved make better friends, but there are degrees of love, aren't there?  There is the love you feel for a pet; the love you feel for your children; the love you feel for a thing or for family members; and there is the love you feel for a spouse.  There is also that wonderful thing called romantic love.

What is romantic love?

According to Psychologist Michael Grayson Conner, romantic love can be defined as:

"A deep emotional, sexual, and spiritual recognition and regard for the value of another person and relationship"

Interesting.  Is it right?  I don't know... I sort of feel like Forrest Gump when it comes to love.  You remember that movie, right?  Remember when he tells his girlfriend that "I'm not a smart man, but I know what love is"?   Well that pretty much sums it up for me.

So why am I talking about this?  Because I like romantic love.  Don't we all?  Not that you need to tell me about it, really... after all, I am just talking to the world in general.... let me say it again:  I like romantic love.  I like the feeling of romantic love.  With romantic love comes passion and a yearning desire to be with someone... even if it is just to be in their company.  With requited romantic love also comes the passion you feel for physical contact and sex.

Sex.

Dude... I sort of remember what sex is like.

Where was I?  Oh, romantic love.  I feel it.  I am experiencing it as we speak... no... not the physical part, but the emotional part.  What could be better?

I'll tell you  what would be better... it would be better if I could have the physical aspect of it as well.  It would be better if the feeling of romantic love was focused at my spouse.  A shame, isn't it?  I'm in love with another woman (call her T)... and she loves me too.

It's all fucked up, you see, because she is married, too.  She loves her husband, she says, but not romantically.  Ditto for me and my wife, who is a great person.  Smart, pretty, educated, a great mom and life partner... and someone who has absolutely no physical desire for me.  None.  That's right... fucking zero.  I have a better chance of making first contact with an alien civilization than I do of getting laid in my own home.

Pathetic, no?  Well, before you ask why I am still there, let's just say for the same reason so many people stay together.  We have a young child.  said child needs the resources and stability that comes from having a two-parent household.  Being the child of divorced parents, I always wanted to make sure that my children were able to live with an intact family... mainly because being raised my a single mom who made a living as a clerk was, shall we say, financially challenging.

Anyway, I guess my reasons can be seen as excuses, and nobody likes those.

How did this all happen?  Probably because I thought that love would conquer all and sexual incompatibility would eventually even out the longer we were together and made efforts to match our own desires with each other.  I couldn't have been more wrong.  I don't suppose it matters now... done is done, and you can't ever go back and change what is done.

I don't know how this ends.  Almost certainly with terrible hurt for my wife.  Terrible hurt for me, terrible hurt for my daughter, and terrible hurt for T.

Add to all of this, serious illness of several family members, and no wonder I don't sleep much.

I wanted to tell someone this.  I'm telling her now. 

Email me when you get a minute, would ya?