Addicted to love

Victoria read to me some of the characteristics of addictive love in a book she saw. Of course - like anything - some fit - some did not. I take a look at where I am now. At some point there is a selfish desire that makes intimate love happen - sex feels pretty darn good - and it is nice to have it with a new woman. I was very happy when I first started this relationship. But at some point - the only way love can survive is to slowly transition from selfish to selfless - because on a pure selfish level, the payoff starts to lessen over time. Speaking for my own anyways. It seems like anything will diminish over a period of time - hence the law of diminishing returns. Here I am now - 43 years old - and I am noticing that the testosterone level is not what it once was. Sure I take care of personal business quite frequently, but the idea of sex is starting to seem like a lot of trouble and effort. Sara loves the song "I Can't Get No Satisfaction" and when I listen to it I almost feel like it doesn't mean the same thing at 43 as it did at age 20 - when just looking at a picture of a nude woman in a Playboy or Penthouse magazine was enough to send me through the roof. Now my friend e-mails me something like that and I think - yeah - they're kind of pretty - actually they're starting to look now like they are young enough to be my daughter.

Sex has held us together for a long time now, somewhat grudgingly - but now I amazingly find myself backing away from it. It seems forced, contrived - now neither of us are really into it, and simulating it at this time seems preferable to making it happen. Is this a permanent state? I think that is another key to love - to realize that even when there is a bad time going on that it is not permanent. So even when I feel like the last place I want to be is around my wife, when our mutual irritations with each other feed into unpleasant comments, when love becomes nothing more than drudgery and the feeling of I would rather be absolutely anywhere but here, when the discussions of maybe we'd be better off apart than together, so that we'd be "free" to chase that elusive romance that lies waiting - the one that is going to fulfill all the hidden repressed desires and passions - that is when the selfless aspect of love comes in. In "Husbands and Wives" the man found a younger woman who loved sex and he had a great time with her, only to eventually come back to his much less sexually interested wife - and he realized she was the one he really belonged with all along, despite the illusive temptation of something better.

So I look at the big picture now when the talks of separation come up. I know I love my wife. I don't love her because I hope to get a great sexual experience, because right now it isn't in the cards. I am optimistic at some point it will come back, but sometimes in the hope of something coming back, letting go has to happen first. I know both of us at times dream of being "somewhere else" - maybe a bustling city for her, maybe a hot passionate romance for me - and yet here we are. Right here - now - this. I don't love everything about my wife. Gone are the days of putting her on a pedestal. When she said nobody would be interested in you - I didn't like the comment, or the way it was said. I didn't care for the implied cruelty within it, but I didn't take it personally either. Because first of all, I know it is not true - and even if it was - there is more to what "I" am then who is interested in me, because the older I get the inevitability will be that less and less will find me attractive, but that is part of the eventual letting go. It is not me - who is interested in me - or repulsed by me - I see myself as a pure spirit that transcends the opinions of others. So within minutes - that is done - and now what. The day goes on. I don't love her because I imagine her to be a wonderful, kind person because I have seen her cruel side. We all have it. Nobody is perfect. Kindness is mixed with cruelty.

This is as far from addictive love as I can imagine, because there is no real payoff now that sex seems to be at least for the time being removed from the picture. I love here because after 12 years she is a part of who I am. I love her because we have a daughter who depends on us to guide her and we can do a much better job of it together than apart. The ultimate biological aspect of love is to bring up offspring and that is what we are doing. I love her because if we did separate this whole household of cuddly animals and one child would be no more. I love her because I believe we are better off together than apart, even if it is a hell of a lot of hardwork, drudgery, bitterness, and tension - and the feeling that there has to be something better. That is where selfless comes in - as I am at a restaurant I would rather not be at because I know it is where she wants to be, or I am driving her to her doctor, standing in a long line for her medicine, feeling that I am there to take care of her in "sickness and health" just like the vows said - because I believe whether times are going great and we are in la la land, or we are in a rut and just want to get the hell away from each other - it is the same big picture, the two sides of the same coin. I am not going to back down when times are tough, the hormones are going downhill, old age approaching in the form of middle age is rearing its ugly head, when the whole charm is long gone, because I see we have something that has kept us together for more than 12 years, more than most couple on average will last, and I am not going to walk away. I know even laughing, holding hands, hugging, just doing the basics that go beyond sex, are still satisfying in their own way. I know I will sometimes lose it and voices may be raised, and remember Sara falling to her feet in desperation at seeing us fight, knowing how frightening and upsetting it is for her to think we can separate, and I know that I will do everything I can to not let my daughter down, or let my wife down, even if she doesn't want to f___ing be here - I still have a karmic responsibility to take care of every moving living creature in this household - being the one main source of income here - and that by the grace of God I am in a position to have a job to do that in a time when people are losing their jobs, and losing their houses, and it is my karmic reward to be in a place to do that.

So you call this addictive love? Right now it feels like anything other than addiction. It seems like a lot of hard work and hard times, but I am not going to back down from it. That to me is selfless and that to me is the true meaning of love - getting outside of yourself and doing your part in caring for and taking care of others who are counting on you. Even when you don't really feel like it. You do it because you know that is your place in life. So here I am.