A Valentine's Day Dilemma
So, today is Valentine's Day--the day when people go nuts and spend alot of money in an attempt to prove to their honeys that they love them.
But there's been a nagging question on my mind since yesterday: how do we know when we are in love with someone? and can we love someone that we envy?
Often, I don't understand my feelings for either Steady Eddie or Lucky Bastard. Steady Eddie's been there for the past three years--helping me with rent, with bills, with buying furniture, with alot of things. In a sense, he's ingratiated himself to me with his generosity. I'm not sure, though, if what I feel is love for him. I know him well, understand his personal suffering--I have indeed seen him at some of his lowest points--and have shared a great deal with him.
Yet something isn't right. There are some incompatabilities that I am not sure I could live with over the long haul.
We've talked about the incompatabilities, tried to break up because of them, but breaking up sometimes is not all that cut and dry. I don't think of him the way one might think of someone before she breaks up with him. He's not the proverbial "asshole," nor has he been cruel. He hasn't done anything that might make me hate him or feel that life without him would be a relief.
Actually, he has done more to make himself valuable to me. He tolerates behavior that most men would have a fit about. And continues to pay attention to what I need or want and to freely provide for me.
And then there's Lucky Bastard.
I am very confused about what I feel for him...if I'm feeling anything at all. Sometimes I feel nothing. At other times, I can't get him out of my head. There is tenderness and caring. There are fantasies of dancing with him, looking into his eyes.
There are ways in which he is different from any man in my life. Our bodies fit together with a completeness like lost puzzle pieces, the the yin and yang. He is the only man who has been able to lead when dancing with me--the only one since the first to make me cry during sex.
And I don't know him well at all. There have never been dinners, or dates....he comes and goes. I never know if he's going to leave completely or come back always. Maybe it is the uncertainty and the limited nature of our interactions that keeps him in the back of my mind.
Maybe it's all the drama around him. Or the envy. It's true that we envy one another. Which makes me think: can a person love someone that he/she envies? Or will envy eventually destroy the person one cares for?
I don't envy Steady Eddie...there's nothing to envy. When we met, we were at a similar low point in our lives--going thru the final stages of our divorces, and there was (and still is) great compassion for one another. There is kindness and understanding for who the other person is and the trajectory of our respective lives.
I am not sure if there is the same kindness and understanding between myself and Lucky Bastard. There are struggles and clashes of will as he tries to get me to bend to meet some of his more outrageous fantasies. I always maintain. There is no reason to meet those fantasies if they do not appeal to me. But even within the stuggles, I have seen him sad and alone, hurting for kindness and basic physical affection. I have offered the affection and the friendship, and he takes small portions of it....and while he would care to take much, much more, he doesn't dare.
Here, too, I am rational about our incompatabilities. They are different than the incompatabilities with Steady Eddie, but I am sure that they might cripple any long-term relationship.
But are all couples who are in love really completely compatable on all levels? Or do couples adjust and live with incompatabilities? Which incompatabiliites can be overcome and which are insurmountable? Is there envy, too, with great love, or is true enduring love possible only when there is compassion and caring without any envy at all?
There is alot about love that I don't know and don't understand. I'm not sure I ever will. Love seems to be a concept that is not easily quantifiable nor qualifiable. It could be something that totally defies logic, but also that may need logic as well as compassion to survive.
But there's been a nagging question on my mind since yesterday: how do we know when we are in love with someone? and can we love someone that we envy?
Often, I don't understand my feelings for either Steady Eddie or Lucky Bastard. Steady Eddie's been there for the past three years--helping me with rent, with bills, with buying furniture, with alot of things. In a sense, he's ingratiated himself to me with his generosity. I'm not sure, though, if what I feel is love for him. I know him well, understand his personal suffering--I have indeed seen him at some of his lowest points--and have shared a great deal with him.
Yet something isn't right. There are some incompatabilities that I am not sure I could live with over the long haul.
We've talked about the incompatabilities, tried to break up because of them, but breaking up sometimes is not all that cut and dry. I don't think of him the way one might think of someone before she breaks up with him. He's not the proverbial "asshole," nor has he been cruel. He hasn't done anything that might make me hate him or feel that life without him would be a relief.
Actually, he has done more to make himself valuable to me. He tolerates behavior that most men would have a fit about. And continues to pay attention to what I need or want and to freely provide for me.
And then there's Lucky Bastard.
I am very confused about what I feel for him...if I'm feeling anything at all. Sometimes I feel nothing. At other times, I can't get him out of my head. There is tenderness and caring. There are fantasies of dancing with him, looking into his eyes.
There are ways in which he is different from any man in my life. Our bodies fit together with a completeness like lost puzzle pieces, the the yin and yang. He is the only man who has been able to lead when dancing with me--the only one since the first to make me cry during sex.
And I don't know him well at all. There have never been dinners, or dates....he comes and goes. I never know if he's going to leave completely or come back always. Maybe it is the uncertainty and the limited nature of our interactions that keeps him in the back of my mind.
Maybe it's all the drama around him. Or the envy. It's true that we envy one another. Which makes me think: can a person love someone that he/she envies? Or will envy eventually destroy the person one cares for?
I don't envy Steady Eddie...there's nothing to envy. When we met, we were at a similar low point in our lives--going thru the final stages of our divorces, and there was (and still is) great compassion for one another. There is kindness and understanding for who the other person is and the trajectory of our respective lives.
I am not sure if there is the same kindness and understanding between myself and Lucky Bastard. There are struggles and clashes of will as he tries to get me to bend to meet some of his more outrageous fantasies. I always maintain. There is no reason to meet those fantasies if they do not appeal to me. But even within the stuggles, I have seen him sad and alone, hurting for kindness and basic physical affection. I have offered the affection and the friendship, and he takes small portions of it....and while he would care to take much, much more, he doesn't dare.
Here, too, I am rational about our incompatabilities. They are different than the incompatabilities with Steady Eddie, but I am sure that they might cripple any long-term relationship.
But are all couples who are in love really completely compatable on all levels? Or do couples adjust and live with incompatabilities? Which incompatabiliites can be overcome and which are insurmountable? Is there envy, too, with great love, or is true enduring love possible only when there is compassion and caring without any envy at all?
There is alot about love that I don't know and don't understand. I'm not sure I ever will. Love seems to be a concept that is not easily quantifiable nor qualifiable. It could be something that totally defies logic, but also that may need logic as well as compassion to survive.
posted by Tish Grier at 7:38 AM
3 Comments:
It's never a totally perfect match is it? I don't understand love either, I guess you just do the best you can.
Hang on to Steady Eddie. I misunderstood "love" for many years. I traded in my own Steady Eddie for a man that was crazy exciting, dynamic and a master in bed. Let's call him Happy Phuck. Once that wore off, I missed the "steadiness", the honesty, the ability to be alone, together and comfortable. That's the stuff that lasts into old age, not the heady chemical stuff me and Happy Phuck had. We're still married, believe it or not, but I miss my old Steady Eddie with all my heart.
Well, I can't believe it but I had this exact conversation just yesterday. I've been married for twenty years now, and we are most often diametricaly opposed. It has made for a great partnership, friendship, hot steamy sex... but, still it seems there is something missing. Since I don't know what it is, I think I need what I know is safe and comfortable. Take what I can get so to speak. Is there a relationship out there that's firing on all cyliders? I haven't met them.
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