What's romance got to do with it?
Steady Eddy and I have been having a bit of trouble for some time, so we decided to get some help.
I'd been thinking that maybe it's just over. That there's really no reason for us to be together. There are some fundamental incompatablities that we're probably not going to get over, that he thinks we can get over....
So, we've been trying to find a very civilized way to break things off, with no recriminations, just an understanding that we're not meant for each other...
And yes, we've affirmed we have fundamental incompatabilities--I'm more extroverted than he is. I like the city. He wants to go move up to the mountains where he grew up.
I'd probably die up there--metaphorically, and way before my time, if you know what I mean....
One of the things I've said was a complete deal breaker between us is that he has no romantic feelings for me. He never seems to experss any romance--no lusty thoughts, no telling me how beautiful I am, none of that stuff..
I tought it was me. My ex-husband stopped telling me I was attractive shortly after we were married. He lost interest pretty quickly.
Well, when you get the prize, there's no reason to want it any more.
It hasn't helped that I've moved to New England, where I think guys do things a bit differently. Steady Eddy comes from a rather emotionally reserved family anyway. Very nice people, who have rather wry senses of humor, but I don't think they were ever overly-demonstrative....he's not anyway....
Not like the guys I knew in New Jersey, who wrote songs about me, and poetry, and had my likeness tattooed on their arms....
It used to frighten me, because I never knew what to do with that level of admiration. And then when it stopped altogether (except for the schmaltzy holiday cards) from my husband, I figured that was because I was getting old and fat (I was only in my early 30's)...
No, it had more to do with that he didn't care any more.....
So I figure that Steady Eddy's lack of poetry or tattooing or flowers or openly and aggressively lusting after me had to do with having no romantic feelings for me...
But it wasn't just my past that was leading me to believe this. It was everything some of my girlfriends had told me. "If he doesn't propose after two years of dating, he's not serious." And all the stuff that magazines and other pop culture devices had conveyed to me thru a whole lot of psychobabble. "If a man doesn't do (fill in the blank) then he *obviously* doesn't have romantic feelings for the woman he's with...."
Yet something about this wasn't right. When Steady Eddy and I talked about splitting up, he cried. I thought it was because he just didn't want to be by himself.
But that was wrong. He likes to be by himself.
Then I learned that he wasn't crying for himself. He was crying for me. What was going to happen to me? Would I give up on relationships all together? How would I take care of myself?
I started to think about the many things he does for me.
"What do you mean when you say romantic feelings" he asked me one day. "I don't think I know what you're talking about...."
it was quite true. he really didn't know. as much as I haven't much of an idea of what love between someone's mom and dad is supposed to look like, he had no idea what romance was supposed to look like. or be, for that matter. I think he grew up with two parents who had an abiding love for one another, a practical love that was expressed in quiet affection and providing for as well as taking care of one another.
Because this is kind of what he does for me. There are no big professions of love. No telling me how wonderful I look or how beautiful I am.
It's almost as if I don't need to hear those things.
It began to dawn on me that maybe I was wrong about him. that maybe I was judging him by a standard I'd picked up from dysfunctional girlfriends and from a pop culture where the answers are always relative to the time period that they are dispensed....
And that maybe it was all those things he does for me on a regular basis that mean something.
This is a guy who really doesn't need other people to be happy. Yet I make him happy.....
So, maybe it's all these little things...
Maybe it's that I miss all those grand gestures that used to be the signals that a man wanted me--that he loved me.
Steady Eddy's never been a man of grand gestures. It's not like he did them, then stopped. He never did them.
But he did things like fix my apartment up, and paint my new one (ever weekend till I moved in) and helped me pick out curtains and hang the rods. He likes to hear me talk about the things I do, and what I've done with my day. He's even learned a bit about the things I'm interested in---enough to carry on a conversation with me for sure.
He's supported every hare-brained idea I've ever had.
And never said "I told you so."
Now, none of this solves the problems of our incompatabilities. And there are many--including where we both want to be when we retire. But it does make me see that romance--all those timetables and all those extroverted ways of showing maybe just infatuation--maybe aren't all that important.
And maybe some men just don't express their feelings that way.
Maybe they express them in other ways. And those feelings are just as deep and as strong as if he were tattooing my likeness on his bicep...or endlessly photographing me...or writing songs about me....
Maybe the feelings are the same, they just come out differently with him...and his ways are ways I've never seen before and just not used to.
Maybe it's not about high-handed romance, but about the practical things that make daily life more tolerable and a nice, comfortable, calm place to be....
I'd been thinking that maybe it's just over. That there's really no reason for us to be together. There are some fundamental incompatablities that we're probably not going to get over, that he thinks we can get over....
So, we've been trying to find a very civilized way to break things off, with no recriminations, just an understanding that we're not meant for each other...
And yes, we've affirmed we have fundamental incompatabilities--I'm more extroverted than he is. I like the city. He wants to go move up to the mountains where he grew up.
I'd probably die up there--metaphorically, and way before my time, if you know what I mean....
One of the things I've said was a complete deal breaker between us is that he has no romantic feelings for me. He never seems to experss any romance--no lusty thoughts, no telling me how beautiful I am, none of that stuff..
I tought it was me. My ex-husband stopped telling me I was attractive shortly after we were married. He lost interest pretty quickly.
Well, when you get the prize, there's no reason to want it any more.
It hasn't helped that I've moved to New England, where I think guys do things a bit differently. Steady Eddy comes from a rather emotionally reserved family anyway. Very nice people, who have rather wry senses of humor, but I don't think they were ever overly-demonstrative....he's not anyway....
Not like the guys I knew in New Jersey, who wrote songs about me, and poetry, and had my likeness tattooed on their arms....
It used to frighten me, because I never knew what to do with that level of admiration. And then when it stopped altogether (except for the schmaltzy holiday cards) from my husband, I figured that was because I was getting old and fat (I was only in my early 30's)...
No, it had more to do with that he didn't care any more.....
So I figure that Steady Eddy's lack of poetry or tattooing or flowers or openly and aggressively lusting after me had to do with having no romantic feelings for me...
But it wasn't just my past that was leading me to believe this. It was everything some of my girlfriends had told me. "If he doesn't propose after two years of dating, he's not serious." And all the stuff that magazines and other pop culture devices had conveyed to me thru a whole lot of psychobabble. "If a man doesn't do (fill in the blank) then he *obviously* doesn't have romantic feelings for the woman he's with...."
Yet something about this wasn't right. When Steady Eddy and I talked about splitting up, he cried. I thought it was because he just didn't want to be by himself.
But that was wrong. He likes to be by himself.
Then I learned that he wasn't crying for himself. He was crying for me. What was going to happen to me? Would I give up on relationships all together? How would I take care of myself?
I started to think about the many things he does for me.
"What do you mean when you say romantic feelings" he asked me one day. "I don't think I know what you're talking about...."
it was quite true. he really didn't know. as much as I haven't much of an idea of what love between someone's mom and dad is supposed to look like, he had no idea what romance was supposed to look like. or be, for that matter. I think he grew up with two parents who had an abiding love for one another, a practical love that was expressed in quiet affection and providing for as well as taking care of one another.
Because this is kind of what he does for me. There are no big professions of love. No telling me how wonderful I look or how beautiful I am.
It's almost as if I don't need to hear those things.
It began to dawn on me that maybe I was wrong about him. that maybe I was judging him by a standard I'd picked up from dysfunctional girlfriends and from a pop culture where the answers are always relative to the time period that they are dispensed....
And that maybe it was all those things he does for me on a regular basis that mean something.
This is a guy who really doesn't need other people to be happy. Yet I make him happy.....
So, maybe it's all these little things...
Maybe it's that I miss all those grand gestures that used to be the signals that a man wanted me--that he loved me.
Steady Eddy's never been a man of grand gestures. It's not like he did them, then stopped. He never did them.
But he did things like fix my apartment up, and paint my new one (ever weekend till I moved in) and helped me pick out curtains and hang the rods. He likes to hear me talk about the things I do, and what I've done with my day. He's even learned a bit about the things I'm interested in---enough to carry on a conversation with me for sure.
He's supported every hare-brained idea I've ever had.
And never said "I told you so."
Now, none of this solves the problems of our incompatabilities. And there are many--including where we both want to be when we retire. But it does make me see that romance--all those timetables and all those extroverted ways of showing maybe just infatuation--maybe aren't all that important.
And maybe some men just don't express their feelings that way.
Maybe they express them in other ways. And those feelings are just as deep and as strong as if he were tattooing my likeness on his bicep...or endlessly photographing me...or writing songs about me....
Maybe the feelings are the same, they just come out differently with him...and his ways are ways I've never seen before and just not used to.
Maybe it's not about high-handed romance, but about the practical things that make daily life more tolerable and a nice, comfortable, calm place to be....
posted by Tish Grier at 11:08 PM
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