The Muddy Waters of Reflection
I was thinking this morning about my "romantic landscape", a favorite place for me to go, and I had some realizations, remembered some details I had forgotten about.
I had started out thinking about what God wants from us, and so I am not really sure how I ended up thinking about the Top Five Loves of My Life, but there I was. I think about the Top Five a lot, perhaps in the context of trying to understand how I got to where I am romantically.
Today I was thinking about the second and fourth "loves of my life". For reference, I will just call them "N" and "R". I had gotten to the point in my relationship with both of them where a decision had to be made about where it was going. You know, that precipice that we reach in serious, long term relationships where you have to decide whether this love that you have is going to lead you to marriage.
I suppose I was thinking about this because part of my mind was remembering an affectionate conversation I had with "N" last week. We have managed to stay friends over the years, because those things we had in common we still have, and then some. It is easy to stay friends with him because neither of us allows the past to be an issue in our friendship. Some people might have issues with our friendship, because there are people out there who think having this kind of relationship with an ex is dangerous, and even sometimes I have to draw boundaries with certain people. He is never a concern, not even for my husband, who encourages me to hang out with him, sometimes even pushing me out the door or to the phone to call him. He is not the least bit threatened by my relationship with "N", and all who know "N" understand why. "N" is just not the kind of guy who would ever make a pass for another man's woman.
Anyway, "N" and I were talking about the topic we dance around and never really discuss, which is our affection for each other. We had this moment where we were both being honest and open with each other, each of us saying "I will always love you" to each other. It was not like "so let's run off together", it was more like an open admission of the things we feel in our hearts, like that we will always remember that we had a great and powerful love, and even if our relationship became "something dishonest", as he said, underneath it all, there was always a great friendship, a great affinity for each other, and we will always have those feelings, and still both continue to think of each other as one of our best friends, as a long chapter in our respective lives, as a fond memory. In a way, it is poetic justice, because it has become like the song that we swore would always be ours: "Think of me, think of me fondly, when we've said goodbye/Remember me, once in a while, please promise that you'll try".
So that conversation was wrapped around another common thought of mine, that I could see myself with him in marriage, that we would actually probably have a better marriage than the one I have now.
That is kind of the frequent "romantic landscape" theme - hold each of them up, compare, imagine, how each relationship would have panned out in the end, and which of them might have held the most promise of happiness.
So then, why, you have to ask, why didn't I marry him, when it came down to it? Ah, back in the day, I had a list of a dozen reasons. After the years went by, I forgot those reasons, and only had one left, the one that keeps the boundary intact between us, the reason I can be friends with him - a sexual attraction issue. Oh sure, there was a time where I lusted for him, and there was a time where we fulfilled each other in that fashion. Even when it was supposed to be over, when we knew it was over, we still made love to each other frequently. We couldn't really ever stay out of each other's beds, even when we were committed to someone else. So it seems really strange to say that is the reason we did not stay together, and will not be together. There was a point, though, where I realized that he could never really satisfy me in that direction because of some preference issues, and maybe that was the reason I could never stay faithful to him, and so the line was drawn and so the line has stayed.
Today, though, in thinking about it, and comparing him to "R", and thinking about the time in my life where I was deciding between them and choose neither, I remembered some of the other reasons why I could not marry him. Ironically, I don't think they have anything to do with the original "Dozen Reasons". They have more to do with the actual ability to live with someone in a partnership.
He was a mess. Literally and figuratively. He came home at night and threw his dirty clothes in a heap on the floor, and in the morning he grabbed something off the heap and put it on. He and many others smoked in his room, ashing in soda cans, and sometimes they ashed in the one you were drinking and nobody realized until you got a mouthful. He was emotionally and mentally unstable. He couldn't hold down a job. He had some issues, and those who know him know why and sure it is a good reason, for a while at least, but it went on for way too long. He was unreliable. He would say he would meet you somewhere at some time and never show. He was always at least two hours late. He was a terrible person to be in a long distance relationship with, because you could never find him. No one ever knew where he was, or if they told you where they thought he was, it was always another reason to worry. He was in and out of mental hospitals, in and out of people's lives, including maybe some other women, in and out of school, in and out of his parent's house. In thinking back on it, it was a wonder we lasted as long as we did. Maybe that is a testament to how much we truly cared. He was a jellyfish, floating around life with no real ambition, direction, no plan for the future. How can you plan a future with someone who doesn't have a dream of it themselves? How can you know if your goals are compatible if they don't have any?
I always believed my relationship with "R" was reactionary. It was the complete opposite, and he was 180 degrees from "N". He was a good man. He was hard working, ambitious, reliable, dependable. We could have the same kind of intelligent conversations I had with "N", but we also had more passion, and he suited my preferences in the bedroom much better. He was like the man in all those romance novels; chivalrous, guarded but loyal once you got to his heart, noble, romantic, handsome. So why, you might ask, would someone give that up, or why would someone look at that one and say, "Oh, but I never would have been happy with that one"? Many women would have loved to be married to that man, I feel sure. Not me, though. When it came down to it, I knew I couldn't do it, could not marry him, because he did not possess the spirit of acceptance. He had high standards. I don't like to be boxed in. I have a great need for acceptance, and to live a life without judgement, without reservations. Acceptance is a double-edged sword, this I know, and maybe his high standards would have propelled me to be the best I could be. However, I would always be worried about losing his favor because of some deficiency, and I don't think I could live like that.
So, the question that always remains is, upon the retrospective romantic reminiscing, would I really have been better off with any of these men? Is the solution better than the problems?
All these years of thinking about it, and really no clear answers.