Question of disillusionment -- in the depth of the night.
The things about people that we fall in love with are often the things that end up driving us mad. Either we cannot bear the intensity of our love, or we didn't really love these things in the first place -- they were merely what required some psychic alchemy to make something else possible. It is this "something else" that really fascinates us, that keeps us together.
This is what makes relationships last: the disillusionment that is the key to a life-long romance.
Except there's no such a thing as life-long romance. Goodnight...
The things about people that we fall in love with are often the things that end up driving us mad. Either we cannot bear the intensity of our love, or we didn't really love these things in the first place -- they were merely what required some psychic alchemy to make something else possible. It is this "something else" that really fascinates us, that keeps us together.
This is what makes relationships last: the disillusionment that is the key to a life-long romance.
Except there's no such a thing as life-long romance. Goodnight...
I choose to believe that at different stages in our lives, we have different needs. Some couples learn to adapt and the relationship survives. Other's don't and the relationship fails. Relationships take work, introspection and analysis and "fine tuning". When you are in tune with your partner, it's like a dance. Sometimes one leads, other times the other does. The trick is to stay "in sync". Whenever I see a long term couple - I have to applaud that they found a way to make it work.
I personally can't stand it when I argue with my husband. I don't want to be that "angry' person. I don't want to be "angry' with him. And, I keep latching onto sensitive men that don't like conflict. So it's in both of our best interests to settle the conflict, ASAP.
I'm a romantic - I believe that lifelong romance is possible. But - keeping romance takes work. It's not taking each other for granted. It's not letting yourself go. It's not getting sloppy by forgetting to say "I love you". it's finding little ways to surprise each other and keep each other interested.
In my erotic life work doesn't work. This is its relief and its terror. I think it is no more possible to work at a relationship than it is to arrange to have a dream, or to will an erection. As a matter of fact (to me) when you're working at it you know it has gone wrong, that something is already missing. Perhaps in our erotic lives, in other words, trying is always trying too hard; perhaps we have to become lazy again about effort, because the good things only come when it stops -- affection, curiosity, desire, un-worrying attention.
Perhaps sexual relationships are only for the work-shy, because they do not work. They just give us more or less pleasure, more or less hope.