I will....
I think negative thoughts are a normal part of life. Perhaps its a self defence mechanism built within our subconcious but most people can control them to not to outwardly affect their lives. How many times do we think something is wrong when all of a sudden we don't hear from a friend...and just find out that they lost their mobile phone, went on holidays, had to look after a sick family member etc. and nothing is wrong with the relationship. Try it....just stop talking to your partner and wait for them to ask what is wrong!
Undie
Dearest Undie,
Almost all people have had failed relationships and whether right or wrong duely deserved or undeserved, they leave having some self-doubt asking themself if they had only done thus-in-such perhaps this wouldn't have taken place after all. Regardless, there is some sense of loss with some residue of guilt added. It seems this inevitably happens regardless of the workability or the degree of nonchallance attributed to either partner. For any relationship to work, and especially one closest to your heart, there has to be commitment on both sides maybe never fully reaching the ideal "
equal effort" due to differences in personalities. I like to think their efforts should be nonethess "
equitable" and not merely equal. Take the old TV series of the "Odd Couple", for instance.
I was in a 17 year long-term relationship with a straight guy with us living together and being at opposite ends of most any continum you could dream of. He was "Oscar" and I was "Felix", or in the cartoon world He was "Ren" and I was "Stimpy"(a nick name he assigned to me that I actually treasure). He even pointed out that we reminded him of this iconic TV couple, "The Odd Couple". With all of our differences, we reached some workable middle ground living and adjusting incrementally to each other.
He was laid back like Oscar and I was uptight, necessarily fussy, and anal retentive like Felix. With him being highly sexual, extremely prolific, and primarily straight, I had to allow for him his "sexual space" which meant he would be having sex regularly with a woman who was married to a gay man. This married couple had a child and agreed to stay together until their daughter completed high school. This woman's gay husband knew fully what was going on between his wife and my bf and he had no objection.
My bf would come home after screwing her and we would hug and kiss for a while, often while standing up in the kitchen. We would get a few beers under our belt playing our ever popular drinking game+ (meaning adding "strip poker" to "quarters") to the overall mix. We would sit at the table telling funny stories with total candor and throw in some "Trivial pursuit" questions on history or music/movie legends and would be laughing till out sides hurt and we could laugh no more. We would have the best of times.
He had an addictive personality so those things he liked he liked to excess. He was into drinking, music, smoking, sex, art, performing on stage and in commedy clubs "Open Mike nights", writing poetry and prose, creating clutter (frequently not so clean and especially in the kitchen when cooking the least little thing meant disaster), and the occasional prescription or illegal drug. I was into cars, cooking, sex, thoughtful and poingnant movies with a dash of porn thrown for flavoring, beautiful furniture and art, living in clutter(much, much cleaner), and occasionally drinking provided I had someone to drink with. I hated smoking most of all and he, after serving as a stand-in for the eternal flame at the Olympics, would attempt to accomodate me to some degree. Frequently, despite the 15 years difference in our ages, we would say to each other we would grow old together, in part to his self-destructive tendencies, and probably share the same room in the nursing home driving the attendants crazy.
I was fixated on oral sex back then and resented the insinuation that "
all gay men were universally into anal sex". While this might be the stereotype to the straight world and many in the gay world, I explained to my current therapist that anal sex is not a absolute given, despite people's prejudices and assumptions. I found being limited to my oral fixation most fulfilling at the time.
Also, I found kissing my bf, especially below the ear and on the side of his neck to be most satisfying, positively electrifying. The sex was the best I have ever had too. When you are with someone you truly love to the ultimate extent possible, any outward signs are amplified that much more and you lose your sense of perspective.
Together we went through good times and bad times. but together anyway and stronger for it. We suffered a devastating fire in my apartment and we were booked into a local motel for 6 weeks while my apartment was being repaired. I lost practically everything in material terms. The first night and for several week nights thereafter in the motel, each in our own bed, we fell asleep holding hands as if locked telling each other we still loved each other and would always love each other forever. That has not changed today, some 24 years later.
When he married a woman with 3 children 9 years ago in another neighboring state, our constant communication ended over an unfortunate misunderstanding. He lives some 400miles away and although I knew his email address at work, any attempts to contact him by e-mail were ignored, His birthday is October 22nd so I sent him his customary e-mail not really expecting a reply. A week later, he emailed me asking for my phone number. We finally connected and those 9+ years totally vaporized and we took up seamlessly where we were years ago with no changes and no hard feelings. We both expressed our love for each other and hung up being ever hopeful once again. So once again I can truthfully say with no incriminations, self or otherwise, I will survive:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nvej-wEI3NI
All the while being so overwhelmingly thankful and grateful to the core. Hope at last!
I want to thank all the respondants to this thread as an expression of your friendship and expecially humbly thank my friend, Undie, for being so very patient and generously accepting of my occasional irrational behavior as some minor bump in the road. I have survived to live and love another day!
