The face of love

There is a person in my life who struggles with love.  It’s been a long standing issue with her – nearly 40 years now.  Due to less than ideal parentage (yes, they did the best they could – we all do, but that was still lacking in some serious areas,) as well as some unfortunate situations and poor choices, this person is constantly looking for acceptance, validation, love (I don’t feel as though I’m speaking out of turn – these are words she, herself, has used.)  She has wondered, aloud in her blog, if she is really in love with Mr. Z (and oh so very recently, Mr. D, and a bat of an eye before that a different Mr. D) or if she is just in love with the idea of being in love.  It’s absolutely not my place to have an opinion – this is something she’s going to have to figure out for herself.  And I wish her the best of luck in finding the answers.  It’s gotta be a tough question to ponder.

 

I bring it all up because it’s gotten me thinking a lot about what love really is?  What is HEALTHY love?  How can someone recognize it when they’ve never seen it before?  It’s got to be incredibly deceptive.  When I was in my teens and early 20’s, I had no freaking idea of what true, healthy love was.  I made a really big decision that resulted in my saying the two big words ("I Do") based on a very faulty idea of love.  This was NOT the I Do that married me and B – it married me (a former me,) to a different guy.  This was a marriage based on desperation and control.  I was desperate to prove to myself that I could keep him (even though I didn’t want him,) I wanted to control the fact that he’d not be with anyone else.  He was desperate to hang onto me (who knows why, we treated each other like shit.)  Mostly, we married each other because we either needed to get married or to break up and never see each other again – and we didn’t know how to get out of the addictive, controlling, manipulative cycle we’d been in for 7 years and never see each other again. So, we got married.

 

I thought I loved him.  And, I’m sure he did love me the best he knew how, but sweet jesus, he didn’t know how.  I thought I loved him.  I thought I cared enough about him to stay with him forever.  I didn’t.  I didn’t love him at all.  Oh yes, I did once upon a time – when I was just a teenager.  Well, I loved him with a teenage love.  I loved him for what it would give me. I loved him for making me part of a couple, keeping me from being alone, I loved him for providing my booze and my weed and concert tickets.  I loved him because it meant that I could keep him from loving anyone else.  <<shuddering at the truth.>>

 

Within 15 months of our marriage, I had moved out.  That was the single most loving thing I ever did for him – leaving.  I divorced him a short few months after that.  He was stunned and upset and vowed that he’d never have left me.

 

We both remarried and we (at least I) chalked that first marriage up to practice, an experiment.  I learned from it and moved on and remarried.  He also remarried, but I don’t feel he learned anything from it – his second marriage just ended and he’s not yet 31 years old.  I guess he’s still trying to recognize the face of love.  Somehow, I saw it and recognized it -but I don’t know how.  Maybe I just saw that what I had found was honestly not like anything I had ever known.  Maybe my heart knew that what I was feeling wasn’t going to pass, that it wasn’t contingent upon anything, that even though it was going to be hard and I’d lose a lot, I’d gain more than I ever knew. 

 

I sit here now in a home that I own, surrounded by toys and games and clutter of a house that is lived in, not just scoured clean.  I kissed my husband good-bye this morning and, after 7 years of being together, I still count the minutes until he returns home.  We have 2 children together.  We have a future together.  We have the strength of the knowledge that we can handle each other’s truths and fears and doubts and mistakes and successes.  We have arguments and disagreements.  We have laughter and joy and pain and confusion.  We have faith.  I know that he is always free to walk out -and I know that I am also free to do the same.  If he wanted out, the last thing I would want him to do is stay -and I know he feels the same about me.  It is a choice we make every day – we choose to love each other.  And it’s a choice and an investment that is paying off in spades.

 

I want this for my love seeker. I want for her to know true and honest love, deep compassionate love that comes when the passion of newness ebbs. But I cannot tell her what it looks like.  I cannot tell her when she’s on the right path or when she’s on the wrong path.  Only she can figure that out because if I tell her, she hasn’t learned how to recognize it for herself. 

 

It’s hard. It takes a lot of faith.  Maybe this is part of the way that I love her.