Playing in The Game of Love
A good friend of mine recently said, "but I do love him."
"Then why are you willing to accept being angry at him, instead of working to resolve the issue?" I asked.
The him, was her husband and our conversation was about how we choose to be in the state we are in. How we choose to love, or not to love, to be angry or not to be angry, but that it is our choice, consciously, or unconsciously.
Although not convinced about the control she had on this, I kept pressing. "So why choose anger?"
"Because I'm tired of constantly trying, only to get rejected."
Still hearing her skepticism about choice, I said, "If you don't control your emotions, who does?"
I stopped questioning her at that point, because I could hear the pain in her voice, which only minutes before stood as anger. Having been through a similar situation in my own marriage of 14 years, I felt her pain as if it were mine...perhaps because it truly was. I listened as she said she hadn't stopped loving him, but in my eyes, I felt that for the minute, she surely had. She had made a conscious effort to stop loving her husband as a direct result of his rejections. Even if indirectly, it was payback time.
But who was really paying the price? She felt the daily rejections of him not listening to her and of him not being intimate, but now it was his turn to feel unloved. Wasn't that how this game was played? It was one option, but one that she would pay the price for, even as she withheld the love. She would then hold the reigns, but still walk away feeling unloved.
After leaving a marriage that left me with similar feelings, I left the conversation with a pain in my heart. The pain from knowing exactly how it felt to be denied a love that I could almost taste. The pain from constantly exposing myself, only to be left feeling bruised and beaten from the silence. The pain of trying to peel away each layer of my skin, hoping for my true self to be revealed and loved. And the ultimate pain, in not knowing if it would ever end.
The most difficult decision I ever made was to leave my husband after fourteen years and to give up my dreams of a happily ever after ending, but one that had to come. You see, my marriage differed from my friends in one very important way. I never stopped loving my husband, because I was the eternal optimist, and believed that eventually he would hear me. I believed that if I kept putting myself out there, that one day he would finally cave in and love me like I needed. It wasn't until the day I realized that he could only love the way he knew how, that I knew I had to leave. I didn't know how long I had been giving and feeling unloved, but it was very clear that I was becoming a person that almost didn't feel anymore.
Faced with being a single parent, trying to start a business of my own, create a life for my children that enabled them to see my true self and learning how to expose myself to the cruel world of dating, I never once looked back. I couldn't choose that. I couldn't, because who I needed to be was someone who was feeling and this was where I needed to be.
Dating, after being married for fourteen years, will help you experience the raw feelings of being exposed and vulnerable all over again, with a huge range of emotions. The difference is that I know there is an end in sight.
Dating, after being married for fourteen years, will help you experience the raw feelings of being exposed and vulnerable all over again, with a huge range of emotions. The difference is that I know there is an end in sight.
"Just be cautious," my sister pleaded after hearing about one of my better dates.
I resisted my usual urge to defend myself. "There is no cautious in the game of love," I said. "This time I am looking for someone who knows the real me, right from the start. And if throwing caution to the wind from day one, means I may experience sadness...than so be it...because playing full out is the only way to play. And if I get hurt, at least I will know that I feel. And if I feel, at least I will know I am alive.
So this spring, why not experience Spring Fever with a real spring in your step? Play full out...love like your heart tells you to. You may be surprised at the happiness that comes with it.
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