I haven’t been lucky in love. I only paid attention to those I felt strongly about—probably something innate. Perhaps someone had their eye on me, but I didn’t notice (as I mentioned earlier). By the way, my wife noticed this “phenomenon” before I did. She saw how others tried to “reel me in,” but my reaction was nonexistent—I simply didn’t see it. At best, I treated the opposite sex like a caring sister.
My first love was vivid, intense, but unrequited. It started in sixth grade. The recovery took about five years. Over those years, I fell in love once more, but fearing rejection (seeing how my crush behaved), I just suppressed it.
The last time I fell in love was in college. The girl was open to a relationship, but her family’s expectations outweighed her feelings. That love faded quickly on its own.
With my wife, Emily, I don’t feel those intense emotional highs, yet we’ve developed some deep inner connection. Perhaps this is love in its calm state. I don’t know what it’s like to feel such emotions mutually in marriage.
Maybe that’s for the best. I remember how love felt devastating, all-consuming, causing me a ton of trouble. I lost control, stopped studying—my grades slipped to Cs, food lost its appeal, and everything felt foggy. The only thing that was clear was my beloved’s face, her gentle words, and touches (in my imagination).
In the mid-90s, in small towns, there wasn’t much information about intimacy, so beyond touches, my fantasies didn’t go further—and didn’t need to. Touches were enough.
My sense of responsibility formed early in my parents’ home, but my decisiveness and ability to make decisions were stifled by my father. I’ve had to work constantly to develop those qualities.
When your mind is so clouded (when in love), how can you make sound decisions? How can you work (think, analyze) at your job when all your thoughts are about your beloved? Though, perhaps, if your feelings are mutual, it inspires you to achieve great things, unlocking your potential.
After all, I wrote poetry when I was in love. As I recall, the muse visited me a couple of times when I was dating Emily, my future wife. All my poems were about love.
My sense of responsibility for my family overrides most other feelings. For example, if Emily asks me to water the flowers at our summer house, but at the same time, my boss calls and says that if an important report isn’t ready by morning, I’ll lose my bonus, I’ll rush to work and skip watering the flowers. That’ll earn me a scolding. Flowers don’t affect the family’s well-being; they affect the owner’s emotional state (the joy of admiring their beauty).
In this case, work takes priority because I know that with that money, I can ensure a decent life for the whole family. The flowers can be watered the next day, or I can plant new ones over the weekend since I also love beauty.
I can say with 100% certainty that my only motivator for achieving goals is Emily.
Without her, my goals would be entirely different—and much simpler.
As for children, I love them, but in my own way. In my dreams, the more kids, the happier I’d be. By “in my own way,” I mean Emily will always come first, then the kids. That’s just how I’m wired.
If Emily were gone, then yes, the kids would take first place, and if I had a second wife, she’d still be second.
But these are just hypotheticals—you probably noticed the word “if.” I wish Emily a long life.
Because of my perhaps unsuccessful relationships in youth, Emily remains my only woman to this day. Deep down, I’m probably a romantic, a seeker of love’s adventures. There’s been no physical infidelity, but mentally, yes. Especially in our age of information technology, it’s not hard. There’s another odd trait in my character: tolerance-intolerance-revenge (or torment). Let’s start with revenge (or torment). The essence of torment is causing emotional pain to a loved one.
What do I feel while doing it? A mix of delight and enjoyment, followed by my own torment (I take on the feelings of the person I’m hurting), then I devise a plan to turn the torment into something joyful (which doesn’t always work).
For example, I once told Emily about a long separation (six months to a year) because of a job opportunity in a remote area, saying it would help us achieve our dreams soon. now. I said it with relish, and women can sense that. The result was a storm of emotions. I haven’t repeated that with her since. Intolerance: I decide to do something and need to buy something for it. To achieve the goal, I need money. I drain the family budget (leaving just enough to get by) and start working on my plan immediately. A bad trait, I admit. Regarding the family budget—my principle is that everything earned belongs to both of us and is accessible to both.
However, to maintain discipline (since both Emily and I have a tendency to want to buy this and that), I create a plan for income and expenses. I hate living in debt. For me, it’s better to find ways to earn more. But often, earning more means spending more time at work, which Emily usually doesn’t agree with.
Tolerance—how does it manifest? I try not to react to “nagging” at all. I suggest doing a task a certain way, but if it’s done differently and needs redoing, that’s frustrating. The most irritating thing is having to redo it myself. If I don’t know how something is done and only have a guess, I say upfront it’s a guess but offer to find the right solution together.
My brightest example of tolerance (in my opinion): Emily gave birth to two children almost two years apart. Kids are full of energy—making noise, arguing, fighting, making up, and so on. In short, kids. I spend a lot of time at work but try to help with the kids and household. Emily loves the kids, but she gets tired, irritated, and needs to talk to someone other than the usual three faces. To lift her spirits, I’d stay with the kids and send her out.
Even if she didn’t need to buy anything, I’d tell her to just wander around. By the way, my parents didn’t help at all, and hers only watched the kids during the day occasionally. For the first three or four years, Emily and I never had time alone without the kids. Thank goodness for the internet. She connected with a few guys and girls—online chats don’t obligate anyone. She didn’t hide this from me. Though I knew such communication could be risky if a line was crossed.
On one hand, those chats and flirtations helped her escape the daily grind. On the other, online flirting could turn into something more with mutual consent. I didn’t show anything outwardly, but inside, I was burning. Still, I wanted her to feel better. She weeded out most of the guys and girls. Some guys brazenly offered a one-night stand. They were the first to go since, at that moment, she needed friendship and heartfelt conversation—not with her husband (strange, maybe not). A couple of guys stayed. At some point, I noticed she started deleting messages with one of them.
That’s when I panicked, though I stayed calm on the outside. I’d had a similar situation—internet access at work came before we had it at home. Because of such chats, I nearly lost my job. I snapped out of it in time and cut that person out since most of my workday was spent flirting. I never considered meeting that person. The opposite happened with Emily. One summer, she told me she wanted to meet her pen pal to chat, see him in person, and unwind a bit.
She assured me he was just a friend, nothing more. Based on my logical reasoning (sometimes I wish I had a woman’s advice—men’s logic differs from women’s, so I often seek answers to women’s actions, not just Emily’s), knowing her character, I figured she had three restraining factors: she’s married, has two kids, and that guy was married twice.
His wife didn’t know about their chats because she was very jealous (I learned this from Emily). Reluctantly, I agreed (what wouldn’t you do for a loved one’s happiness?). She left in the morning for a nearby town and returned in the evening, before dark. She told me about the meeting, seemed content, but saw my state and didn’t share it emotionally. What really happened, only she and that guy know.
My emotions were through the roof, but I tried to hold it together. On the surface, everything was fine, but my eyes probably gave me away. My first thought was to pack a bag and leave if something went wrong. I know if she decides to do things her way, it’s unavoidable. And if she fell in love, it’s game over—I remember what that’s like. She came back, looked me straight in the eyes, which told me nothing beyond the meeting happened. If something had, she wouldn’t have been able to look at me for a while.
It’s a psychological trick, but it usually works only once, before the first betrayal. Once someone crosses that line, they don’t care about it anymore. The next year, that guy asked to meet again, but for some reason, it didn’t happen.
Then the chats between him and Emily stopped. Now, she’s stopped actively chatting with anyone. That was a tough episode to endure. Writing this brings back memories—unpleasant ones. That incident was a few years ago.
Now, Emily’s mindset has shifted. She thinks she’s reached an age where it’s too late to chase dreams. Her words are starting to influence me too. But I know we’re still at a good age.
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