TMI
Looking at the shambles of my marriage, I've come to a realization. I don't want to be, but I can't help it. I am a hopeless romantic, and that's a hard burden to put on a marriage. What I have wanted most of my life is to be loved -- passionately, tenderly, warmly, affectionately, respectfully, wildly. I've wanted to love the same way, an all consuming love. I wanted a love that could be scripted on celluloid, acted on stage and writ in the stars, only avoiding the tragedy that that always seems to accompany those great romances. At the same time, I've fought against that. I've wanted to be Sensibility, not Sense, but I'm just not built that way. This is just silly, and I know it.
I mean, come on, you know that the sex between Rochester and Jane was earth shattering. All that restraint that went into the other areas of their life had to be abandoned. I can see Rochester holding Jane as tenderly as an egg until she was no longer delicate. And then there's Cathy and Heathcliff. You just know that hoyden tore his back with her nails and screamed his name into the hard flesh of his shoulder. With Linden, it had to be "close your eyes and think of England.' None of that is in the books. We just sense it there. Only an overwhelming passion could send a call across time and space, pulling Jane away from propriety. Only an intense love could have Cathy's ghost pulling at the window trying to still come to her man. And this paragraph has made me realize that my chastity during my separation has been more difficult than I've admitted to myself.
I'm too old for this nonsense. I know that the deepest love can be shown in a quiet look over a newspaper, and how a couple splits housework can affect their feelings for each other more than the best sex. I also know there's far more to passion and deep love than wonderful sex. Yet I still want a love that can wreak havoc on my heart, and I want to be able to live peacefully and contentedly even without it.
posted by Cynthia at
7:01 PM
8 Comments:
on the eve of my fifth anniversary, preparing for a bath with beloved, i appreciate your honesty and wish for you passion AND contentment with companionship that is mundane most of the time.
even though we're still, relatively, newlyweds... this seems to be the stuff of our healthy marriage- mundane togetherness which breeds contentment, and occasional passion which infuses the rest with energy. it's a good balance for us. i think.
not that what's best for me is for you.
may your dreams come true- even if in ways beyond your capacity to dream.
Celebrating the same anniversary with my spouse many miles away for his job, I must say I have shared those wishes for what love might be like, fueled by all those novels, too. The kind of work you are doing and I am doing in the physical realm certainly stirs up the inner, too. I'm not sure where all this leads us, but I hope to some deeper level of self.
Speaking from the perspective of nearly thirty-one years of marriage, I can only say that the glue that keeps us together is the quiet looks over the newspaper and how we split housework. The restaurant has really wreaked havoc on our intimacy...we're both too tired and too stressed, and he doesn't drink...LOL!
I've lost count of how many times I've read "Jane Eyre." Oh, I loved--and still love--that book. I was 48 when I married, 3 years ago, and my husband had never read any romantic novel of any kind. When I and one of my daughters-by-marriage watch a Jane Austen movie, he usually finds some chore to do in another part of the house. Still, he's romantic in his way and makes a real effort to show me how much I'm loved. Together we've come to the conclusion--our little joke--that he'll never be my "100% man", (the romantic ideal)--we're shooting for 92% now. Every time he feels like I'm expecting too much, he'll say "Can I just be your 92% man?" It's pretty irritating, but after I gain some distance, I usually end up seeing his point.
Ah well, the complexity of human relationships, huh?
Thanks for posting, Cynthia. I can so relate!
Why, I do declare, Miss Cynthia ~ y'all are goin' to give me a case of the vapors carryin' on so!
No reason for a girl to live without love, havoc or sex. ;D And I think it's time someone started dating again...
Very deep insight on yourself here. I suspect just writing this helped you some, because it helps me when I get it out like this.
Great job!
Made me think of an old Carly Simon song. She's lamenting about how she wishes she had the earthmoving romance, then realizes that she has "the stuff that dreams are made of, that slow and steady fire."
Sometimes Pete and I fight like Rett and Scarlet....sometimes we ignore one another totally. But down in our centers, we both know that the other is the perfect complement to ourself. We'd no longer be one without the other.
Well maybe I shouldnt speak as I have never been married. We have been together 17 years, no paper.
Your very last paragraph? I get.
I get it so wrapped up with a tight little bow.
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