Love addiction or core conditions?
I’ve been doing a fair amount of reading recently, all the latest articles on TBW, and about TBW, (yes boys and girls it seems we are hot news on this site), plus research for my new novel which entails the delicious task of reading every hot gossip woman’s magazine on the market. Anyway suffice it to say that a lot of questions seem to be being asked about the ups and downs of relationships and the pros and cons of dating. So for what its worth this is my take on it and I have been in the relationship game for a very long time in various guises.
Let me start by saying that I was married and committedly so for 17 years, I have children, 2 grown up and one 14 year old, and since divorcing 10 years ago I have always been out with younger men. My present boyfriend is 24 years younger than me and after two years of dithering about being a ‘Prat’ because he has never been in love before, he is happy to think about spending the next ten years with me and building a life together that we both want.
That is the starting point of this piece.
Surely dating is about finding a person that one wants to do the same kind of things in life with? That can range from cocktails and rampant sex 3 times a week to a farm in the Outer Hebrides. It comes in all shapes and sizes of commitment and agreement, but the only thing that makes it work, is if some kind of core conditions or contract are agreed upon. Yes there has to be attraction, chemistry, the right timing and in my case a fair amount of patience for my partner to do some growing up and realise that love doesn’t always come in a pretty package with the fairytale white wedding his Mother always envisaged.
On the plus side for him is that at 27 even if he does spend the next 10 years with me he can still go off into the sunset and have a family if he wants them. Watching my 14 year old throw a large teenage tantrum the other day, his retort was
‘Honey I don’t think I ever want children’.
The difference for me this time is that I can actually imagine us living and building a life together. We’ve tried it out and it works pretty well, much better than my marriage did. For me being with someone means not only loving them but building some kind of a life or a dream together. For me, love is simply not enough, there has to be a concrete world to live in it in. It’s a question of doing a bit of lateral thinking; it may not always be possible to go down the traditional route, and we can’t choose who we fall in love with.
We are both strong, positive, independent people, who compliment each other and so far our problems, have given us respect for each other . There are no control issues involved; he is my inspiration and profoundly supportive of my work.
Before you all start vomiting in disbelief let me add that there are loads of times when we both need space from each other ,(it can be as much as a month apart sometimes), and we don’t even always go on holiday together.. But we trust each other enough to give and take the freedom, and let me just add at this point that it wasn’t me who wrote out the 10 year contract, it was him.
Poets are always addicted to romantic love, at least lyrical poets like me are, so it is perhaps even harder for me to give up the merry go around of dating than it is for him, and frankly I think he was sick of it. So I’m still here on the site listening to you all and replying to messages, I love to chat……….but actually for once in my life I am perfectly happy with what I have, how ever long it lasts,
ten days……a year…….or help……..ten years!!
Victoria Mosley (Siren Song) has two collections of poetry available from Amazon .co.uk The Dry Season (1998) Crazy Love (2002) and a cd downloadable from www.gargeband.com/artist/sublimes . She is currently working on a novel,
‘The Next Best Thing’.
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