Unrequited Love Blog

Last night I had a dream about Jessica.  It was like we were all in high school, only I was either a late arrival or more like a graduate student or teacher’s aide or something.  A bit on the outside.  Anyway, Jessica was there, and she was so attractive, I felt such longing for her.  But she had a longterm boyfriend.  Jessica (and her friends) knew I was in love with her.  Jessica felt flattered but removed, and didn’t know what to do with my feelings.  She told her friends something like “yes, I know she’s interested but I’m with John.”  I felt so sad and bereft.

Dreams are often the way that inconvenient or inappropriate sexual attractions first announce themselves to me.  Like, if I develop sexual feelings toward a patient I won’t know it until I have a sexual dream about them, or when I fell in love with a close friend of mine.

My love for Jessica first announced itself in a dream, as well.  It was shortly after the end of the semester, just after I received the first email from her.  I really wasn’t all that conscious of my feelings or what was going on with me.  I felt viscerally pleased when I read the email, and flattered, but that was about all I was aware of.  I shared the email with my Spouse.  That night I had a dream that somehow I was giving her a ride home in my car, and it became clear to me that she was sexually interested in me, sort of curious or intrigued about being with a woman.  She said something like “I’m curious about how sex with a woman works,” and I said something like “Yes, I got that, I thought that you were.”  And we were getting along really well, enjoying each other’s company.  We went to my home, to a sort of a sunken living room/bedroom area.  Suddenly we were in pajamas on the bed and unsure how to start things.  I was feeling I’m not sure if this is going to work or not.  She was sort of laying on her stomach, and I was on the bed behind her, and I just bent down and kissed the back of her neck.  She moaned, and I felt my anxiety melt into tentative sexual arousal.  She turned over, I kissed her, and suddenly whether things were going to work or not was not an issue, I knew sex was going to work fine between us, be good, and I felt much more strongly and confidently sexual.  But then my Spouse’s mother walked into the room, and say Hi or something, and interrupted us.  Suddenly, Jessica was not there anymore, and my Spouse walked into the room.  A saw a sort of mannequin of Jessica in another room, later, and felt sad and empty.  She wasn’t real or alive to me anymore.  I felt annoyed with my Spouse’s mother for her intrusion, and very sad at losing Jessica.

The next afternoon I told my Spouse “I was so god-damn grateful that student Jessica wrote me a nice email that I had a sexual dream about her.”  Spouse laughed.  I swear I still wasn’t fully getting that I had fallen in love, or even that I was so strongly interested in Jessica.

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I am so pissed Jessica changed her name. Why did she do that? Many to most women with educational levels of college grad or higher don’t do that, they keep their own name. It really upsets me. I’ve been thinking about it and wondering why this in particular upsets me, and here’s what I’ve come up with…

1. It makes her marriage more real to me (this is an obvious one).
2. I’m disappointed she took the more traditional path of changing her name.  Does she feel she has to absolutely merge identities with the guy?  What’s wrong with her name, what’s wrong with keeping her name?  Apparently, she has ploddingly conventional thoughts and beliefs (unfair and possibly untrue, but spite wins out for now)
3. It feels like the woman I knew (“Jessica Smith”) has died, leaving only this new woman (“Jessica Jones”) in her place, who kind of looks like Jessica but isn’t really the same person.  It makes her metaphorical death (as she transitions from single to married) much more real to me, my grief is stronger, my understanding that the Jessica I knew sort of no longer really exists.  There is actually a particular form of mental illness where the person believes those close to her have been somehow secretly replaced, like by robots or pod-people.  They look the same but are not the same.  It’s a relatively rare form of psychosis.  Anyway, I feel a little bit like that — even if (when) I see Jessica out in public, it won’t really be her, only her shell or ghost or something.  Well, many people have said love is a form of psychosis, like a mild delusional disorder.  Those of you who might tend to take things too literally — I am not psychotic, I do not really believe Jessica has been replaced by a stranger.  It just feels that way.

It feels like once a woman is married, she has crossed an invisible line.  Certainly from available to unavailable, that is straight-forward enough.  But it also feels like a married woman has crossed from freedom, independence, life, possibility, emotional expressiveness, to relative sedateness, conventionality, emotional control and containment.  In the best of marriages I don’t think this really happens this way, but most marriages take place without thinking too deeply about how their lives will change.  Mine certainly happened that way.  I didn’t think too deeply about how marriage would change my life, would change me. I just found myself living in the suburbs, financially strapped, bored, unhappy, and somehow “dead” inside despite having a loving wife, a reasonable house, dogs and cats I loved, supportive in-laws I loved…

Obviously I’m still thinking about her.  Not really crazy in love anymore, but I suppose a lot is still there.

Please offer comments…

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Had Thanksgiving dinner with spouse at in-law’s house.  Felt distant, thought about Jessica all day.  I felt emotionally flat in the current context.  Not exactly that I did not have any emotions toward spouse and in-laws, but that my connections seem much less intense, more vague, less real than the connection with Jessica that is going on in my head.  The fantasies I’m having about Jessica are clearly fantasies, spun out stories of what a life with her might be like.  I have ideas of what her family would be like, she has siblings, at least one older sister (again, in my fantasies, I have no idea about reality) who is supportive of us.  Her mother is a fairly strong figure in my fantasies.  She is difficult, angry I am not a man, angry I took Jessica away from her fiance, but her irritability with me is largely bluster.  Jessica’s mother and I verbally spar back and forth, but there is an undercurrent of acceptance coming from her mother.

This is interesting.  My spouse’s parents have been wonderfully accepting and supportive.  Mother-in-law had more difficulty with the same-sex thing at first, but she’s always been great to me – loving, accepting, buys me clothing along with buying her daughter clothing.  I really like my father-in-law.  He is gruff, Republican, but has always been accepting and warm, loveable.  So, why do I need a fantasy of a whole new set of in-laws with Jessica?  Why do I spar with her mother instead of being overtly accepted and accepting?  Something about the level of energy in the sparing dynamic is appealing to me…closeness without simplicity?

Thinking about her 95% of the time.

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Had Thanksgiving alone with in-laws, spouse was visiting a friend out of town.  I had a good time, felt comfortable.  Felt my mother-in-law was hinting about not cheating, though, she kept mentioning a book she is reading about Frank Lloyd Wright having an affair and how shitty everyone around him thought it was. 

Spouse has been talking with her parents all along about our difficulties, basically telling her mother we will probably be breaking up. 

I have never cheated on anyone.  Well, there was that one time but that was a long time ago and it was with a man and it was a one-time thing and it kinda sucked and therefore I don’t think it should really count.

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