Unrequited Love Blog

The post title is a reference to the movie with Gwyneth Paltrow, where the film follows two separate plot lines for the same life, depending on whether Gwyneth makes a train or the door slides shut in front of her.  I’ve been thinking on and off about what it might have been like for Jessica to have been with me rather than her husband.  Now I know she wasn’t interested and it was never going to happen, but if we could all just agree to suspend our disbelief for a while, here we go…

I think about her being Catholic, how she would never have been able to have the wedding she may have dreamt about since she was a child.  I wonder if her faith combined with being in a same-sex relationship would have been a struggle for her, for her parents and siblings, for her extended community.  That kind of thing can be very subtle, people (especially Catholics, in my opinion) can be very capable of lovingly accepting homosexuality in others but never in themselves or close loved ones, it would be felt to be a compromise.  If she had been with me, would I have been taking her away from her community in a subtle but devastating way?

I will never make the kind of money most well-educated men seem to make.  I seem to top out at around $70K.  In my area, it’s lower middle-class liveable, nothing more.  I would not have been able to offer a large house in the suburbs, expensive vacations, a certain level of comfortable respectability, or stay-at-home motherhood.

This is really what has been on my mind, more fundamentally.  How could I consider taking children away from her?  Sure, children can be adopted or test-tubed, but they would not be our children.  And I don’t think we could afford for her to stay home with them.  More importantly, they (Jessica and any children) would not be wrapped in the warmth of heterosexual privilege, of unquestioned approval and support, all those subtle messages saying they are doing the right thing, socially and spiritually.  With me, would she be lonely, unhappy, feel vulnerable?  At some deep level feel the life she had was somehow less than? I mean, I’m pretty sure she wants kids, and how could I possibly deny her that, in its fullest form?  I have a picture of the child of my Spouse’s friend, the baby happens to have Jessica’s hair color and eye color.  He is such a beautiful child, how could I even think of taking such a child away from Jessica?

I know I gravitate toward biological explanations for social behavior, I know this about myself.  I can’t help but feel that people are supposed to pair-bond, to mate and make babies together, to create a family.  That the family is the place from which we intertwine with the world, and the place from which we defend against it.  And I wouldn’t want Jessica to have anything less than this Eden-before-the-fall, this enduring fable.

The life I could have offered her may not have been the life she deserved.  I wouldn’t want her to have to compromise her faith, or question its integrity.  I wouldn’t want her to have to struggle for money or feel she had to leave her child in the care of well-meaning strangers.  I wouldn’t want her and her child to ever feel they didn’t belong.

*Door slides shut, she’s gone.*

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Well, I have, actually.  I have emailed a couple of friends, who don’t live in the area.  But I don’t talk with anyone locally about my feelings or my blog.  For one thing, it just feels too risky to me, I can’t have anything getting around about “Professor {my name} really wanted this student, she tried to talk to her but the student wasn’t interested” — basically gaining me a negative and predatory reputation, even if that wasn’t the intent of the gossipers.  For another thing, after a while people just don’t want to hear about this stuff.  I don’t mention too much in my emails anymore, at least not about Jessica or this blog.  I do still talk about my marriage/divorce, of course.

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The impression on my ring finger from my wedding ring has almost faded away.  We’re fixing up the house, preparing to place it on the market this summer.  Spouse and I are still getting along, still cuddling at night (which is a comfort), and talking with each other about our daily lives.

I’m becoming more anxious about my finances post-divorce, my ability to purchase a decent condo in a neighborhood that I want to live in.  It’s all so overwhelming.  I feel loved by my Spouse, and love her in return, and I think again if I am making the right decision or not.  Will I regret it?  Am I being self-indulgent, immature, unrealistic?

I can only hope to find another woman who I have more in common with and a strong sexual attraction to, but even then it won’t be Spouse.  It will be someone else.  I will love someone else and so will Spouse.  I feel sad and scared.  I won’t have the same emotional relationship with someone else, which is good in some ways but there are things I will miss –  Spouse takes care of me emotionally and to some extent practically in ways that no one else will likely do.  Spouse sort of acts like I am her child, but in a way that feels good to me.  She worries about my diet and health, she brings me food or something to drink, she understands how I “work” emotionally, my vulnerabilities and assumptions.  Could be that no one else will be with me in these same ways.  It will be a new relationship with different ways of working together emotionally.  Will I feel lonely?  Will I ever miss Spouse?

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My Spouse is busy telling me she thinks I need to grow up.  That I want this grand passionate love that is essentially a child’s fantasy, the fantasy of an innocent.  She says my innocence is a large part of what she loves about me, and what will ultimately break us apart.

Spouse clearly comes down on the side of stable, companionate love where de-stabilizing passion is naturally minimized over time, and/or does not really exist in the first place.  Certainly, she sees passion as  not a reason to end a marriage, to alter a life course you committed to.  She keeps emphasizing my age, i.e., I’m too old to be having a wild sexual/dating life, I’m pursuing a fantasy more appropriate to someone in their twenties.

It’s so confusing to know what to make of everything.  Spouse may be right.  Although Therapist says Spouse and I do not really share enough values or interests in life to be truly compatible.  Therapist does seem to perceive Spouse as very much being dependent on me, taking advantage of me financially and emotionally/motivationally.  Of course, Therapist doesn’t say this, but intimates it.

Certainly I’m very concerned with my age, feeling too old to be going through all this shit.  I can’t believe I’ve gotten so old.  Just wait, you won’t believe it when it happens to you, either.  One day I was in my early 30s, the next day I was in my late 30s, and suddenly I’m in my early 40s, clearly moving past the age that most people find women sexually attractive.  Sure, I’m scared I won’t ever have a good relationship again.  Sure, I’m afraid I’m sort of fading into the wood-work (the background).  But still, I hate the house, can’t live this way any more, don’t at all believe Spouse will ever be able to change her messiness.  I’m bored, I hate the suburbs.  I’m incredibly sexually focused, more so than I’ve ever been in my life and I had a moderately high sex drive to begin with.  I’ll be god-damned if I’ll sit around not having sex the rest of my life, or forcing myself to have sex with someone that I love but simply am not sexually attracted to.

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Just thought I’d share that I’m feeling sad again today. Depressed, really. I think it’s related to my upcoming divorce and feeling unattractive and alone. I’m thinking a little about Jessica and trying not to. I’m more aware she is likely starting a family, she will be pregnant any day now (if she’s hasn’t already had a baby) and really moving forward with her life, and I really need to not be thinking about her. Even my thinking about her feels intrusive (towards her, I mean).  I really need to not be thinking about a pregnant, married woman.

And I can feel depression on the heels of love, I can feel it coming. It’s partly wrapped up in not being able to be with or get to know Jessica, but bigger than that, too. The bone-weary, depleted, tears-in-my-throat sort of feeling of being disappointed in life, disappointed in myself, having the veils of self-delusion ripped away by reality. “What? Romance? Listen, you’re not that hot. Face it, you’re middle-aged. You really should of just kept what you had. You can’t afford a decent place in the city, anyway. Your dog is a huge problem (and certainly doesn’t win you friends). You’ll be poor and alone, instead of just poor.”

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