Hello all,

I have read the Love Goddess section for quite a while and I must say that it is, as many have said, the best kept secret around TER. It is very helpful!

So, I would like to get some words of wisdom from the LG and the community, since I am aware that there are some gentlemen that have gone through divorce, or worse, losing her wife. I am definitely not as seasoned since I have never been married.

My question actually has to do more with love and has nothing to do with providers!

Maybe I should start with a very personal story, to which the question is directly related:

I am a guy that will soon be in his thirties, and have always been single.  Some years ago I met this girl that seemed ok to be around, it was definitely not love at first sight. We met at grad school, and both of us were studying, working and very far away from our families, so we had a lot in common. By getting to know her, I did develop a special connection to her. I know it sounds cheesy, but it is true, I don't know how else to describe it. And to be completely honest I did let myself go, and so I was more in love than she was with me. Or at least I felt it that way.

Things went ok and then headed south, she became depressed, and didn't let me know what was the reason. To make matters worse,  she had some family problems. (It seems that her grandmother was terminally ill, and since she was very far away her family didn't tell her the whole story. I know because she told me her symptoms and my dad passed away exactly the same way, but I didn't have the heart to tell her and I later talked to her and she told me her grandma had indeed passed away =(   )

All of this was in Europe, and I quickly had to make a career decision whether to come back to the US or stay there (with a not so promising career).

I told her that I definitely wanted to stay and asked her if she was willing to give it a shot, but sadly she said no, that it was all a huge misunderstanding and that there wasn't ever any romantic interest at all . You may think that I may have had imagined it all, but the last time we saw each other when I left her there were hugs and tears and we just kept prolonging the good bye as much as we could.

Now, several years later, in hindsight, it seems to me that if I wanted be with her and possibly get married the only way would have been for me to experience the whole burden of the relationship possibly for a long time. What I mean is this: I would have had to sacrifice my career, stay and then if she actually was telling the truth and she was not interested in me romantically speaking, work hard to try to convince her.

Now the interesting part is that I actually talked to a guy in his 50's under exactly the same circumstances, it seems when he was young, he was interested in a girl that was reluctant at first but s\he did manage to convince her to go out and eventually get married. Even though they did, when the guy reached his 50s he told me he didn't feel loved now by her wife and that there hadn't been any sex at all in 3 years time. This didn't lead to providers but did lead to cheating. Goes to show you that maybe if you get what you want you may not like it in the end So I decided to leave it as it was.

So my question to all is this:

Have you guys, specially the ones who have been married for long, made this kind of sacrifices for being with the person you love? Far from being a perfect match, everyone I have talked to about this, who is married says that they had to. I have talked to a guy that did not go to the school he wanted because the lady didn't want to go with him. As a matter of fact I have a friend that is finishing her PhD and she just got married. They are not US citizens, so the guy can't work and can't study since he speaks little English, so in my eyes, the whole burden of the marriage (love, providing sustenance and developing her career) is entirely upon her shoulders, and this will be for several years in the future.

Is this always the case? Are there any guys (or ladies) out there that have actually found a partner that has done more than her part to make things work out? I understand that maybe this place is not the one to ask, but I am still curious to what people have to say.

I am asking because now I have been fortunate enough to date several ladies (several years younger than me) and most, if not all, don't expect to work hard for this and to put it plainly they just don't see it.

In hindsight, it seems to me that if I wanted to be with someone I love, from what I have lived so far, I would have had to sacrifice a lot, just to have a chance at it and it would be an uneven share of the load. And even then, it may not lead to my happiness To me it seems the choices I have had regarding living with a person that I love is: to pursue my career alone or to sacrifice it all (career, family, friends) in order to be with a person that may or may not be worth it.  Has it been such a leap of faith for you guys and gals?

The very few ladies that I have dated haven't shown me that they have considered this at all.

And to finally put an erotic spin in all of this, and that is actually why I posted in here, it seems that even though I had a connection with this person, we may eventually have turned out with very different sexual behaviors and that would have certainly frustrated me. And I probably just would have lived that frustration.

Was this a long rant and non-sense?

Would like to hear what the community has to say.

Well Mac, I had been married for over 19 years, and believe me, I did in fact contribute more than
my fair share to the relationship, and then in the end, It was I who in fact, gained the courage
to see who I was, and what I was doing to myself
in the name of LOVE! I was not allowed to Love me,
but rather, I was there to love her, Can we say
mule? LOL

So my answer to your very mature observations,
is that yes, many couples are very unhappy with
there present relationships. If you were to inquire of both parties, The facts are, that both
individuals, are going to say, that they feel as if they have contributed more than there fair share!

Love is such a general word, and all to often,
an individual, can see others faults, but lacks
a good view of him/herself, and what there real
contribution is to a relationship.

We get into relationships, primary reason in most
cases, to gain what we lack in ourselves, emotionally.
We are looking for that other person, to compensate for what we as an emotional individual
is lacking, call it need, or lack of worth.
But after a few broken relationships, an individual begins to know internally, Who he or she is, in an emotional sense.

It is then, that real maturity begins to shape us
and make us wiser, and more emotionally balanced,
but in most cases, not emotionally complete.
I am sure that the love goddess, and some of the
others may be able to put all this into a more
understandable format. But I am sure that there
answers will reflect the same sediment as I am now
addressing.

Alot of what we give, emotionally, stems on how
we were raised, as children, The family has a lot
to do with how we are, and who we seek as a mate,
at least in our early relationships, but later when we are wiser, and have a greater view of self
worth, we are less prone to settle for any thing less than what we feel we are worth.
As well, we are not as likely to contribute as much, without at least getting what we desire or
deem important to us, from that relationship.

I can speak for many who have dared to leave an
unhappy marriage, and say, that given a choice,
I would rather be single, and lonely at times,
versu be in a relationship, in which I am lonely,
and unhappy, emotionally unfulfilled, and trapped
by my own neediness, as well as trapped by other
external pressures too.
When we are younger, relationships, such as marriage, is viewed as something of a fairly tale,
when we get married, we don't look down the road
and expect to get divorced.
But once around the block, and then we realize that love and life are not a fairy tale, we as
now more mature individuals are greatly more emotionally aware, Of self, and as well as others.

Really Mac, I could go on for a long time, in an
effort to attempt to answer your question, but
the fact is that relationships, come and go, and the real task, is to love oneself deeply enough
and completely enough, that we would not require
a love relationship, But then again, are we ever
emotionally complete? as an individual?
I think that by way of the human race, from the time of the cave dwellers and so on, we were meant to be social,
caring and emotionally drawn toward others.
Then add in the DNA, and other factors, and then
you have a very complex mix of you and I, and others, none of us are exactly alike, but we share
more in common than you would realize.
In a sense, we need each other, so as to further
the human race, its just that we are all unique
enoough, that we have to realize what our needs are as individuals, and then find that partner who
has needs that match up to our own needs.
Call it attempting to find two unbalanced people
to balance out each other.

In more mature individuals, they are more emotionally balanced, and aware, to the extent,
that there is less he said/she said taking place,
as each individual takes ownership of their needs,
thoughts and actions.

I know that even though I have recently posted
a thread, in which confusion and pain was present,
I reached out, to others, because I had some doubt
as to what was taking place.
Call me emotionally vulerable, but believe me, I
have worked long and hard to become who I am.
A better individual, at least I think so.

Here is a thought for us to ponder, if we all were
placed on islands, each to our own, would we desire to continue to survive? Would we eventually
evolve into hermits? without emotional need,
without need for social interaction?

That is an original deep thought coming from
me! and I don't care to know the answer, because
I have been to long on an island, isolated from
much of what I see as happiness in living life.

I am taking the next boat off the island, and getting away from this island, that I call the hobby, because I realize that  I no longer need
the hobby to be fulfilled, as an individual.

Trooper!

I wonder if you are considering trying to strike up the old flame with this gal from long ago.

In any case, there are two possibilities:

One, is that she felt for you the way you felt for her, but that she knew your career would be sytmied if you remained with her so she gave you the old "It's not you, it's me." routine and sent you off.

The second possibility is that you had a case of old fashioned unrequited love.

I think the second is the more common, but you just never know.

One thing I do know is that we never have to be prisoners of our desires.

I think it was Steve Stills who said it best;

"If you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with."

Even if that is just little old you.

Good luck with this, which ever way you choose.

Dear mac666er,

The answers to your questions will definitely be as varied as there are individuals on this planet.
It is truly impossible to give a "prescription" or a general comment to your questions, because every marriage, commitment and relationship are truly unique.

It is also sometimes futile to attempt to reconstruct a relationship from something incomplete - it all becomes spurious projection.

For those in long-term relationships who are able to retrospect, it can become an exercise in "could'a, should'a, would'a," rather than a realistic assessment of the relationship where BOTH PARTIES give their input.

From a personal standpoint - and it's VERY personal - I can tell you that I've had relationships where I gave more and sometimes the other person did, although when I was IN the relationship, I didn't see it that way. In terms of successful predictors of a marriage, researchers have identified a few factors, namely these:
Profound respect for the other individual in the relationship
Ability to forgive
Desire and ability to compromise
Desire and ability to maintain equality in the relationship.

Note how sex is conspicuously absent in these factors. If you really are interested, check out John Gottman's research. He is a groundbreaking scientist who studied marital interactions of couples willing to submit to research in his clinic. I've seen tapes of couples studied in his "marriage clinic" and it's truly amazing to see how the smallest frown, the tiniest gesture can contain the seeds to either further or dissolve the marriage.

So, in terms of the ladies you've been seing: ask yourself if you can apply any of the above to your relationships with them. If not - I say walk.

Enjoy the reading,
the Love Goddess

In my most recent past, the relationship was lacking two of these componets that you list.
Profound respect of me the individual,
Desire and ability  to compromise.
So I walked! LOL

Again, thank you so much!
Trooper!

Perhaps the better question is "how does the person you want respond to sacrifice?"  I gave a lot in the beginning only to find out sacrifice does not mean a lot to my SO.  Now we have a child and I feel so trapped.  I have realized I have turned off my own desires and become solely focused on my SO's needs, wants, and how my actions realted to her.  I basically learned to ignore my own wants and desires.  I am learning to focus more on me.  Not sure what the outcome will be with my SO.

Well Southern man, I hope the best for you! I was in a marriage for 19 years, and what happened to me, was the same as what happened to you, almost all of my emotions, and focus was upon maintaining my wife's needs, and yes ignoring my
own, and then when I began to feel so trapped,
and after comtemplating taking my own life to get out of the situation, the power of self sustaining
need, kicked in, and I got enough courage, to
divorce. I got my ass beat to a pulp by her, during and after the marriage, but I repaired
the damage to the best that I was able, and became
a whole man again.

Now I have had to struggle with the same situation
with an ATF provider, who loves me, but once again
I got myself into a very unhealthy situation.
But considering that there is not as much to lose
this time around, walking away will be much less
painful and expensive as opposed to my past marriage.

Good Luck to you! and remember to take care of YOU!