The romance writer has become jaded…
Or maybe just SMARTER!
It may have taken me fifty years, thirty-five as an ‘adult’, two marriages, a couple of dozen relationships…and let’s don’t even discuss how many lovers, but I have finally come to an epiphany…
The only people that you love unconditionally are:
Your Children and Yourself!
And that last one is questionable if you are going to use it as an excuse to be an asshole/bitch and grow.
So does that mean that I have given up on TRUE Love? That I don’t believe in relationships and commitment?
Actually just the opposite. Love…REAL, adult, mature love…is about partnership…equality…and reciprocity.
That means you have grown the fuck up enough not to be looking for the ‘perfect’ man…because sister, you ain’t the perfect woman. Instead of a long ass laundry list of all the things you WANT in a man, you take the time to get to know the person…good and bad.
And as cold as this fucking sounds…you balance those out. Are the good things worth enough to outweigh the bad? On the worst day? How about the worst month? Worst year? Worst lifetime even?
Cause sweetie here’s a REAL wake up call…you can’t change a man. Sure you can nag him to death…and push him away, only make it worse. And over time, he may change, grow, mature…but that has little to do with you. That is HIS choice.
So going in, you need to decide is X > or equal to Y, where X = good and Y = negative.
Because here is a dirty little secret…the greatest danger to ‘unconditional’ love is…
You are setting yourself up to be taken for granted, used and abused.
Hear me roar, sisters, any time you think that you love this man and can’t live without him…love him more than you love yourself…you are skating on dangerously thin ice.
Another hard truth is that you don’t REALLY love him at all…you love your fantasy of him.
And that fantasy will take a serious licking over time. It will be worn away and eroded like the great Colorado digging the Grand Canyon. Those little things that you try to gloss over now will not be so easy to ignore in six months…a year…two…five…seven…twenty.
Even if you have to take a fucking piece of paper and draw a line right down the middle. Put a massive + in one column and a – in the other. Then after every single date, text or call, you add to those columns as things come up.
Like I said this is not about perfection…it like every fucking else in this life is about BALANCE. Do those columns balance out for you?
It is also not about right or wrong, good or bad. Because what drives you insane could wind up in another woman’s plus column (like loving Die Hard and X-Men…on my plus column for sure).
The other good thing about this…it gives you perspective. It allows you to see...am I putting more into this than she or he is? That is a biggie…a REAL negative…and a warning sign.
You need to pull back. Of course, if he or she is REAL, then they step up their game…and things go on…on more EQUAL footing.
And if NOT, grab a bottle of Jack or Jose or Jim or whatever, take your list and your best friend. Get drunk and read every last negative on it…over and over again as you drink. You’ll wake up the next morning with a hell of a hang over, but I bet you will be over him or her…and ready to get back in that saddle in record time.
Cause the truth is ONE day, SOMEDAY, there will be some one whose positives outweighs their negatives, who sees just how special you are and invests just as much into things as you do.
Until then….until your head gives your heart the all clear signal…Protect yourself. And even then remember never love someone else more than you love yourself…as much as…maybe for the right one…if he or she reciprocates. Then you have got yourself a good thing…a REAL keeper. A partner and an equal.
Oh and HELL yeah this applies to Doms too…MORE SO…because of the power they hold over you.
That is not cold, calculating or cynical.
Tara Cox - Literary Erotica 