Hey I will warn you now, I’m writing this after the below, and the below is a really long post…!
Thank you, @lobotomyboy63, good food for thought. I’ll take it a piece at a time…
As to ‘that had to hurt terribly…’ yes sir it sure as hell did. I played a little QB in my younger days and I describe it to others like I’m dropping back to pass and then I get blind-sided by Lawrence Taylor (the NY Giants hall of famer), and he breaks several of my ribs. Completely unseen and unheard, completely out of the blue. BLAMMO!! And now it only hurts when I breathe.
I like the Oscar Wilde quote. The truth is rarely plain and never simple. Nice one.
Good question, about if my wife’s old boyfriend from 40 years ago reaches out to contact her. Yes I would be fine if she wanted to get together with him once, to catch up. I’d definitely feel better if I came along and joined them, sure, you bet I would. But yes I’d be okay if she went alone for the first time – I can see them having a more meaningful conversation. I would not be okay if they continued to meet together, alone. Definitely not okay.
Marriage is a trust, a word given to each other. It is at the same time very brittle and easily broken, and also very strong as in nothing can break this bond that we have, this love we have for each other. Every day when my wife steps out the door, she could run into someone she used to date, or someone she finds very attractive. The same goes for me too. I could meet someone randomly, out of the blue.
I was always a one-woman man. One girlfriend at a time. When things needed to end, I’d end it or she would. If we had troubles then we’d try to work it out. Sometimes we did, and sometimes we did not and then we went our separate ways – usually with one of us being a little farther down the ‘we need to break up’ path, and the other one catching up to that path and usually a bit more hurt.
To me, dating is a test drive for marriage. I loved the process of finding out more about her , about who she is, and about who she thinks that she is which may be something different from who she really is. And I liked to process of discovering myself in a relationship, who I was when I was with (dating) that girl, and who we are together. I enjoyed that process of discovery.
I learned early that love isn’t just feelings. It’s a decision. It is a choice. It is a commitment. Or not. There’s usually an early phase of early lusty attraction, and then that attraction would settle into a deeper kind of love. Or it wouldn’t sometimes.
And I always believed in being up front with her, early on in a friendship / relationship, about what my feelings were, that I liked her and that I wanted to see more of her. Some girls got blown away by that kind of conversation. They were used to more of the ‘let’s see where our feelings take us but we don’t have to talk about it’ kind of developments.
After my first marriage ended I did not date for quite some time. I was a different person, after a 10-12 year marriage, and I hadn’t dated since before that marriage. But more important I was a father and my kids were injured too. I had to make sure that they were okay, that we were okay as a newly-configured team. Did I want to get laid? Sure I did. We all have our physical needs. But what was most important was the mental health of my kids. They were 12, 10, and 8 then. Two boys and the youngest is my precious girl. They needed to know that this wasn’t their fault, that I loved them and always would, and also that their mother loved them.
And I wanted to make sure that she would continue being a mother to our kids. I didn’t want to give her more than she was ready to handle, but damned straight I wanted my kids to have a loving relationship with their mother. I didn’t want them to be abandoned by her, any more than she already had.
So it took quite a bit of time for that process to gel.
Then I started to date. And there’s this one lady I want to share about. She has nothing to do with sister golden hair. We were friends at work and I knew she liked me. She was a little older, me I was 35 and she was 45, but damn she was a hot 45 for 45!
That cool song by the Hollies is now singing in my head…
A pair of 45s made me open my eyes
My temperature started to rise
Ooh she was a long cool woman in a black dress
Just a 5’9”, beautiful and tall…
She was quite curvaceous, in all the right ways. A little awkward, perhaps, in her mannerisms and kind of school marmy in a way. Think of Marian the Librarian in the movie The Music Man – Shirley Jones. But this lady was very curvy, and not heavy set curvy. She had ample curves north and south, and in between she had a small waist. Truth be told, she would later confide with me that she had had breast augmentation some years back. And her surgeon did a masterful job. Big and plump, firm, but not too big. And the junk in her trunk, well, it was ample but not Sir Mix-a-Lot big. But pleasantly ample. OK, you get the picture.
I bring her up because sometimes I can be too analytical in my relationships. Here’s how …
We hadn’t started dating yet but we would hang out, and nothing at all happening between us. We were friends. And she had a son and she helped me with the kids because I’d describe what was going on and with her experience she’d share her words of wisdom.
Well, one night the fireworks got lit. And I mean really lit, but I’ll get to that. We had had some dinner, it was a Friday after work, and then we went to a quiet bar and enjoyed some conversation. And then she asked if I liked to listen to music and we went to this place she knew of, a bar with a band that was playing. And we started to dance to some rock music. As we moved and swayed to the music we got closer and the electricity between us was definitely palpable. After dancing for a while and our touching got more meaningful, I asked if we could step outside. It was a cool night, a late fall night in northern California where it’s about 55 or so. Outside the bar, on the sidewalk, we start kissing and it quickly got heated and very passionate. She lifted one leg and wrapped it behind me.
At one point (remember, we’re on the sidewalk just outside that bar) a couple of guys were walking past us. I didn’t see them but I heard them talking as they approached, and then they stopped talking as they got closer, and as they passed us one of the guys said in a quiet and deep voice, he said a simple, “Whoa!” Not loud, just emphatic. And then I imagined how we looked to others out there, to the public.
“Can we go to your place?” I asked. Her place was much closer than mine. She didn’t say anything, she just looked at me and smiled and nodded.
I’ll spare the details as we headed to the car, and drove over there, hands all over, and eventually we made our way from the basement parking lot to the elevator, and how we were passionately kissing inside the elevator…
I guess it was like one of those steamy passionate novels. I’d never read one but we were writing a winner of one that night.
We get inside and we’ve been kissing non-stop, again our hands are all over each other, and we start carefully but hurriedly and excitedly removing each other’s clothing. It was a trail of clothes between the front door and the bed.
(Now, I’m not doing this to get anyone excited, but damn I am getting excited!) 
We grapple on the bed and then all of a sudden I put on the brakes. Really I do.
I put on the brakes.
I had many thoughts in my head (my big head, not the little one). And I tell her that I didn’t have any condoms. She said she didn’t either. I’m thinking safe sex, and I’m thinking it for both of us. I tell her that I’ve been only with one woman for the last 12 years, and I’d been with nobody else, I was completely faithful to her. There’s no way I could have HIV or any other communicable diseases, or any STDs – but I don’t say that part, it would’ve been too crude, but that was the unsaid message. And then she proceeds to tell me that she hadn’t been with anyone in several (I don’t remember exactly the number) years.
Of course we couldn’t take any test for STDs, and we were friends and coworkers in a small company so in that sense we had built up some trust with each other. At that point we had worked together for about 2 years.
Remember, we’re buck naked on the bed, sweaty and rapid heart beats and all that. But we’re having this conversation that I am driving…
I tell her that I had a vasectomy a few years back. There’s no way she would get pregnant. I tell her I want to have unprotected sex with her (not those words, they were better words than that but that’s the essence of it), and that I wanted her without any protection. And would that be okay with you?
This isn’t exactly the place and time and manner to have a negotiation discussion, but that’s kind of what we were having right then and there. And we weren’t exactly completely objective about the topic being discussed. We were hot and horny for each other and we wanted to Jump. Each. Other’s. Bones. Right. Then. And. There.
But the little time out lasted a few minutes, and we agreed to proceed.
Sure as shit that’s how it happened, IIRC. And we picked right up where we left off, me hard as a wooden dowel and she moist and wet and ready as a warm blanket.
Alright well you can figure out the rest, and man oh man it was great, but the main point I wanted to make was about being analytical, in some sense, about relationships.
And I have to admit I enjoyed that walk down memory lane. That was some of the best and wildest sex that I’ve ever had. No, strike that, that was definitely the best and wildest sec I’d ever had up to that point in my life. We dated for some months and we enjoyed each other’s company. In many places and in many ways.
Okay, time to splash some cold water on my face, figuratively…
Where was I? Oh yes, replying to your post.
(and gee I hope I didn’t break any SDMB rules just then; mods, please forgive and please enlighten me if that is the case)
But yeah, I can be analytical, yes. Love has strong emotions and passions, for sure, but I think feelings can come and go. But it’s the decision to wake up every day and to love her, to me that’s key. I refer of course to my wife.
And so, your post. You raise some good points.
With my ex-wife and with my kids, I had to get over my anger quickly. And I didn’t want to express that anger around or with my kids. She is their mom, after all. I fought early to always take the high road, even though I wanted to hate her I fought myself and forced myself to realize that I’d always be seeing her. Graduations, sports events, dance performances.
Once she needed to go out and she arranged for a sitter. When I found out about that we talked, and I asked her if it’d be okay if she always gave me the right of first refusal – if I was available, I’d rather be the one to watch the kids. And of course I was the cheaper option too. And from that point onward she did, even though we lived about an hour’s drive apart.
I was still angry but I swallowed my anger, for the sake of the kids. I vented my anger elsewhere, with friends, or with that hot lady from work.
About that hot lady from work, well, she and I had it great for some time but it’s not like I went wild and saw a lot of women. I dated a little bit, but I did not want to take my kids on a roller coaster ride emotionally. As far as my kids knew, that hot coworker and I were just friends. They had no idea it was ever more than that.
I really tried to protect my kids. Really. I had friends, mostly women, who had told me at that time that I never went through a ‘I hate all women’ phase. Like I guess most guys do? Or many guys do? Hell if I know. But anyway I never did. In the end I felt sorry for my ex-wife.
She and I used to argue about finances. We were broke. I didn’t make much. And she didn’t have a job outside the house. She stayed home and raised the kids. She was there for them in the morning as they went to school, and also after school. And to me that was more valuable than anything. So I will always be grateful for that.
But the ironic thing is that when we split up, my career changed and it really took off. And she will never know how good things could have been, financially speaking. But that’s okay, once my career started taking off, my brothers and family said to me, why don’t you tell her how well you are doing? To try to attract her back.
No way, Jose! If she wasn’t going to stick with me when things were tough, I sure as hell didn’t want her with me when things were getting good. That’s not how I build a team. I used to tell her that, one day, we’d look back on these tough times and we’d laugh because we would be so much better off. I guess it didn’t happen fast enough for her. Oh well.
Now I’m rambling, let me get back to your post, sir.
Yes I do get along with my ex-wife now. She remarried, and all four of us get along pretty well. We’re not great buddy-buddy friends, but we are much more than ‘just civil’. We’ve had dinners together. We’ve had each other over to our houses. When we see each other at graduations and whatnot, we will sit together. My dentist is near where she lives, and so I get up that way at least 2x a year. I try to meet her for lunch afterwards. And we catch up on things. Her husband’s health isn’t great so she has some challenges. I empathize. I support her, at least emotionally and with some good advice if I have it. We text each other on birthdays and holidays. I’ve gotten over my anger. And I worked towards that really, for the benefit of the kids. The kids are now 36, 34 and 32, and they are doing great. They have some personal issues to work through but all in all they are really good people. I’m proud of them and proud of that. And we are friends now, at this stage.
So, like your sister, I guess we’ve got some similarities. And no, I never want to get back together with her. Not at all.
I have my wife and my life, and my wife loves me and I love her. We are committed to each other.
Man, sorry dude, this was one loooooong post.
Oscar Wilde #2, “Marriage is the triumph of imagination over intelligence. Second marriage is the triumph of hope over experience.” Such gems!
One of these days I need to brag about my wife, and also how great she is with my kids. She doesn’t want to replace their mother, not at all. She has a good place in their lives.
Hey, thanks for hanging in there with me, if you made it this far. I hope it wasn’t too long of a trudge across a hot, dry desert for you!
