Well dan it works both ways unfortunately. Hopefully you will have better luck next time.

Yeah its sux but youre right

I'm with hippie on this issue... hoping that you have better luck next time...

Isn't it terrible we have to hope for luck with our marriage to keep it together?

I wasn't even thinking that far ahead... I was wishing him luck so he could find an honorable woman that won't cheat. If he has a woman with higher morals by his side, he stands a better chance of having a lasting relationship... imo

Luck does not keep any marriage together.

No it doesn't... but two people who have the same ideals and respect each others values stand a better chance of lasting long term... imo

I agree with that Athena. My reply was to hippi.

That's right, pick on the hippie....

I'll share my experience:

My ex-husband started out as a good friend, and we eventually took things to a different physical level. Mutual agreement, and all that, but at the time I was still kind of burned out emotionally from my two most recent prior relationships. All I wanted was some general affection from someone I trusted and cared about, and for a while that's how it was. Eventually he began talking 'relationship' and I kind of had to be talked into it because I wasn't 100% sure we had enough in common to make it work, and I was concerned that trying and failing might doom our friendship to failure as well. We were both in our mid-thirties and tired of 'shopping around'.

Well, we made a pact that if we tried to be a couple and it wasn't working, we'd first try to fix whatever wasn't working and if we found we couldn't, then we'd agree we'd made a mistake and go back to being just friends.

It didn't take too long before we were indeed having problems, but we kept talking about ways to solve them. The problem is, most of the time it never went beyond the talking phase. I'd make changes, and he wasn't so good at making them, which left me frustrated. This doesn't make him a bad guy, but I think he just never really had any models for how to deal with things. His parents had remained married for life, although by the time I met them they'd been sleeping in separate rooms and leading largely separate social lives for years (they were by then in their sixties). Definitely NOT the model of what I wanted!

Despite all the talking, communication was a problem for us. I might talk about what I felt or needed or wanted, and wind up wondering whether he was really listening, and whether he was hearing what I actually said or something else. A lot of the time, it seemed to be something else. And when I'd ask him what he was feeling, or what he needed or wanted, he'd often just shrug and say, "I really don't know."

Ten years of that.

Mind you, he could be a lot of fun to be with. He could also be the most annoying man on the planet. Great guy, but a bit too passive-aggressive for me, because eventually it drove me up the wall as did his temper.

I will say that he did step up to the plate when my elderly father needed care, telling me to bring my dad to live with us, and I could stay home and be his caregiver. "I'll help you," he said. "I have experience in that." So I am forever grateful to him for that, truly.

However, when after four years with us my father's needs finally outstripped our ability to meet and he had to enter a nursing home, I was already near the end of my emotional rope. Just prior to his coming to live with us, my then-husband and I had been having problems and trying to figure out whether we were going to stay together or not. I mean, there was very little physical intimacy (despite my trying to create it) and not nearly as much emotional intimacy as I wanted either. Neither of us was particularly happy, but he was more of the 'status-quo' type than I am, so we were coasting and yet getting frustrated. We put all of that aside and pulled together when Dad needed us, though.

Now, with Dad out of the house, all that frustration was free to well up again. I was writing a story in which two of my characters were a married couple, and found myself in tears one day while writing, as I realized that the way I had them interacting and the type of overtly loving relationship they had was something I was unlikely to ever experience with my husband. That had faded by the end of our third year together, for the most part. No matter how hard I tried, without him giving it equal effort, we weren't going to get anywhere.

It was then I realized I needed to make a change. If things weren't going to improve, I needed to either decide to be okay with that, or end the marriage and find someone more in tune with what I desired.

Don't get me wrong; I still loved my husband. But he didn't seem exactly happy, either. He was just going with the status quo. The status quo was driving me up the wall, and at age 46, I was beginning to feel time's press in terms of finding the right partner for me. We'd never had children, which was a mutual decision, so splitting up wasn't going to disrupt the lives of anyone but our cats (and believe me, we're the kind of crazy people who actually considered staying together for their sake). I finally got up the courage to invoke the 'friendship clause' we'd agreed upon a decade earlier.

I asked him, "Honestly, we haven't had physical intimacy in well over a year, there's no hand-holding, no cuddling, and all you seem to want to share is a peck on the lips each morning and night... If you can look me in the eye and tell me you love me in the romantic sense rather than just in the way you'd love a dear friend or a sibling, great, but can you?"

He thought about it for a long minute, and then said, "I don't know that I can, to be honest."

Well, we talked it out. "I've been trying to build something durable and enduring like my parents had," he said.

"But your parents were living like roommates by the time I met them," I reminded him. "That isn't what I want."

In the end, he agreed that I was probably right. As we were locked into a lease at the time, in a home larger than what we really needed, we lived as roommates ourselves for a while after that - separate bedrooms, individual lives, shared responsibilities and actually quite a lot of socializing together, but we used this time to periodically discuss whether we could fix things. I said it would likely require us to attend counseling together for a while, given that we'd already tried and failed on our own, but he didn't want to do that, so in the end we just parted as friends.

We remain the best of completely platonic friends to this day and I love him like a brother, but I won't say there aren't times when I regret what we lost. Then I wonder how much of that was really something that would have worked to our mutual benefit. He was completely committed to me, and despite not feeling particularly happy, he was willing to spend the rest of our lives together if I hadn't chosen to end the relationship. That's valuable and at times when things haven't gone so well for me with other guys, I've wondered whether I made a mistake. Yet I can't help but feel that he and I both deserve the chance to find a better fit.

Sometimes I just don't know. I suspect I'm not the only person who's had an experience along these lines.

No, you're not the only one, ViaMusica... your story is like looking at parts of my own life too... And after going through that type of experience for 18 years while the best of my life slipped away, it guides my current thinking when it comes to a future relationship, because I'm too old now to give up more of my years to someone if they aren't the right fit and we both know it from the start. That's why it's so important to me that I take things slow with meeting and getting to know someone new. I can't afford to just jump into something I will regret a year or two down the road, then have to put myself out there again. I already know I won't meet anyone in the very small town where I own my home, and it appears almost impossible to meet anyone online other than for just friendship. So, I may not get another chance for love, and the true partnership like you are looking for too. Thank you for sharing your personal story, it helps me to see how much alike we think, and I truly wish you the greatest luck in finding just the right man, the perfect fit for you, as I can see how warm and caring you are, and that you will make one hell of an awesome partner with everything about you that is unique and valuable to an earnest seeker.

What if love doesn't exist outside of our own head's?

Imagine an alien creature without the concepts of our society, how would they respond if you asked them who they loved? I've always figured that if an alien species existed that was vastly superior to our own society that they would not know love nor hate because those concepts have been greatly detrimental to our own society.

Actually, Fear, since I was a child looking at the adult world around me I didn't see love anywhere... accept from my father... he came the closest to actually showing me what his interpretation of love meant to him... sure I heard the words passed back and forth, but without actions to back them up... what are they other than an automated way to appease our vanity? Yes we have feelings we convince ourselves is love, but then again, without positive actions to substantiate the feelings of "love", the feelings are just that... good feelings... I must have been born an alien, that's why I've never fit anywhere, and don't see what other people claim to see... or, I see what others don't... but love? No, I still don't see it in the adult world... not very much...

It's all just theory, no different than love other than I'm saying that love simply doesn't exist outside of our own ego. It gets complicated from there on though, heh. However, the ego presents an interesting range of possibilities, what if this existence is nothing outside of our own ego's creation? What if none of this actually is real and is just a dream?

Ah, what if...It does present valid points though, in so much that it presents that most of all we know to be true outside of physical implications is nothing more than a story book woven from the depths of nothing more than a complex engine known as our own desires. It goes on further, but it is a working concept yet so I haven't really shared much about it.

"what if this existence is nothing outside of our own ego's creation?"

In a way each of our lives are a product of our ego's creation... Not prior to birth, as we have no power over that... but later, after we have the ability to think and do for ourselves... every thought we have, or action we take is based on our own desire and inclination to create our exterior world the way our ego wants us to live it. I dare say that even the people we accept into our lives feeds our egos in some way, and when they take from it more than they give to it, the imbalance causes a rift... wouldn't it be nice if this was really a dream and ultimately we all just fade to black...

I like your ideas, they force me to think much deeper.. to imagine the complexity I must draw the entire picture... what if... yes.. the endlessness of the possibilities... :)

When I think about love, outside of the human experience, like in the animal kingdom, and we see how various species treat their young, and one another, I wonder if they are motivated by "love", the purest most unselfish kind, as they nurture their young, their sick, mourn over their dead... or like my dog, Hammer, when he gives me sugar or cuddles with me, if what he feels is love? Or if what I feel for him is real love? Because there's no selfish motive on either of our parts to seek attention from each other, it just feels right. With humans it seems very conditional... that we'll "love" each other so long as there is something in it for us, besides our biological families, that is...

love??????? what if???????

Well, in my own experience, all I've known are cold, indifferent, vain, shallow and self-absorbed women. Maybe the reason marriage doesn't work anymore is because there are so very few moral and ethical mates left.

hello, dmckinnon... it's nice to make your acquaintance... and welcome to Mingle...I can see the darkness of your experience, and it's a sad state of affairs that it appears to you that we women have become as you describe us, "self absorbed". Unfortunately, we woman have much the same opinion of the men we have experienced too, or there wouldn't be so many of us singles on dating sites looking for the one we think is out there, after we have left a trail of "the ones" in our wake. perhaps both genders opinions of each other are right on the mark... but how can we teach and learn new tricks at our age, when by now most of us are set in our ways? I suppose if the chemistry is strong enough between two people they will be willing to jump through whatever hoops necessary to get and keep that feverish connection alive and growing in their lives... But, the thing of it is, we have to actually feel the prick of that needle in the haystack before we are aware it's even there. I agree, morals and ethics have fallen by the wayside for a lot of people, but not all... at least not yet... who knows what the following generations will bring though. Will there even be marriages? Thank you for allowing me to expound on your thoughts...

And nowadays with all the bad past relationships, hurt feelings, heartache and anger it often takes an earthquake to feel the prick of anything. Dating someone and you also have to deal with everyone else who has ever hurt or wronged them, too. It's not even an adventure anymore—it's more like a job (and not a very enjoyable one, either).

And you think the following generation isn't influenced by what they've seen and experienced in this one? We're not giving them a very good example to follow. "The world is a fine place, and worth fighting for". I agree with the second part. Love is worth fighting for, but it seems these days love is a very hard thing to come by.