No sex for a while...

In relationships, why is it so easy to remember the man we fell in love with but so difficult to appreciate the man we are in love with?  When we first meet, all the right things happen.  Our palms sweat, our heart beats faster and we stumble over our words.  Once love takes hold so does reality and the dreamy, perfect man you first met slowly starts to become human.  When did we go from Pretty Woman to Judge Judy?

My friend Kevin met his lover when he was thirty.  They spent years traveling the world, accumulating wealth and having amazing sex.   Eventually his lover wanted to settle down and live the calm life.  It was eight years later; Kevin is now in his late thirties, in a sexless relationship and cruising men whenever he can.  Is companionship something we settle for?  And after years of making love to the same person does it really get boring?  Like a successful ice cream stand, is a relationship that works about having variety?

This made me think of the relationships we all strive for.  Is it a fair assessment to say that we all look for different things?  I look for fidelity when choosing a lover based on the fact that I am a one-man kind of guy, however I would pretty much get up to whatever my lover wants to get up to.  So would their indiscretions on their own alter the love I feel for them?  In retrospect, no but it alters the perception of the relationship I think I am in.  Say a relationship is like walking down a path, one side is dry and the other has puddles.  Now if I am walking down this path with someone I would choose to walk on the dry side, however if my lover chooses to jump in the puddles I am going to follow suite and jump in the puddles too but don’t you go jumping in the puddles by yourself and force me to stay dry.

Should I be choosing a side and sticking to it?  Am I too easily swayed?  What is it I actually want?  I want someone who wants to be faithful to me because they actually enjoy being with me not because if they cheat it would make them a bad person.  Fidelity that comes from the heart, is that not the ultimate goal?  And when we find it why is it so hard to trust that it is the real thing?

We are all attracted to people for yet to be discovered reasons.  We are naturally drawn to something we find appealing and attractive.  Should we not be waiting to see the flaws, the character traits that make us human, before we decide to go falling in love?  Should love be unconditional in terms of accepting the flaws?  If we all have flaws then it’s not a secret that we inevitably will discover them. 

Is acceptance the key to keeping a relationship alive?  I think acceptance in the fact that we have flaws is a great start but the true test is whether we are prepared to work through those flaws with another.  As men, we go after what we want no matter what gets in the way.  Therefore, if we want to keep the passion alive for years to come with another person then it’s all up to us how badly we actually want it.  Complacency in a relationship is like mould on cheese… it can be cut off.