Romantic Idealism

Suppose you had a relatively normal marriage for many or several years. Suppose your spouse leaves you rather abruptly for someone else or then immediately afterward claims to have found a wonderful new partner. Suppose you are suffering a broken heart compounded with betrayal. Your spouse has no interest in reconciliation but you do. You value the years you spent together. You remember the person you married and why you married him or her. You're willing to swallow your pride and resistance and work things out. He or she may take advantage of their new position of security in a new relationship to treat you like a dog, like he or she never knew you, or worse.

The feelings that make you believe things can be worked out may derive from the very same idealism that your spouse is acting on in throwing themselves into a new relationship. Romantic idealism always leads to pain eventually. Romance is a viper under a lotus.

Since my wife left me over a year ago, I've tried following romantic feelings several times with various women. It never worked, never lasted. I tried. I threw myself into it. I quickly learned that romantic feelings fade quickly, especially after sex. I learned that romantic feelings cloud judgment. I learned that romantic feelings weren't the answer I needed to get over my feelings of loss and hurt.

I did meet someone, eventually, where we first shared a connection *not* based on romantic idealism or physical attraction. I met her via email from this blog many months ago. But it was not romance we shared. We shared pain and loss, a process full of questions, problems of how to survive in a harsh new world where the ultimate betrayal was a day-to-day fact. I didn't know what she looked like for months. I didn't care. I was totally open and honest with her, even about my repeated frustrated attempts at relationships. There was nothing at stake between us.

There might be romance someday, but I'll never base an important relationship on it again. Romance hurts people when it is idealistic. Romance should not be an ideal or an end in itself, but should serve higher ideals and ends. This lesson has been the hardest of my entire life.