So, after my initial story in this series – the one about how I met my boyfriend online and how fabulous it was, you should also know this: Now that the relationship is live, it falls peril to all the other problems every conventional relationship has. I don’t think everyday relationship problems can occur within the context of a one-dimensional online-only relationship.
Yes, I definitely think online relationships have their problems. As I said earlier, there are so many uncertainties and insecurities with a relationship that feels real but isn’t actually so.
But in this article, I want to talk about “live” relationship issues.
Being with Sam has been one of the most wonderful, trying, painful, joyous, contented thing that has ever happened to me. For every beautiful wonderful moment, I am grateful; for the few problems we have, I think we deal with them as best as we can.
Our relationship has gone through a couple of metamorphoses, the specifics of which I won’t list here. But as a result, it feels sometimes that the playing field of the relationship has also changed. The “rules” are a little different, the privileges tweaked. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it can be frustrating as hell.
Sam and I had a cathartic incident just two weeks ago. For me, it was incredibly painful and caused me to pull back emotionally from the relationship. Did I still love him? Yes. That was never questioned. Did he still love me? Apparently he did, because he said he did, and evidenced by the fact that we are still together.
At times like this, I fully expect my partner to decide the relationship isn’t worth the pain or hurt, and to bail. Truth be told, when this incident happened, I went through that thought process also – was it worth it. Was it worth risk, the uncertainty, the fact that there are no absolutes in the universe; was it worth staying in the relationship even though I knew the chance that something like this would happen again??
It took me two full weeks to decide. I was in such an emotional limbo, I wasn’t sure what I felt except that I think I felt “numb.” Emotionally numb. As Sam would say, “devoid of feeling.”
For two weeks I tenuously held onto the thread of our relationship. I even went so far as to remove all the pictures of us, or him, all the little trinkets and evidences of our relationship and placed them in a box on the floor of my office. I didn’t seal it up, I didn’t even fold in the flaps – it was physical proof of my indecision. In or out? Open or closed? Stay or leave?
I would lie in bed at night (we do not live together) and try to imagine how my life would feel without him. And I would think about it so much, I would be miserable.
Then I would take a few moments and play out in my head how I would feel, or will feel, when the same issue rears its ugly head again. And I would think about that so much, I would be miserable.
I played out every possible situation, of all infinite possibilities, that I could envisage. I played them like a computer simulation calculating outcomes. I felt like the computer in “War Games” running through options and options to find the answer.
There was no answer. There is a line in the movie (not the book) “Solaris” where a character tells George Clooney, “Don’t you understand? There are no answers. Only choices.”
That was what I was left with. No answers; only choices. After I had gleaned all the information I could; weighed all possible outcomes; cried myself to sleep for days – after all of this, it was as simple as a choice.
I knew this already. A co-worker once said to me that after you fall in love, you have to make a conscious decision everyday to love that person. Choose to love the person you are with; or choose not to. There really isn’t an in-between. And I had been living in an in-between world for two weeks.
So I made my decision. My choice is to stay. I have chosen to stay in spite of our faults as a couple, and knowing there will most certainly be other difficult and sometimes painful incidents along with way.
I have chosen to love Sam. It was not an accident, or cupid’s arrow, or fate. It is my choice. And I am hopeful that it was a good one.
