Affairs of the heart

I want to talk to you this week about a touchy, controversial subject that I'm sure all of my readers will have a definite perspective about.

We hear about "affairs" all the time. We read about them, we see them on television and in the movies, we hear about others having them and, perhaps, we've had them ourselves. But when asked, our society usually responds very negatively to the whole idea of affairs.

This is what we call, sociologically, the difference between the real world and the ideal world. The ideal world represents the way we think things ought to be; the real world represents the way things really are.

The most interesting thing about this discrepancy is that we can justify doing things ourselves that we don't think others ought to do because we understand our own emotions, motivations, and reasons but we can't get into the heads of others. So often, when we test public opinion we ask people if they think "affairs" are okay. They resoundingly say no. Later on in the questionnaire, we ask them if they've ever had an affair and a significant number say yes.

We ask people if they believe it's ever OK to steal or lie or cheat or a number of other moral issues and, again, they say no. Then we ask them if they've ever done those things and a significant number say yes.

I know several people who have either recently gone through a divorce or are in the process and, for almost all of them, the deciding factor was falling in love with someone not their spouse.

Now, this is where we become very judgmental as a society. We think that's wrong. We think that's bad. We think that people should get a divorce first if they decide they want to be with someone else.

And, in an ideal world, perhaps that is true. But we don't live in an ideal world. We live in a world filled with problems, issues, conflicts and tragedies. We live in a world that, for the most part, is uncertain and unpredictable.

Getting a divorce is not like trading in an old car for a new one. It's hard. It's difficult. It's stressful to think about, even if we are living in an "empty shell" marriage where there is little, if anything, that exists anymore between the two spouses.

As much progress as we have made in the area of equal rights, it is still more difficult for women to seek divorces than men, at least emotionally. We get locked into a sameness, a predictability, a false sense of security that convinces us that it's easier to stay than leave, even though we know in our hearts that leaving may offer us our only way out, our only chance at living a good, peaceful, happy life.

So, we play both sides against the middle and stay in an empty marriage while seeing that person we've fallen in love with as often as we can. Meanwhile the tongues wag and the fingers point because no one else knows what's in a person's heart and soul other than that person and the one they have become soul mates with.

Consequently, we all know couples that simply co-exist with each other without receiving any of the traditional benefits of sharing lives. People who sleep in separate beds, or different rooms, or different levels of the house.

People who don't touch, who don't share their emotions, who don't have a sexual relationship. People who, when they do go out with one another, tend to spend time with other people rather than their spouses.

And, if either of these people have found someone else to be in love with, they spend most of their time thinking about the other person and how wonderful it would be to be with them, but they don't make the move. Whether it's out of fear, anxiety, or social pressure, they stay in a bad situation when they could change their lives for the better forever.

I was talking to a good friend of mine today who was in this exact situation. He said he just woke up one morning and decided he didn't want to live the rest of his life like that. There wasn't another person in the picture, there just had ceased to be any common ground between him and his wife. So, he left.

We have an obligation to make ourselves happy. Obviously, we can't always be happy but most of us could be a lot happier than we are a lot more often, if we just chose life over fear and death. Ultimately, we are responsible for ourselves, our choices, and our happiness and, if we end up unhappy at the end of a life that was limited instead of limitless, we have no one to blame but ourselves.

On the other hand, if we choose love and happiness over fear and despair, our lives become magical again, like they were when we were children, when anything and everything was possible.

We almost become childlike in our hearts because we have been reborn out of loving and being loved in return. I will be forever grateful to Rhonda for bringing me out of the darkness and making me whole again. Sometimes I call my home phone just to hear her voice on my answering machine. I am happiest when I'm with her, regardless of what we're doing. She fills me with a hope and an optimism that I was afraid I had lost forever.

That's what love does for us. And it's never too late to find it.