Home Truths, Martyrs to Love

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

A reader once got in touch to say he feels such a fool because he can’t help loving his girlfriend even though she continues to see other guys. 

That same day, there was an email in my In Box from a gay guy relating how he could not get even begin to get his head around his boyfriend's wanting an open relationship. While I, personally, would walk away, I do not underestimate either the power of love  or of well-meaning (if often ill-advised) pressure from family and/or friends - reminding us of our various 'responsibilities'; in other words, we mustn't be seen to let the side down. (Better to let ourselves down...?)

What can I say except these are among many men and women around the world who, for centuries, have settled for less - sometimes far less - in a relationship than, at heart, they desire and need. Some people, of course, can live with open relationships; for others (like me) it is asking too much.

It has to be one of the saddest facts of life that many potential partners cannot always see the other person’s take on love or…each other. Yet, many of us will settle for a one-sided relationship than no relationship at all, and the threat of loneliness; the latter reason perhaps why the world is full of martyrs to love.

Relationships between two people can only work if both partners want it to work, and neither should forget that everyone has a choice.

HOME TRUTHS, MARTYRS TO LOVE

You warned me not to fall in love with you,

that it was sex alone, never love, spurring us on,

for love is only for fools (you said) its course

set and steered by wet dreams; we worldly types

know better (you said) while tonguing words

of intimacy as if rites for a benign conspiracy

Keeping up appearances, it was nothing more

(never love) fuelling inspiration. Gladly I’d let

your fine body take mine, clung to the hope

that you’d come to love me, despairing as each

frantic, mindless, orgasm ripped through us

like that double-edged sword we call honesty

A culture of hypocrisy concealing human needs,

never quite able to satisfy the loneliness it feeds

  

Copyright R. N. Taber 2007; 2015