I love you, but...

Love is a fickle emotion. Finding your mate can be a daunting task. Thanks to woke culture, for the most part, it is accepted that it matters not who this mate is. Love is love and that is all that is important. What a time to be alive. However, sometimes, love is not enough.  

When I met her, we were kids. I was a young man, no more than 25. She was a newly 21 year old. I was not looking. I was enjoying being single, and not in the way that it sounds. Perhaps to my detriment, I was and still am a serial monogamist. Call me old fashioned, but when I found my person, I invested fully until there was no love left to be had.  

The courtship was swift. We both worked in the high school-esque landscape of a big box retail store. She was a beacon of light in a sea of seemingly unstable cosmetic sales girls. Myself, working as store security, had free roam of the store. My co-workers loved to hang out in cosmetics, chatting up all of the unstables as they had the best stories to tell. Whether it was weekend shenanigans, weeknight happy hours that transitioned to all nighters closing down the bars; it was a miracle any of them ever made it into work the next day. Not this one.  

I came down the escalator like one of those scenes in a romantic comedy, and it was as if my gaze had been limited to that of just her, like peering through a periscope. She was gorgeous. Her curly blonde hair would have made Sarah Jessica Parker jealous. She had a gleam in her eye that conveyed a zest for life that would turn out to be quite infectious; her most beautiful trait. She wore a long sleeved black scoop neck top and what I remember as a “poodle skirt” that highlighted her athletic figure. Something straight out of ‘Happy Days’ or ‘Grease’. Those were the happy days, indeed.  

I was able to convince her to join some of my other co-workers at karaoke after work. Yes, I know, this is no different than the happy hours that her cohorts engaged in nearly daily, but it was perfectly acceptable. As security, we were the responsible ones, so we liked to think. We engaged in no singing. We sat there lost in conversation for hours, sipping our cocktails, watching our friends and co-workers make fools of themselves. I guess I am a serial monogamist and an introvert, apparently. Its amazing that I ever found my person, but she was buying what I was selling.

By the time the bartender made last call, it was clear that she was quite inebriated. Intentional or not, this worked out in everyones favor. I had rode with another friend who hadn’t been drinking. Serendipitously, I offered to drive her car home, with her, as my friend followed. Once she was home safe, we exchanged the first of a thousand kisses, and we were off to the races.

Within a year, she moved into my house. It’s not as storybook as it may sound. My house, at the time was more of a revolving door of roommates, a necessary evil at the time to make the mortgage. Before too long, we were the only ones left. Can you blame my best friend for moving out? Who wants to be the third wheel to a couple cohabitating? I wouldn’t, for a bevy of reasons we don’t need to get into here. 

I was madly in love with this woman. I knew I wanted to marry her from the moment I laid eyes on her. As cliche as it sounds, there was literally light and energy radiating from her being. I had never experienced this and knew I needed to put a ring on it.  

I concocted this whole scheme to make it a reality. My grandmother had an heirloom ring that she wanted to pass down to me; the first ring my grandfather had ever given her. It held extra special meaning to me as I held my grandfather in very high regard and he had passed about 10 years prior. One problem was that Grandma, or Nana as I always referred to her as, lived in Los Angeles and I was in Seattle. How could I pull this off? Nana was not sending this ring through the mail as it carried both significant sentimental, emotional, and to a lesser extent, monetary value. I had to get creative, and so I did.

I established a routine, where on football Sundays, she usually vacated the house with her friends out to the mountains, while my friends and I nerded out on football, both fantasy and NFL. On this particular day, it was my friends turn to host. She made other plans. My alibi was alive.

The sun was still asleep, and I hopped on the first flight out of Sea-Tac to LAX. I caught a cab to my grandmothers apartment where she bequeefed the ring to me over a light lunch. Nearly three hours after landing on the tarmac, I was already on my way back to Seattle, ring in hand. I didn’t want to risk my cover. 

Having successfully pulled off what felt like a master jewel heist, I started planning my proposal. I’ll tell you what, sitting on a ring for weeks, knowing that you are about to make a big life decision that is more or less completely out of your hands, is quite a nerve racking experience. Will she say yes? Am I ready? Is she ready? I was about to find out.

While I would like to think I am a hopeless romantic, sometimes proposals are not like what you see on social media. We made plans to go to our favorite restaurant, which just so happened to serve pizza slices larger than our torso. It’s fancier than it sounds, trust me. I don’t know what I was thinking in hindsight, but this was the night. The ring was burning a hole in my pocket. It’s as if I already felt I was losing her, and had to get that ring on her in order to secure my future, our future. Originally, I was going to ask her in the restaurant. That didn’t work. I couldn’t muster the balls. Then it was out on the street, right in front of PetCo, where we had parked. We were embracing and I was about to do it when she said, “can we get in the car, its fucking freezing!” Sure, thwarted. We sat in the car, heat blasting (she was always cold). I know it was blasting, because I was sweating profusely. Cant imagine why. Without wasting any more time, I pulled out the ring and turned to her, “you are the most wonderful person I have ever met. Every day that you are in it makes me the luckiest man in the world. I don’t want to live a day without you in my life. Will you make me the luckiest man in the world and marry me?”  

She said yes! Within a few months, we sold the house and we moved into the mother-in-law suite at her parents house, not too far away. This was to be a short term solution while we got back on our feet. Lucky for us, it coincided with our wedding plans which we decided to have at her parents house anyway. They sported a yard that was over an acre in size and would serve as the ultimate backyard wedding. August of that next year, we got married, officiated by my sister and her brother, who both got licensed just for us. There was no cake. There was no plated dinners. We were informal people with informal friends who relished in the occasion and social gatherings of our friends. The mobile brick oven pizza restaurant catered and the gelato cart served the most delicious flavors of gelato that made everyone forget the notion of cake.  There was a few speeches, lots of dancing, and endless booze, served by my now brother in laws 19 year-old friends. People were lubricated. To this day, all of our friends still claim it was the most fun wedding they have ever attended.  

A few months turned into a few years. We never really found a way out of her parents mother in law suite. We got complacent, in our jobs, in our relationship, and in our living situation. Now, I can see the deterioration and feel the unsettling pit in your stomach that happens when your bedroom is literally underneath your in-laws. Not to mention, living with your husband in what was your childhood bedroom. It’s all sorts of weird in hindsight.  

They say year 7 is the make or break year for relationships, which stood true for us as well.  That summer, I was working a lot, as was she. She had made friends with another guy at her work. She didn’t hide it. She brought him around, plain as day. We actually hit it off and were becoming pseudo friends. I should have just decked him when I had the chance. By the end of the summer, I had found out that she was having an affair with this man. I caught her in the act (of lying), but unfortunately was 200 miles away working, not able to confront this life changing situation until I got home that evening (morning, really) after midnight.  

Imagine having that conversation knowing your in-laws are just upstairs at 2-3 in the morning. Pictures were shattered, rings were thrown, tears were shed. In the end, I asked her, “do you still love me? Do you want to make this work?” That zest for life that I saw in her eye was still there, albeit deflated by what she had become. She constantly would tell me, “you better not ever cheat on me because I would have to kill you.” The irony. Serial monogamist me always reassured her that I would never, and likewise her. She said if she was ever going to stray, that she would break up with me first. I believed her. She had lost touch of herself so far down a rabbit hole of lies that she had been keeping for months. The reconciliation with me was just the tip of the iceberg compared to the reconciliation she wanted to do with herself. In the end, she said yes, that she loved me very very much and couldn’t imagine life without me and that she wanted to figure out what went awry and fix it for good.

By the next afternoon, we had found our therapist and had an appointment for the next day. She revealed every gritty detail of her affair, down to the positions and places at my and our therapists requests. I needed to know in order to move on. In hindsight, this may not have been the best approach, but I followed the therapists lead. These were some of the hardest months of my life, and for her as well.  

We knew that if we had any chance of making it through this affair, we needed to move out and get our own place; a safe place for us to work through our marriage; to rekindle our love, and for once have the independence of living as a married couple, sans roommates, in-laws or otherwise. We did just that.  

Our happy little apartment was the catalyst to some of the best years of our life. We decorated as we saw fit, we walked around naked, we bonded, we engaged in self-enrichment; life was good again. She went back to school, which was always a sore subject for her having not been the best of students. She made the deans list her first quarter back. I found a job that really fulfilled me. The life I had envisioned had finally come to fruition. We found our happy place. It was the best two years of my life. Everything felt in place and the love rebound from the affair felt genuine, sincere, and everlasting. Little did I know that a storm was coming.  

It was a Friday, not unlike most of the others. We had both finished work and decided to go catch a film. Having been turned off the sauce due to self awareness about alcoholism in the family (and honestly not liking her drunk self), we both took an edible. Nothing heavy, just a little bit to shed the stress of the week and ease into the weekend, and headed out to the theater.

Maybe it was the edible. Maybe it was our attuned feelings and super powered communication skills we picked up during our stint in therapy, but I could sense something was off. We parked at the theater, and I turned to her and asked what was troubling her? She sat there in silence. I knew I was going to have to pry whatever was bothering her from the depths of her soul. It felt that heavy, that important. This had been percolating for some time. Like a shaken liter of cola, it was a matter of time before the bottle exploded. I never wanted to return to that time during the affair. We both vowed never to let unspoken feelings come between us again, so I pushed a little harder.

She burst into tears and told me she loved me so so so much, and that I was the kindest person she has ever met, and that she had learned so much from me over the years. How to be kind, how to think outside the box, how to see other perspectives, all wonderfully learned traits she attributed to me. I couldn’t take credit for all of this. We learned from each other; grew up together. This was something else entirely. 

I returned the tickets to the box office for a refund, and we made our way home never having set foot in the theater. Once we returned home, we remained in the car, talking. I wanted to support her, no matter what was bothering her. I just wanted to be there for her. She only needed to let me in.

Again, she praised me and our relationship. It was so hard to hear, because I already could feel what was coming. Tears welled up in her eyes as her sweet lips, that I have passionately kissed a thousand times, began to tremble. She turned to me and through a flood of tears said, “I love you so so much, but….” My heart sank, even though I already knew. She continued, “but, I am not IN love with you.” I took a moment to digest and process. After what seemed like an eternity, I asked the question, even though I know after what we had been through that there was no way. Like I said, it had to be pulled from her soul. “Are you in love with another man?” Quickly she replied in the negative. The only other question I had was, “are you in love with another woman?” After what seemed like another eternity, she let me know that she had been developing feelings for a close friend of hers who was already out.

I held no anger. I felt no immediate pain. Quite the contrary, actually. I was relieved to know that the woman I feel in love with did love me back, unconditionally. I was her best friend and she was mine. We both loved each other more than words could comprehend. However, in this case, loving her meant letting her go.  

In this life, giving and receiving love is everything, and sometimes, just sometimes, love is not enough.