Becoming Earnest

Like Bigfoot or a unicorn or a mermaid maybe it really does exist but it’s exceedingly rare. I tried for it in my first marriage and it was me who withdrew it. I would say that I still love her, but it changed when I left her. I love who she was not who she had become. She became an alcoholic and she became withdrawn and she became frigid. I couldn’t go through life with her anymore so I left after she came home drunk from her seventh rehab. 

My second marriage, I thought was the real thing. I thought it was the one. I thought it was the love to end all loves, and I feel like I gave unconditionally, though I know that I was still struggling with some childhood trauma. When I was at the precipice of healing from that trauma, her love was withdrawn from me. She told me to move out and I did. For a year and a half I thought we were working on it together, but she was literally just gathering evidence to use against me in court, and destroying all the evidence that could be used against her. A year and a half of living with someone, having intimate relations with someone who you no longer love, just to take advantage of them financially…. what a fucked up thing that is.

So please understand me when I say unconditional love is a lie. I hope you’re living it. I hope you feel it. I pray some people on this earth have it and I’m overjoyed for them, but I feel like everything in my life is a transaction, is a contract to be negotiated and executed. I dream of a contract marriage where she knows exactly what she’s going to get and I know exactly what I’m going to get. Let’s call it what it is “conditional love”.

You tell me it doesn’t work that way and I’ll tell you that as soon as you do that one thing that breaks her trust, your love is over, contract voided. I gave unconditionally and she took unconditionally. At least if we write the contract out before everybody knows what they’re going to get and what’s expected of them.

There’s always a catch!