When we first opened up our marriage, I never considered the possibility of either of us falling in love. I know that to many this might seem preposterous (if not simply naïve), but I had a very narrow view of love. To me, love fell into three different, and distinct, categories: familial love (love for parents, siblings, children and other family connections); friendship love (I will watch your cat for you when you travel even though I don’t really like cats) and romantic love (the all-consuming, heart, body, mind and soulmate love that I have for Viktor).
Consequently, when Viktor first told me that he was in love with Justina, I was devastated because I couldn’t understand how his love for her fit into one of my categories without eclipsing his love for me. This obviously wasn’t familial love; they were having sex so it went far beyond friendship love; so it must be romantic love and thus, a replacement for the love he had for me. I tried to wrap my head around it and to make sense of how these two things could co-exist simultaneously: Viktor’s love for Justina and Viktor’s love for Jeannie. I repeatedly failed and it continued to eat at me, causing significant pain, confusion and loss.
Tag: fear
Love, Lust and Potential Loss in the Time of Coronavirus
So here we are going into week six of social distancing. Like everyone else, we have had our share of good days and bad days, neutral days and a few “I am so fucking over this” days. Through it all, we have continued to nurture various relationships, including our own. And, while in some cases this is easier done than in others, we are committed to building connections in their various forms and functions.
Along these lines, my relationship with Alex continues to blossom. We text each other multiple times a day, often sexy texts, sometimes silly ones and always communication that bring us closer together. It has been amazing to see how we are building a deep emotional connection, while sustaining the intense chemistry we first felt at our initial meeting – all through technology. We have weekly video chats that include physical intimacy that, while virtual, is also very real and authentic. I have struggled with trying to name, define or quantify our relationship, but have given up, realizing that labels do not matter; what we know that we feel for each other does.
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Summer of Sexiness 