Is "love" just a concept?

My parents were never really close nor affectionate. My sister and I were not close either. No one I could see around me had a warm or loving relationship.

I grew up thinking that love was a conceptual thing like God. That it took faith in the unknown (or something like that) to understand what love was. It was an ideal that people aspired to, but no one really knew about. That was why there were so many songs about it (was my reasoning at the time).

The fumbling around with stolen kisses at the school drink fountains, discovered "love" letters in class and games that people played just added further to my confusion about it all.

How do you know if it's real?

Then I met Farida in my first job. I soon got the idea that things might be a bit different from what I'd figured out about life and love. She was extremely sweet, caring and giving. She had a real knack of melting into you when you put your arm around her. She was bubbly and bright and I really would have liked to explore the possibilities further, but felt wrong with her being older and me not knowing what I should or shouldn't be doing.

A guy is supposed to know everything and be worldly-wise, isn't he? I certainly didn't as a naive virgin, and she was too polite to take charge!

She got me thinking at least!

And along came Jane

Then I met Jane.

We were both at a mate's 21st and he wanted to "stand her up" for how he'd been stood up by her previously. As we were both there by ourselves, we got to talking, then to dancing, and ended up being inseparable from the first night.

She felt good, smelt good, was good to talk with, enjoyed me being close, and gave back all the affections I gave her. She was also the same age as me. It was the most amazing time! I was on "cloud 9" and never wanted this to stop. Surely this must be love?

As Jane's parents were moving to a new home in the country, the only way to stop Jane from also going (back then) was to marry her! I was between cars and motorbikes in those days, and didn't think visits by catching a train for a couple of hours or riding my pushbike for most of the day were options.

So after knowing each other only 3 months, we got married.

The photo at right is on the wedding day with my mother and sister and her first two children.

There was no reception or honeymoon, but Jane's mother shouted a few of the people at the church back to a nearby hotel for a celebration.

So, my wife, tell me a bit about yourself

It wasn't until after we were married and living together that I got to really know Jane.

I got to learn that although she had purchased her own unit and worked continuously before she met me, she struggled to hold a job as a legal secretary once we were together as it seemed she had disagreements with her bosses and chose to just walk out.

I got to learn that life was pretty boring being home by yourself all day, so it was easier to just stay in bed until just before your husband came home from work.

I got to learn that although we were only on a single income (mine) for most of the time were were together, she needed me to take her out and entertain her when I got home from work.

I also got to learn that cooking was not a strong point of Jane's. She decided to add some chilli powder to a pasta dish she made once and the lid fell off the chilli jar. Rather than scoop it all out (apart from the lid), Jane chose to stir it all in.

On another occasion, Jane made the effort to bake a cake in the brand new kitchen she just had to have. The gas oven was up way too high, so the part of the cake that was nearest to the flame burnt to a black crisp and the rest was still all doughy. Weeks later when I went to use the oven, I found a green mouldy thing in a cake tin still in the oven. This was further evidence of how house proud she wasn't.

I think she's overdosed on something

I don't recall that I did anything specific to trigger Jane's intense jealousy. She was jealous of me spending time with anyone else but her.

She used to get very upset with me wanting to go out with the guys and not with her, so I stopped going out with the guys. Her view was, "What can the guys give you that I can't?"

When we went to Tupperware parties and the like, she would get jealous of me talking to or having a joke with her girlfriends. "Why didn't you ever tell me that joke?"

When I was home from work at a slightly different time than usual (only 5 minutes variation allowed), I was accused of having an affair. "Who was she? Why can't you come straight home to me?"

Jane had manipulated things so that apart from my job (another thing she asked me to change "if I really loved her"), she was the only other thing that I had in my life.

I was always totally faithful and devoted to Jane whilst we were together, but I had no idea how to deal with all the accusations and threats she made to me.

As I was being accused of having affairs, I started to think that actually having one might be an idea! I came home and told Jane that I thought someone at work was interested in me. Jane went all quiet and disappeared into the bedroom. When I went looking for her, she came out with the line, "It'll be all over soon". There was an open bottle of pills beside her.

I had the terrible thought of just walking away and leaving her to her own fate, but ended up bundling her into the car and racing off to the hospital to get her stomach pumped. The hospital decided we needed counselling, so we needed to attend sessions for the next few weekends.

Please put the knife down!

Jane and I used to fight a fair bit about all sorts of things and then we'd make up by getting close and intimate again.

I recall getting out of bed one night to go and sleep on the couch to be away from her. Shortly after she burst out of bed and went into the kitchen.

Next thing she was coming at me trying to grab at my penis with her free hand. Her other hand was firmly gripped around a sharp carving knife. She was yelling at me, "If I can't have it, no on else can!"

Somehow or other I got the knife out of her hand without getting cut by it. I then bodily picked her up and threw her back on the bed telling her to stay there.

'Til death do us part?

I finally resolved that I needed to take control of my life again as Jane was destroying me. The only way to do that was to leave the marriage. I'm still not proud of myself for being the one to leave the marriage, but I don't think Jane nor I would be as well off as we are today if I'd stayed on.

After I left we actually had a few "dates" and they were very much like the old times. (She related to someone else later that she believed she was going to win me back.)

She thought that I'd left her just to get a motorbike, so she told me it was fine I could have a motorbike and we could still be together.

I was still smitten by her, but knew that we could not live together.

Matron of honour

Jane and my sister stayed in close contact for quite some time after the marriage ended. They were close enough for my sister to have Jane as her Matron of Honour when she finally decided to get married. As Jane would leave the room I was in when I visited my sister, my sister chose to not invite me to her wedding.

A couple of years later my sister also had a falling out with Jane and she finally said to me, "Now I understand the problems you would have been having".

Rebuilding your life after a marriage breakdown

Jane actually took some control back of her life after we went our separate ways and is doing fine I believe.

The picture here is a few years after we split up.

She found a new husband and had a baby with him.

Hopefully she is also enjoying herself and has backed off on the possessive jealousy.

Lessons learnt

Jane taught me a lot of lessons about life and love. Perhaps some are lessons that I would sooner have remained naive about.

At the very least some of the lessons are:

• When you choose your life partner, make sure you know all about them!
• Ensure you are going to love the conversation, activities, travels, outings, etc as much as the affectionate times. You might be sexually compatible with someone, but find you can't hold a conversation with them afterwards! Unless all your time together is going to be for practising the karma sutra with total concentration and silence, you'll want to be able to sustain a meaningful conversation with them at some point.
• Having a shared plan and goals for the future also keeps you both striving to achieve something that you both want.

Further lessons

• Do not enter a relationship thinking you can change the other person. Accept them for what they are. If you can't do that, the relationship is doomed.
• Do not accept that you have to change what you do dramatically in order to have a relationship with someone else. Perhaps your friends are not the cream of the crop, but they are still your friends and they've been there for you before you got into your relationship.
• If your partner feels they need to make threats in order to keep you with them, it is them that has the problem, not you (Don't allow their problem to also become your's!)

If you ever get to read this Jane, thank you for an "interesting" two years.