I had run across the June issue of OUT and read an article in the relationships section that left me so flabbergasted that my jaw was literally on the floor and I found myself laughing my ass off as I read “Gay, married, available.” What amused me was that I could have written this as it happened to me one year earlier almost word for word. The article was discussing what seems to be an ever-growing number of men in the gay community who beilieve they are in a committed relationship but instead of just playing on the side in an open relationship they search out private romances with other men. The writer of the article wrote “One guy told me the 80-20 rule is in effect in his relationship: They share 80% of what he wants in a partner and a relationship, and so they agree to seek the missing 20% in others. But aren’t sex, passion, and romance essential components of any ratio that defines someone as a husband – rather than a roommate or best friend?” The person went on to try and justify his actions by stating “we haven’t had sex in three years. We’re allowed to find our passion elsewhere.” This was almost exactly what was said to me after I had met someone one month after we had begun our almost daily dialogue which had seemed at the time to be very open and honest reflections of who we were and what we wanted out of life. He was extremely warm and had the most infectious personality that was very comforting and inviting but unfortunately he found himself in the past three years living in a “sexless” relationship with separate bedrooms living more like roommates then people in a committed partnership. What kept them together I’m not certain. The writer had his own idea as to why they stayed together stating “it’s not so much social opprobrium as it is shared real estate, wardrobes and Jack Russell terriers that keeps long-term partners together.” This may be true but I’m more inclined to think it has more to do with fear and a wounded heart.
What I wanted to center my thoughts on is more why the writer and the individuals he interviewed for this article allowed this to happen. He wrote that he allowed himself to be romanced in this way on three different occasions while he lived in Manhattan and once more since he moved to L.A. I questioned the entire time reading this why does he seem to attract relationships such as these but more important why did I? With answers from those around him ranging from you have a fetish for married men to you are reading the signals wrong and have bad dating mojo. But as I thought about what he was writing and again from my own experiences I couldn’t help but think we do have to take a measure of the responsibility don’t we? We can’t just say it was there fault. Instead of learning from our familiar patterns often we try to justify our actions and instead of taking some of the blame we often try to make it them and us. I mean, doesn’t it rationally make more sense to admit that I attracted this man because I had seen something familiar in his heart and that I too was running from my past leaving me in a place where I was incapable of pursuing something real? It was almost as if I found some strength in going after what was familiar to me. He was warm, caring, beautiful, nurturing and everything I am drawn too but he was also a man in great pain as a result of a wounded heart who was now living in a relationship that was not satisfying him and instead of facing the truth of his actions he hid behind a lie and searched out others to fill in the gap or at least what he felt was missing trying to justify this with the ridiculous 80/20 idea, but before I can go further I have to admit wasn’t I doing the same? Wasn’t I looking for love, purpose, and some sort of meaning to my life and instead of trying to figure out the patterns of my choices I just kept repeating the same mistakes and the only thing that had changed in my life was the names?
While I don’t believe fully in what the article stated believing passionately that there is nothing acceptable about being in an open relationship. Such actions lowers the dignity of who we were created to be and limits our ability of making free choices which leaves us slaves to our members incapable of living out our life in a complete expression of love. Having a fling and being up front about what we do in our private life is not achieving anything authentic when it comes to love and it is foolish to believe so, however I do agree with the writer “If anyone needs to be out of town before you can invite your date over to your place for a drink, that is called cheating.” While I was reading the article I could not help but contemplate on the crucifixion of Christ looking for a fuller understanding of what authentic love means. The crucifixion became relevant to me when I reached a point and had to ask myself is there nothing in life that is worth dieing for, something that is bigger than us, to put our complete trust in God knowing no harm can harm us nearly as much as meaninglessness can. Love isn’t meaninglessness but when we live our lives with another and are seeking our own gratification from it doesn’t it become meaningless? When we know longer seek to be a servant of self-donation are we not living out the gift of love incompletely? What is worth dieing for is being a gift of love, to not settle for a counterfeit example or expression of love but to hold out and be willing to offer our selves completely without any reservation. That is love. Letting someone use you for there pleasure is not in anyway being a gift to the other because there main objective is about themselves and not about you. I am meant to be a gift to another and if they cannot accept my gift and give back to me the gift of themselves then what we have between us is not and will never be love. Anything other that that is meaningless!
In the end all I can wonder is now when we find an individual attractive and go on a date do we need to start asking whether or not they are already in a committed relationship? Is this what it’s come too?
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