I'm just a sexy boy... DMSI 3.1

[Shannon]

Ichigo, you have a situation in which both sides have their pros and cons.

You've been given the advice you have from the pro-marriage guys, and now I'm going to weigh in. I am decidedly anti-LEGAL marriage, because I have seen what it does to a lot of men.

So you have this girl you have as your first and that means you are inexperienced, and it shows in your musings about your quandaries. It is my opinion that no matter what you do here, you will have your good results and your possibility for regrets. While I don't believe that "you only live once", I do know that you can only experience the body and reality you are experiencing during this "lesson" you're working through.

The pros for staying with her are that you POTENTIALLY have a lifelong relationship with your first, which COULD result in you never having to look again. There are no guarantees in life, and I have seen guys in similar situations end up single because "Miss Perfect Girlfriend/Wife" found someone else a more appealing demonstrator of the male genes, even after years and sometimes more than a decade together. I believe that genetically, humans (or at least the vast majority of them) are NOT designed for monogamy. Monogamy is, in large part, the result of religious and social pressures and the fears and insecurity that people have. Yes, it is the best way to raise a child. No, it is not natural for humans. Either gender. It requires sustained conscious effort and control to achieve and maintain, for exactly that reason.

I have been around the block enough times to tell you from experience that sex without emotions is just sex. It's meaningless, and for me, is emotionally damaging. That's why I'm not easy. I have had plenty of lovers, but even though I am frequently in reception of sexual attention and interest from women, I am not easy. I have to protect my emotions.

You can't fail to communicate "because you're afraid of hurting her". Failing to communicate only leads to misunderstandings, and that WILL end your relationship. You MUST communicate, clearly, honestly and regularly. In a relationship especially, you MUST touch base and re-calibrate through open, honest communication, and do it constantly. If you have an issue, she needs to know so it doesn't become a misunderstanding and then blow up the relationship, and the same is true in reverse. This is more important than any "love" between you. You can make a loveless relationship work with proper communication, but you cannot make a relationship that fails with communication work even with all the love in the world. I just had that proven to me yet again.

If you choose to stay with her and not play the field, you may later have regrets, especially if she decides she's found someone better and dumps you.

But the risk of leaving is, you may find someone better and not come back; you may catch a disease; you may get hurt; you may get someone pregnant; she may find/choose someone else while you are gone; get a disease; become pregnant; be hurt, and not want you back.

Now I'm not interested in telling you to go the route I have gone. I am interested in seeing that you consider all of your options and understand them and their consequences.

If I could have, I would have stayed with my first major relationship. I would have an adopted daughter and no other children, and I would never have had the experiences that made me who I am today. But she decided to dump me (while I was battling cancer) for a drunk, unemployed plumber who abused her and her daughter, and then get hooked on crack and die in an alley, leaving her daughter to the state to place with a foster family. Then it came out that she had been hooking behind my back while I was working 80+ hours a week to support us, and all the while was complaining because she "didn't want to work". I kid you not, that actually happened. I never saw it coming.

I would have stayed with my second major relationship, but I discovered that she was cheating on me, right around the time I was going to propose marriage. Same thing happened with the third major relationship. My fourth was not only cheating on me with 12 guys I could prove and 2 more I couldn't, had BPD, and she was also an active alcoholic and did drugs. I was so INEXPERIENCED that I did not recognize this, while it was happening, even though my own mother had been an active alcoholic until I was 11.

So there is something to be said for experience, and there are dangers in being inexperienced. Now I have a woman I trust, but I firmly believe that I can only trust her because she is too scared to try to stray. As much as I love her, as much as I wish I could believe otherwise after all I have been through, it is my considered opinion that humans will only be monogamous if they are too guilted, ashamed or afraid to act on their natural inclinations - which is to **** everything in sight, all the time.

So some food for thought. You have equal risk no matter what you do. Choose what is best for you, absolutely - but don't do it blindly.

Jeez, man, you've been through more than one swamp! Those experiences would be enough to make some jump off the deep end - kudos for coming through the other side as you have. I will, say, however - if the part in bold is your true opinion, there's a lot of healing to be done. That is about as cynical a perspective as I've ever seen.

Cynical would be, "Fuck all women, they're all a bunch of lying, cheating whores who will do anything to take advantage of you."

Realistic, based on my experiences, is "Humans are treacherous and will strongly tend to do whatever benefits themselves most, that they believe they can get away with."

You can believe what you like, but I would bet my level of experience with women is more than yours. I have been in serious I'm-looking-to-end-up-married-to-this-woman no less than seven times in my life. All seven... failed. Only one of them failed because of something I did to screw things up.

It is my considered opinion that a woman, being human, being supported by all the laws (at least in the US) and all the social conventions (again, at least in the US) can only be trusted if she wants what you want at least as much as you want it. Love has never made a real difference. It has always been...

1. Can/do we communicate effectively?
2. Are we being honest with eachother?
3. Do we respect one another sufficiently?
4. Are we willing to put in at least equal effort to make this relationship work?

And only then does love make an appearance in the scale of "what matters".

If there are all of the first 4, then the relationship will survive, with or without love. If ANY of those four are missing... it's just a matter of time.

That has been my experience over the last 30 years. Take it as you please... but realism isn't the same as cynicism.