Happily Ain't Ever.

Happily ain't ever, happily ever after. At least, not my love life.

Thinking back to the most dark and disturbing days of my parent's divorce. One day vaguely comes to mind. Walking home from grade school, I remember closing my eyes, balling up my fists and waving them at the sky quietly crying out for protection. Begging God to never let me get married and have kids, so that I didn't have to go through the same thing as my parents. It was a magical, mystical momemt that took hold and shook me like a clap of thunder.

Fast forward nearly 30 years.

I'm 39 years old and by this stage in my life, I should have been married at least once maybe even with a kid or two, but as it stands I'm still trying to get to the second date with the same guy. Hell, a first date is proving to be quite the challenge. Since last year, I have discovered a need for an emotional involvement and most guys these days are NOT willing to involve much more than a condom.

I am overwhelmed by a borage of infidelity. Movies, media coverage of married celebrity douchebaggery and my real life experiences with married men pretending to be single. I wonder if its even worth it to get married in the first place. Maybe, I did dodge a bullet. Maybe, my childhood plea was a spell of protection and not a curse. In my life, it would seem that infidelity is always the denouement to the love crescendo.

I'm sure a good therapist would say it's all a result of not having a good model of a marriage. Maybe, it doesn't matter because as messed up as I am, I know there are others out there who are far worse off than me, but they don't even realize just how messed up they are and/or are not willing to do anything about it. Either way you slice it, I'm doomed to keep throwing back the fucked up fish. You see in the dating pool of it all, I'm more likely to come up with the emotionally unavailable, scared of commitment, cheating asshole variety than the rare good catch that we all want. I'll just have to keep throwing them back, but hell, my life is more than halfway over now. I'm tempted to just quit fishing.

Everywhere I look I see married/involved people who are seemingly trapped and scratching at the walls to escape into another reality.

Movies like 'The Duchess', 'Burn After Reading' and 'The Good Shepherd' all feature fractured marriages. In 'Burn After Reading', seeing Linda Litzke's online dating debaucles, I saw my own dating reality mirrored back to me and it was a stark, ugly and painful thing to see. In the movie, you see how married men can disguise themselves on dating websites and prey on unsuspecting and fragile single women. Their only goal is to get laid without any ties or complications. Just sex, thank you. Goodbye. That's all well and good if both parties agree to that, but why pretend to be single? There are women out there who are quite comfortable cheating with a married man or better yet a married man cheating with a married woman. PERFECT!? NO? :/ Why get the poor, bedraggled never married, single woman involved in the whole mess? Seems rather cruel and unnecessary.

Recently, a similar scenario played out in my own life. I went out on a date with a married man who was pretending to be single. It wasn't until our first meeting that I could see him and his guilty demeanor. We met for dinner at a restaurant. During dinner, I could tell that he was nervous and jumpy...like someone might recognize him. So, I called him out on his strange behaviour and he finally admitted that he was married. I was angry and hurt. I'm always curious why married men cheat. So, I asked him why he didn't try to talk to his wife? Get counseling and work things out? Why not just get a divorce? Why try to deceive me? He gave the same story I had heard before from other married men I had encountered in online chats...married or otherwise involved men who were at least honest about being married/seeing someone and cheating. I'm always curious to hear their story, though. And the story is almost always the same. 1. We are staying together for the kids. 2. I do love her, but I need some affection and attention. She won't have sex with me anymore for some reason. 3. It's cheaper to keep her. 4. ALL OF THE ABOVE :: eyerolls ::

No, I don't knowingly date married men. Have I dated married men? Yes, probably. Did I know they were married? No. But looking back on a few men in my past, I can see the red flags there and I'm glad things didn't work out anyway. Spared us both a lot of drama and pain.
Case and point, I just ran across my summer 2007 'Of Mice and Men' post.

Seeing the Josh Duhamel and Tiger Woods love affairs come to light these past couple weeks, I am reminded that it doesn't matter how attractive or perfect the wife is, he's always going to look elsewhere. Doesn't matter how good of a person I am, he's always going to cheat on me and there's no real rhyme or reason. It is the circle of love. Love, Lie, Leave.