The Man I Love

Love is a complex concept. You can love a multitude of things at a multitude of levels. You clearly don’t love your family in the same way you love your favorite book or Italian restaurant. It can be fleeting or painstakingly ever-present. Sometimes you can feel like the love you have will last forever and then suddenly all the obsession and malice and arguments over vague statements turning into sleepless nights have hardened your heart, transforming it from this beautiful warm thing into a repository for hatred, envy, and greed.

But my husband loved me all the same. And I loved him, most of the time.

We married at twenty years each, meaning we were going on thirteen years together now. Thirteen years alongside anyone gives you access to most of their inner workings but thirteen years with my husband, a man whose heart was an open plain, meant I often knew him better than I knew myself. For better and for worse. We met at a concert, introduced by mutual friends, and hit it off immediately. We dated for two years before we married. We moved in together only after the wedding. Things were simpler back then.

Now, at thirty-three years old, we struggle. Love is hard and marriage is harder; anyone who says otherwise is doomed, I fear. The pressure to have children is constant and heavy. And this pressure is not diamond-inducing – we’ve tried for years for a baby to no avail. I secretly and selfishly hope we don’t get pregnant. I love children but I’m not sure we are at a point in our lives where we can manage a child. The act of trying holds no purity, no caution, no care. It is happening and then it is over.

We live a humble life in a humble one-story home, no basement, sad excuse for an attic. Concrete sidewalk lined by half-healthy weeds leading to the doorway. No fancy porch, no fireplace, no grand entryway. But we love our home, we worked hard for it. And it’s ours.

I fell in love deeply – vividly, languidly. Like making a slow simmering stew, or drawing a bath. Warm comfort trickling into me. But it feels as if it’s all gone room temp, sometimes. Words of simple kindness are few and far between. He doesn’t even hold me, but he’s never been great about that.

There were nights out, times I felt lost to myself but found a version of me in him. Found a renewed vigor, an energy, a passion. Maybe the perfectly dimmed lights and curated house music have a hand in my change of heart, too. Perhaps under this inadequate lighting, I finally feel the most seen. This man sees me. And the rest falls right into place. Not just the once, but time and time again.

We climb the stairs, practically leaping up them, me feeling a fervor I haven’t in a long time. That’s how he makes me feel; refreshed, renewed. He’s the first breath at the bottom after attempting to trek Everest. A relief from panic, the Xanax of lovers. His soft hands trail the curves and slopes of me, hold my bare fingers, kiss the pounding pulse point on my throat. Nights like this happened less than I preferred them to. Even when I did have nights like this, they weren’t always like this. We lose ourselves in a tangle of limbs, skin, sweat, love pouring out of us, almost tangible, pooling in all the secret beautiful parts of our souls. We make love. It ends too soon. Time with him always does. He holds me, like he always does, and pulls the down comforter tight over us, sealing us in, blocking us from the outside world and all its thoughts, all its knowledge. “I love you,” I whisper, and I mean it.

I pouted in the kitchen when he didn’t bring home flowers. I never told him I wanted flowers. I still trusted him. I cried in the car when he didn’t make reservations for our anniversary, reservations that I never mentioned wanting. I still believed in him. I wept when I noticed he had stopped calling me sweetheart. I always told him I hated that nickname. I still adored him. But you can’t sit still and expect things from people and romanticize them in your mind, waiting for action you never ask for. Because people aren’t what you want them to be; sometimes people are just people – even when you love them. Love doesn't change people, it just changes how you see them. And my rose-colored glasses shattered into pieces despite my constant care, my protection; clearing the smudges, ignoring the scratches.

Then, fate played a cruel trick on me. It had fooled me into a false sense of security, a false sense of infertility. But the rug was pulled out from under me. I stood in our shared bathroom, toes curling against the cold tile. The test screamed in my shaking hands. When he stumbled in, he knew something was wrong. Or not wrong, I suppose. Different. Something was different.

“I’m pregnant.” The words escaped me breathily.

His face lit up. I walked toward him. He met me halfway and pulled me into a tight embrace, though I noticed he did his best to avoid my middle. I tucked my arms around him and held tight to his shoulders, trying to keep myself grounded. I love this man.

What he didn’t know was that this baby wasn’t his. I don’t know how I even knew – after all, my husband and I were trying. But somehow – call it mother’s intuition – I knew it was the baby of the man I had been seeing behind my husband’s back for months now. The man who holds me, the man with the upstairs apartment, the man who I met in the lovelight of the night club scene, the man who I made love with rather than had senseless sex with in hopes for a baby to heal our marriage. The man I love who is not my husband.