{"id":46377,"date":"2022-02-26T16:51:19","date_gmt":"2022-02-26T16:51:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/?p=46377"},"modified":"2022-02-26T17:03:36","modified_gmt":"2022-02-26T17:03:36","slug":"the-obsession-i-called-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/2022\/02\/26\/the-obsession-i-called-love\/","title":{"rendered":"The obsession I called love."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This is not a sad story.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the last time I was in love with a woman, in 2016, I wasn\u2019t really in love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was just making another human being responsible for my happiness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Something I\u2019d been doing for decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Forever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And we all know how incredibly useless that is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ever since that last, disastrous encounter, almost 6 years ago, I have been on my own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And it has been a pretty wild ride.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In that period, while licking half a lifetime of wounds, I kicked a few habits, outgrew my tendency to be depressed and anxious, wrote 8 books, quit my advertising job, became a coach, and discovered how to chill out sustainably.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Along the line, I also learned how to appreciate and express myself, and that\u2019s where I am right now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Happy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Excited.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Curious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In awe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And single, solo, just me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am almost 54 and I have never had a healthy romantic relationship in my life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not once.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This has got nothing to do with the amazing women I have been with, because in many cases it was about my utter inability to be available and honest and real.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even though I deeply appreciate and love the mother of my daughter, who I have spent 19 years with and who has been an ex-girlfriend for many years now, I was way too fucked up and insecure to give her what she deserved, what we deserved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t blame myself: I just couldn\u2019t be what I couldn\u2019t be at the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The striking thing is that I can\u2019t even say that I miss a romantic relationship right now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or, well, I can, and I don\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In recent years, after seriously cleaning up my act, I have been pondering this lack of connection and even the lack of wanting to connect in the first place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And during that process I have thought many different things about this situation, ranging from \u2018it will never happen again\u2019 to \u2018if it is supposed to happen, I couldn\u2019t get away from it even if I wanted to\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe it seems a  bit sad, or weird, this notion that I simply don\u2019t know what it means to be in a wholesome romantic relationship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I don\u2019t feel it that way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And I don\u2019t miss it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t even seem to have space for it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even though I sometimes crave the purely physical part of connection, even though I love to make love, it just doesn\u2019t seem to be in the cards, for now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I simply stopped trying to understand it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My lack of interest in finding a significant other is obviously caused by exploring the significance of me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It has been amazing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All these years I could be just with me, just me, without the distracting obsession for others I had in the past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A perfect arrangement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A peaceful situation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It makes total sense that my future relationship will be vastly different than everything I have ever encountered before, but I have no idea when this will happen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am fine with that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fine, patient, and content.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For there is one thing I know for sure, one thing that has changed everything:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have learned to be in love, with life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

—<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Photo by @5tep5, for Unsplash)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is not a sad story. But the last time I was in love with a woman, in 2016, I wasn\u2019t really in love. I was just making another human being responsible for my happiness. Something I\u2019d been doing for decades. Forever. And we all know how incredibly useless that is. Ever since that last, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":46378,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":""},"categories":[97,117,100,105,116,113,107,103,112],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46377"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46377"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46377\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46380,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46377\/revisions\/46380"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}