Love Is All Ya Need ...(loser) - updated

One of the wisest things I've ever heard came from an ex-girlfriend.

TPW may have been quoting someone else, I don't remember and guess it doesn't matter. But what she said is this:

"People don't fall in love with a person, they fall in love with how they feel when they're with that person."

Whoa. The subtext here is, "I must be in love because I really like the way I feel when I'm with you. I'm willing to overlook your issues at the same time, because I'm desperately hoping you can fix and make me feel better about mine."

That's why we see middle-aged men who've been married 30 years buying Corvettes soon as their kids are out of college and start running around with teen-aged girlfriends... they feel trapped and are rebelling against their marriages through sheer boredom and the lack of any prospect for a meaningful future (it's also why middle-aged women who feel neglected and left-at-home start exploring romance novels and pool boys.)

The compulsion to fix what's broken inside me is often misidentified as Romantic Attraction and leads us toward partners with their own gritty issues, eventually steering us into relationships that can be hurtful, destructive and co-dependent.

The persistent longing for approval explains why young women become promiscuous, especially at very young ages: Girls hurting inside from fractured notions of their self-worth use boys (and anything they do with them sexually) as a fix, learning from their peers to dress and advertise themselves like prostitutes ... because they're willing to trade sexual favors in return for a man's attention and the illusion of his affection.

Being goal-oriented, young men who've grown up seeing women neglected or abused, whether physically or emotionally, quickly learn to feign emotional affection (or provide young women with gifts ... whether clothes, jewelry or drugs) in exchange for immediate sexual gratification.

Never mind the lie that's happening in-between or the consequences taking place afterwards: young women and girls end up being treated as disposable sex toys and become bitterly convinced that "all men are just alike and only want one thing."

Boys and young men who forget the most important thing inside a woman's shirt is her heart never quite grow beyond an adolescent infatuation with the simple mechanical physicality of sex.

No matter what their age, people who keep trying to heal themselves by sleeping with their partner's issues inevitably leave those same relationships feeling tricked, misled and deceived ... and carry that same baggage with them as they begin each new search for the "right" fix ... always missing that sexual intimacy between a man and his wife is an emotional act designed to affirm their commitment and secure the spiritual bond between them.

Sexual intimacy is meant to build a life-long communion that's a celebration of life. It's a gift given to us not by pornography or romance novels, but by the Creator himself ... to be used only as he intended.

Ooey-gooey infatuation, sexual attraction and physical gratification grow thin pretty durn quickly and eventually one partner or the other starts getting a bad case of Bedroom Boredom resulting in Wandering Eyes Syndrome. Because it's more fun, and more exciting, seeking new sexual challenges and lurid fantasies than it is turning the finger around and pointing to the emptiness inside ourselves as being the root of the problem.

Admiting I'm Broken And Need Fixing is hard. It makes us feel vulnernable and might even be humiliating if we acknowledge something so personal to the wrong person. Still, we have that yearning and desire to be loved and accepted, unconditionally and no matter what, that too often remains unsatisfied and leaves us wondering What's wrong with me?

Please doctor, can you fix me?

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Another wise thing I heard came from an Ex who was a clinical psychologist.

She told me "Joe, everybody has their stuff" .. and we all do. Everybody's had their share of issues, hurts, frustrations, rejections, "What If's" and "Why did that happen's" going all the way back to childhood, with enough plot-twists to fill a best-seller.

But that only means we're all broken inside ... that's what the world does and the way the world works and no one should feel special, self-important or deserving because of it.

Some of us look for solutions through money & accumulating material possesions, or through porn, sexual escapades, alcohol, drugs, gambling or you name it. We fall into those traps and try clawing our way out because our pain's so severe that if it can't be fixed Right Now, like we see on TV, we forget about finding the real cause and start digging all over again with whatever bright, attractive new shovel that happens to fall into the hole with us ... even if the handle's broken and there's nothing there to hold on to.

Just one more drink, one more lottery ticket, one more credit card or one more new boyfriend on the side.

We wind up digging the hole deeper. And deeper still. But we think The Fix lies with finding just one more.

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Nothing in this world pre-exists the Creator and none of today's worries, hurts, or anxieties will matter to anyone else 100 years from now. And nothing you write in your diary, lock away in your journal or post on your blog will ever go back farther or be more important than this:

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest."
Matthew 11:28

So why do people who feel their lives are out of control continue living as though control might finally come if only they could have just one more?

See ya in a few Sunday Playlist:
Mighty to Save - Hillsong