10-26-2017, 11:10 PM
Hello Project,
I am writing to you because I am very tense and I do not know who to talk to.
I am 31 years old, my ex-boyfriend is almost 29 years. We've been together for three years when we were both much younger, our relationship ended a few years ago, or at least it seemed to end, because he met other guys and he tried to build a story with some of those guys, but nothing has ever ended up between us, we kept talking on the phone and even meeting from time to time, sometimes there was a bit of sex, especially when he was very sad and discouraged.
Project, we still love each other, we don’t even tell it because we don’t need to make any declarations between us, no matter if he is no longer my boyfriend, what makes me suffer is seeing him sad, discouraged, disappointed with life, because he is a great guy, outspoken up to being almost brutal, unable to hold a grudge, absolutely not selfish. He never betrayed me, even though it might seem, looking at things from the outside, as he has never betrayed any of his guys.
Sometimes he feels so depressed that I'm scared a bit. He says that all the guys he met had made great statements of love that were then denied in the facts. He says he is now completely indifferent to affective relationships and looking for sex only, but that's not true. If he was looking for sex, he could find out what he wanted, because he’s also a handsome guy, and then what could he try to get from me? A bit of sex in moments of black melancholy, but I don’t really believe that this is his real purpose, I believe he is looking for a stable affective relationship on which to count.
He says that all the guys who made him magnificent statements of love, went away, that he wanted to keep with them at least a friendship, but those guys vanished at all. We never really separated, I think there is another kind of affection between us. When he's very depressed he calls me and we talk for hours, or rather we're on the phone for hours almost always in silence. And yet, even if I try not to call him, in the moments of bad discouragement, when he calls me, I let myself go and talk to him of all my melancholies and I feel his presence. We don’t encourage each other, the first times I tried to do so he became nervous because he felt that I wanted to make a sermon. Now there are fewer words between us but there is not less heat.
Honestly, I "almost" don't feel any more towards him the sexual interest I had before, but in reality I have no more such feelings for anyone, nevertheless making love I feel free only with him, now it is rare that among us there are some real moments of sex, but when it happens it is a very intense thing because it is very well understood that the sense of sex is to confirm an affective continuity, to say that we still are there and that we still love each other, even if in words we say it no more, for fear of being denied by our own behaviors. We have learned to contain speeches, to eliminate loving chatter, to talk a little not to say nonsense.
Sometimes, Project, I’d like to be close to him, to be his boyfriend again, although I know it would not work, as it didn’t work the first time, I flatter myself that I could get him out of his melancholy, that is, from his depression, the problem is just that. I think I would not repeat the behaviors that made him angry, I would talk much less and try to listen to him a lot more. The fact that he trusts me and that our dialogue is without taboos makes me feel proud, I feel that for him I’m still important, in the end it is not sex that matters but the fact of being understood and loved for what we really are with all our problems and our psychological complexes. He is a guy who has suffered a lot, who says he is cynical but he’s really capable of having a strong affective participation, and especially has feelings that often cause him to suffer deeply.
We are not a couple in the classical sense, but between us there is above all but not only that kind of relationship that can be created between brothers who feel perfectly comfortable together, and then there is also a very special sexual harmony because we have a real affective relationship. I never thought that the relationship with him was really over, maybe it could be suspended, but did not disappear, I knew that in the backdrop of our souls it would remain as a calming element, as a basically unshakable certainty. I cannot think of myself without him, and I think that it is more or less the same to him. He had several guys, I only had him, but in the end we came to the same conclusion that we can feel ourselves only when we are together, because for us alternatives don’t have anything realistic.
There have also been moments of misunderstanding but we have never hated each other and we have maintained an affective bond capable of overcoming any difficulties. There have been matters of principle, but then we have overtaken them on both sides, because we realized that beyond abstract arguments and reasoning only few things are really important, first of all people, then confidence, the fact that the other is there and you know he will be there, that he will never turn his back on you under any circumstances.
When I talk to him, I fully understand that what we are saying has a meaning, that it is not a way of wasting time but a way to look for an affective response and to look for it where it is known that it will be possible to find it, is a way to tell each other our weakness and seeking comfort for the evils of life, a way to enjoy the attentions of the other, his respect, his affection, and a way to verify that despite everything, nothing is lost in the very basic things.
A hug, a kiss, a bit of desired and spontaneously sharing sex are the true foundation of happiness. We do not belong to each other, the concept of possession has nothing to do with love, we love each other and I think we will continue to love in any case because certain forms of solidarity, and it would be better to say of love, last a lifetime.