I have a friend who is very sad tonight.

He has a good and faithful wife who does a lot for their family. Although things had been rocky in the past he knows now that she is there for him and does not have her eyes set on anyone else anymore to possibly replace him. He loves her with all his heart and believes that she loves him. He feels like she is his “true love”, the one chosen for him to spend his life with. They have a decent sex life. It is frequent, although not always as intense as he would like it to be. He would love to have the opportunity to please her more often, without even having to be physically pleased himself. They both work hard, make good money, have nice things, a nice home and are on track to have it even better in the future.

So why is he sad?

He has told me that the major reason he is sad is that he just doesn’t feel loved. Don’t get him wrong, his wife does a lot in her day to day life to demonstrate love to him and their family. She has often gone out of her way to show the materialistic side of love. He knows that she loves him, it’s just the feeling that he needs. I tell him that he is acting crazy. He needs to just accept the fact that all she does is enough to prove her love. Besides, I tell him, this is girly talk if ever I have heard it. “Are you a man or a woman?” I ask. Then he reminds me that there is much more, in his opinion, that can be done to prove love. He doesn’t doubt that she loves him, why else would she have agreed to marry him. His argument here is best relayed to you, the reader, in his own words….

He sits next to me but doesn’t really look at me, he is looking off…at something else, but he clears his throat and says, “I know that she loves me. I just am not made to physically feel like she does. We have sex pretty often, usually four times a week, but I am usually feeling, once it is finished, that I could have been with a stranger and felt more connection. Then there is all the other times...” He says, “Those times when I just want to hold her, to kiss her, to put my arms around her. Hell, I would like to be able to just hold her hand while walking in the mall without it feeling like it were a chore for her. ” He turns to me and looks me in the eye as he continues. “There have been so many times where, at night in bed, I have reached out to her, tried to hold her, tried to put my arm around her, just to feel close to her…and she has pushed me away. Ninety eight percent of the time, in our marriage, this has been the case. Then there are the many, many times where I stop her in the kitchen, or on her way out to her car, or anywhere for that matter where I try to give her a kiss. She will recognize that I am wanting to kiss her and she will usually stop, make a drawn out sigh, and turn her face up to mine with her lips pooched out awaiting the kiss. This kiss she is expecting is not the kind of kiss I am wanting to give her. She makes me feel like having to kiss me is only slightly less worse than having to clean dog shit out of the carpet. All I am wanting to do is gave a kiss that says, ‘have a good day’, or ’sleep tight baby’, or ‘have fun out shopping and be careful’. Instead I am made to feel like I am trying to convert her to some religion she has no desire to be a part of. Her uninterested kisses makes me feel like shit.” He stopped at this point and excused himself to the bathroom. While he was gone I could only think about how terrible that must feel, loving someone so much it hurts but not being made to feel the total/complete love in return. I feel bad for asking him the question that tried to put a label on how he really feels… “Are you a man or a woman?”

My friend returned a couple minutes later, sat back down, looked me again in the eye and said, “Chuck, I know she and I have had some rocky roads in the past, but now things are better. I just want her to respond to me. To love me. To want to be held, to hold, to cuddle, to really connect. If that makes me a “girly man” or a “drama queen” then go ahead and buy me the t-shirt. Make sure it says both of those…’I am a Girly Man and a Drama Queen Because I Love My Wife More Than Anything!’ “ I remind him that that might be too much to put on a t-shirt and we both get a good laugh from that. I get up and go into the kitchen to get us both a beer and as I return to the living room with beers in hand I am not sure whether the tears in his eyes are from laughing at the “joke” or from something else. He continues….

“Chuck I have told you so many times how much I love my wife. I would never, intentionally, do anything to cause a problem between us. I know I have been stupid in the past and said or did things that were fucked up, but that was way in the past. Why can’t she just let me love her, and love me the same way in return?”

My response was to offer him another beer. I just don’t know how to answer his question or respond to his statements. All I could say was to be “persistent, because surely someday she would come around and see what it is you need.” He just laughed it off, downed the last of his beer, asked for another, and said….”Well, maybe this was a waste of time talking about all of this. Maybe I am a freak for wanting to really connect with my wife.”

I didn’t have an answer for him. Do any of you?

Another picture before I go to bed. Found this today and just felt the need to share….

Here is where we live. (click on the pic to make it large enough to actually see what it is I am talking about.) The red thumbnail marks our cul-de-sac. Our house is the 5th one on the right side of the cul-de-sac (your right as you drive onto the street). Taken from a satellite back in ‘97. All of the light gray area in the center is now full of houses. If you want to find your own home via satellite go back to my link on Aug. 30th.