Love And Faith

Over dinner with Outrageous this weekend, we got to talking about the crushes we have as married women. I often fall in love when I am happiest with myself and my marriage. My wandering eye was never because of anything wanting in The Man. But my crushes were passionate nonetheless, though existing solely as one-sided affairs on my part.

My first grand affair was when I went back to work after The Boy was born. The director in charge of the area I worked in had a playful air about him. I found myself looking forward to going to work just to see him. I found out where he lived. I envied his wife when he said they often play tennis together. At one point, I believed my marriage would be in trouble if he asked me out. Of course he never did. Not only was he married, he had two teenage children. And I never gave the air that I was available. In fact, part of the attraction for me was his dedication to his family. But these things didn't stop me from fantasizing about being swept up in his arms and us getting to know each other better. Eventually, I left my job for a better offer, my heart broke, but I was relieved too to have been released from an impossible entanglement that never happened. Not that I had ever exchanged more than a few sentences with him in the year we worked together.

The next time I realized I was smitten was when The Boy took skiing lessons at age six. His ski instructor was about 22. I'm not sure he was good looking, but he was good natured and had a good sense of humour. He liked The Boy and joked with him often. Back then, I was like a puppy, panting after whoever was nice to The Boy. I was falling for a lot of young men who had dealings with The Boy. For sure I didn't want to pursue anything with the ski instruction, ever so aware he saw me as an older woman with a family, which required him to behave politely and respectfully towards me. How much more matronly can a woman be made to feel than that? But nevertheless, I liked being around the ski instruction when he kidded The Boy.

When The Boy was in grade four, I fell in love with his teacher. All the boys in the class liked him, he was fun, into technology and environmental concerns. At our second teacher-parent meeting, he told me that even though The Boy had been tagged gifted by the school board, he didn't know what was so special about The Boy. The Boy wasn't getting good grades, his work was messy, he got in trouble all the time for distracting the class. This man was not appreciating my boy. My passion for him died right there and then, as suddenly as it had surfaced. After that, I didn't care much for his opinions about anything and kept an eye on him to make sure he was not disadvantaging The Boy in any way with his ignorance.

The last significant crush I had was a few years ago. He was a younger man and not my type. Oh he wore the rock star long hair. But he also wore polyester shirts and bell bottoms, often looking like a throw back to the 70's, like a geeky guy from behind the Iron Curtain trying to look cool. I wasn't interested. But he felt otherwise. I mean, I felt him staring at me all the time. Every time I looked over, he had that smitten smile. I felt him trying to walk pass me, looking over at me, looking for reasons to talk to people around me so I could hear him. When I talked to him, he was awkward and fumbling.

Slowly, I found myself reciprocating the attention. I started staring at him and looking forward to him coming my way. I blushed when he walked by and my heart fluttered every time I saw him. When he went on vacation, I missed him. What was with that? Still, we had few opportunities to talk to each other. Our projects never overlapped and we didn't sit near each other. It was the tension in the air that I felt.

There was no doubt I would not pursue anything with him. But I wondered why I was acting like I was in love. I had a good long think about this one. I decided this was a vanity kind of crush. I liked him admiring me. I was flattered. So I decided to be gracious and just be thankful someone's existence was making me feel so good about myself. My contract ended, I left the company, and that was it.

What was it that Jimmy Carter said? I have never been unfaithful, but in my heart, I have sinned many times.

I don't know if I ever told The Man about my crushes. I probably said in the most casual way, Yeah I love men, I fall in love with them all the time. And The Man being The Man probably said, Yeah I notice lots of attractive women too. But I do know that I don't pursue my crushes because when I weigh my priorities, The Man and The Boy are at the top. My attachment to The Man is real and he's pretty hot. And we have that marriage vow thing. I keep my promises.