I don't know her as well as myself; I know her as part of myself.
My wife and I had an interesting conversation tonight on the subject of faithfulness and jealousy.
As some reading this may or may not know, I've been with my wife for a long time - from the time we started dating to today, we've been together 13 years, 6 months, and 8 days. Give or take a couple of hours. We've been through easy times, like the carefree days of later college, and some difficult times - me hiding from my student loans, her dealing with the trauma of long-lost relatives, and many others. And through it all, we've stayed together, faithful, devoted, and above all in love with each other.
This isn't so strange, comparatively - we both know quite a few other happy couples. But we discussed tonight something that apparently strikes others as odd - for all that we're devoted to each other, we're remarkably independant, and yet we refrain from any jealousy about that.
This takes several forms. For example, it's quite frequent that she'll be reading a library book while I'm playing DS while both of us occasionally watch the same program on television. We're a bit isolated, each immersed in our own activity, with some absorbtion of television. Most people looking at that would think that we'd be feeling pretty isolated. But we look at that as precious quality time spent with each other.
Though I suppose it's more evident in how we conduct ourselves when apart. She regularly has dinner with male friends (in fact, she did so last night), but I don't question her faithfulness. She likewise doesn't question mine when I visit friends for a whole week out of state or go to yet another anime con (which admittedly tend to attract libidinous folks wearing way too little at times). We've both got friends of the opposite gender, and it's never a question as to whether we can trust the other. We don't get jealous. We don't get worried. We just know that the other is faithful.
I can see how some people would get jealous or defensive in such situations, but we don't. I do have to wonder if it's the fact that we matured together - we were still going through puberty when we met, so in just about any way you could imagine it, we became adults together. (Though get your minds out of the gutter there.) It could be that, due to living about twenty miles apart for the first two years together (and with neither of us having cars) and we naturally got used to such things.
I suppose, if nothing else, we've got the trust thing down. I don't question as to whether she'd cheat on me - you might as well ask if my right hand was going to start cheating on me, for all the sense it would make to me. I guess my only hope is that others one day get to have that level of trust in their own relationships.
As some reading this may or may not know, I've been with my wife for a long time - from the time we started dating to today, we've been together 13 years, 6 months, and 8 days. Give or take a couple of hours. We've been through easy times, like the carefree days of later college, and some difficult times - me hiding from my student loans, her dealing with the trauma of long-lost relatives, and many others. And through it all, we've stayed together, faithful, devoted, and above all in love with each other.
This isn't so strange, comparatively - we both know quite a few other happy couples. But we discussed tonight something that apparently strikes others as odd - for all that we're devoted to each other, we're remarkably independant, and yet we refrain from any jealousy about that.
This takes several forms. For example, it's quite frequent that she'll be reading a library book while I'm playing DS while both of us occasionally watch the same program on television. We're a bit isolated, each immersed in our own activity, with some absorbtion of television. Most people looking at that would think that we'd be feeling pretty isolated. But we look at that as precious quality time spent with each other.
Though I suppose it's more evident in how we conduct ourselves when apart. She regularly has dinner with male friends (in fact, she did so last night), but I don't question her faithfulness. She likewise doesn't question mine when I visit friends for a whole week out of state or go to yet another anime con (which admittedly tend to attract libidinous folks wearing way too little at times). We've both got friends of the opposite gender, and it's never a question as to whether we can trust the other. We don't get jealous. We don't get worried. We just know that the other is faithful.
I can see how some people would get jealous or defensive in such situations, but we don't. I do have to wonder if it's the fact that we matured together - we were still going through puberty when we met, so in just about any way you could imagine it, we became adults together. (Though get your minds out of the gutter there.) It could be that, due to living about twenty miles apart for the first two years together (and with neither of us having cars) and we naturally got used to such things.
I suppose, if nothing else, we've got the trust thing down. I don't question as to whether she'd cheat on me - you might as well ask if my right hand was going to start cheating on me, for all the sense it would make to me. I guess my only hope is that others one day get to have that level of trust in their own relationships.