DEAR EMILY,
When I married my husband 15 years ago, I thought my life was set. I was 27 then with a string of broken love affairs. I thought he was the answer to my prayer.
He was not at all handsome or tall, but he was kind, generous and had a very good job. Things started to look up even more when his rise in his company seemed unstoppable, as his position got better and higher. Our luck brought us so much comfort.
I worked in an NGO and when the children started coming, my husband suggested I stay home and just accompany him on trips. We traveled frequently and, with our savings, even bought a little place abroad as an investment.
On our 12th year, after vacationing many times on my own or with family members, I met someone. He was a nobody, a guy with totally no ambition except be a carpenter. He and his father had moderate success repairing broken-down homes and furniture.
After moving around with overly ambitious and highly educated people, this obscure quiet man brought unexplained joy to me. He barely finished high school, was single, and his long-term relationship ended just before we met.
After a long-distance relationship of three years, now he wants us to get married and start our own family. We are so in love that I am willing to drop everything, my comfort and family, just to be with him.
I know that my husband who has spoiled me and has only shown kindness to my family doesn’t deserve this. But he bores me, and it hurts me that there’s nothing about him that interests me now. I see all his little irritating faults everyday and I don’t care anymore if I leave my comfortable life with him.
Every day away from my love is making my resolve to fly to him only stronger. I don’t see this as living at all.
—DETERMINED
Yes, having a generous husband and getting what you want without absolutely no effort—where other people would give an arm and a leg for—can be extremely boring! There is no fun anymore at throwing money for a dress or a dish that can feed a family for a month, or buying another needless high-end car that could hardly fit in the garage.
The desperation in your past life, and its reverse now of having everything you want at your fingertips, has flown out the window, and this is making your spirit very hungry. Drinking from the saucer because the cup has overfilled can really be boring—to some.
Meeting this nobody who is everything you are not anymore has awakened your basic instinct, and you’re suddenly craving for something that is simple and plain. Isn’t life a laugh? You sprint to the top, only to find that there’s really nothing much up there.
But, must you ruin a family because your husband failed to put the brakes on his generosity and kindness to you? Must he and the kids be punished because you discovered the superficiality of your existence and are trying hard to put meaning to it now without them in it?
If and when you scamper to a life with this guy, would you still be breathless and in love when you find you can’t pay the never-ending bills, when the novelty of his “simple” life loses its burnish to a nothing, and when one day, you both sadly ask, after the excitement has died down, “is this all there is?”
Love, for all the volumes written about it, is truly just a fever. Some last overnight, some as long as the pages in a calendar. While some go on to the next level and succeed, most turn out boring—just like what was left behind in the first place.
Before you jump from the frying pan to the fire, pause and ruminate. Sometimes, a fever is really just a fever.
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