Tell You What It Means To Me
Posted on March 1, 2012
I was being a whiny baby on Twitter (@largetony) over the weekend.
Basically I was feeling sorry for myself because of injuries I have been suffering from falling off a ladder a few days ago and I was pouting because The Attorney wasn’t here to take care of me.
Not that there was anything he could have done. I’m just used to seeing him on the weekends and was feeling lonely and wanted him around. But, he was away on a trip to Nashville.
I got a message from someone who basically said they couldn’t understand how I could put up with being in a relationship for five years where we only see each other once or twice a week.
The implication was that I am wasting my time.
Maybe I am naive (which is entirely possible when it comes to relationships for me) but isn’t better to have someone you really love some of the time than to have anyone else all the time?
Going through life “all or nothing” isn’t a way I want to live. Too full a glass can be easy to spill, and you could die of thirst from an empty one.
But what is really interesting about the comment is that someone who is gay can’t seem to wrap their brain around the unconventional nature of my relationship with The Attorney.
How is that possible when we are living in an age where the gay community is doing its damnedest to get the rest of the world to understand that a relationship doesn’t have to be conventional to be valid, happy, and strong?
Not that I’m trying to give my little slice of life’s pie the importance of something so global. But, there’s a parallel there.
You gotta learn to respect to get respect.
Lordy, my inner Aretha is about to come out.
[ fin ]
Gay relationships can be very unconventional and yet just as loving and as strong as a conventional one. Without going into details, I loved a man for the first 40 years of my marriage. He lived one continent and one ocean away from me and we only saw each other when one or the other, usually us for family reasons, visited England. Sometimes our visits lasted a week other times for a few days. But, until the day he died we loved each other with complete abandon, physically and mentally. His most enduring comment during all those years was: “What? Move in with each other and spoil a perfectly good relationship.”
A few days before he died and during our last telephone conversation he told me not to come to see him. “Our love is too strong for that,” he said. He died in 2004 and I love him,to this day with every fibre of my body.
I’m not so sure that what the gay community is trying to do is “get the rest of the world to understand that a relationship doesn’t have to be conventional to be valid, happy and strong.” If we were, the gay community would be focusing on all sorts of nontraditional relationships, including triads, master/slave agreements, and more.
What’s being pushed is the idea that *if* society is going to recognize adult relationships and confer benefits, privileges, immunities and benefits on those relationships, it can’t do on a discriminatory basis, picking and choosing which couples get the nod and which ones don’t.
They are not mutually exclusive, of course, and one can support both. But only one is actually being pushed with any seriousness by what one could call, with a touch of irony, the “mainstream gay community”.
That said, each of us has to decide how much attention and direct interaction we need with a partner, and if the two people involved are happy, that’s all that matters. I once was in a relationship with a guy who lived three hours away, so we only saw each other on weekends, and I ended up breaking up with him because it was too claustrophobic. So if you can put up with seeing someone on weekends AND occasionally during the week as well, more power to you – who am I to tell you that your relationship is abnormally close?
Agreed!
At the end of the day it boils down to how happy you are. If it ain’t broke, don’t try to fix it. It is good that you both can maintain a sense of self while working on being a couple.
Agree with you it’s your reality and the attorney’s reality and no one’s business! I know lot’s of straight folks who see each other less and are married. The more someone tells you how to run you life the less they know how to run their own, and this is true for the person who posted that crap.Tell the poster to gfys.
You are very fortunate to have each other.
Meh- why would you want to see him more? You guys might get bored with each other. Or worse- resent each other because you don’t get any “me time” anymore.
Moby has the right idea from my perspective. No one should have to “justify” his relationship to please anyone else. If you are happy and your needs are being met, what possible concern can anyone else have? Too often we become concerned with what others think. Life is too short and precious for that kind of BS. Aretha also said “Think”.
someone needs to be slapped up-side their head, and it ain’t you, it’s the clown who sent you that message.
I mean, gee, why would Tony put up with a relationship with hot guy that makes them both exceptionally happy and allows Tony to both work a job and act as primary caregiver to his beloved Granny? why would Tony, a guy who loves the Vols ,put up with a bf that has season tickets? and why in hell would a bloggin’, tweetin’, tumblr’in insomiac writer put up with a relationship in which he can’t spend every waking minute with his bf?
it’s a real stumper, all right.
Tony, I know from our conversations that you and the Attorney make each other very happy and as much as you enjoy your time together you also enjoy your time apart. Sounds like someone was telling you what would make them happy in a relationship and expecting you to find happiness in the same thing.
Gay, Straight or Bi – we are all individuals and what makes one couple happy isn’t necessarily a recipe for success for another couple.
Now quit yer whinin’ ;-o
…”was feeling lonely…” That says it all. We all feel lonely at one time or another. That just makes the eventual get-together all the better! You miss your man, ain’t nothin’ wrong with that. Have fun when he comes back!! You have a blog (a very entertaining and informative one), you’re gonna get comments. That’s what blogging is about.
You and him, that’s what’s important. Instead of Aretha, how about Stevie Wonder (or Streisand, who does a great cover version) singing “You and I”.
I really appreciate your wisdom (and irony). I would really like to hear your take on Scotty Bowers new book, “Full Service.”
Fritz and I lived a commuter relationship for ten years and just came to love each other more and more. As others are saying, live your life as YOU need to.
Hoping you’re not in danger from these continuing tornadoes.
Forget what the clod on Twitter said, and take Polonius’s advice: “To thine own self be true.” If you (and the Attorney, natch) are happy, then that’s all that matters. If some nameless, faceless person on the internet disapproves, that’s his/her problem, not yours.
OMG, You’ve so moved on beyond the “naive” stage. You’ve been in a beautiful relationship for 5 years.
1 day a week, 2 days a week, 7 days a week or 4 hours a week, you’ve built something with someone. Good for you.
Firemen are often 24 hours on and 24 hours off. So they only see each other every other night. The military will deploy people for months at a time where they don’t see their spouse for months on end. For various reasons people really define their relationships not by the amount of time they spend together, but by their commitment when they are apart. There are working relationships that require you to spend 24 hours a day together, but they are not in a relationship. The reason, at the end of the time together they walk away and don’t really have a commitment to each other. It’s commitment, not time.