When He Doesn't Say "I Love You"
Thursday, October 8th, 2009“He’s a good one, I think. He seems to treat you well and he loves you and you always sound like you’re having so much fun with him,” she pursued over the phone.
Love…she said “love.” Hmmmm…
“But he doesn’t love me,” I admitted. It didn’t matter saying it aloud. Either way, it was still true.
“Really? How do you know that? He might. He definitely cares about you.”
“Well, he’s never said he loves me… we don’t say it. But it’s more than that. I just know, I guess.” If a voice can shrug, mine would have just then. Confessedly so.
“But it’s been, what, like six months? Are you okay with that? Don’t you think…” she trailed off, apparently thinking better of it.
What a tiresome direction this conversation has taken, I thought. Is there some kind of timeline for that sort of thing that I don’t know about? Am I back to being an idiot after another emotionally unavailable man? I know she means well, but why put questions like that in my head? What the hell?
“Am I not supposed to be?” I fired back, head swimming with quandries about what’s normal…like there is such a thing. “I mean, I know he doesn’t love me right now, but I also know that someday he might. This is silly…”
“Well, as long as you’re happy and he treats you well, I guess,” she offered as some kind of shoddy comfort.
“I am and he does. We’re happy…I am at least.”
And that much was true too.
Ah, the uncertainty of it all. The first few months to a year in a relationship is so great because of the uncertainty, the not knowing if or when he’ll call and the butterflies that go along with that.
But sometimes you just want to fast forward to the part where you can ask an honest question, without subtlety or insinuation, and get an honest answer. There is no time limit on any of this, trust yourself.
Ames’ comment is great as usual; I remember first getting together with my boyfriend and we were so young and he said to me “I wish we could fast forward five years so we could know we’d still be together.” I think he was feeling what is articulated above.
But the thing that struck me about this post, and maybe you just left it out or it didn’t need to be said because of past conversations, but she never asked whether YOU loved HIM?
Happiness is nothing to be sniffed at.
How very astute of you fancy Chica. She didn’t ask and I didn’t offer…and for now my typing fingers are “sealed.”
Tease.