Finally...the One?

One book that led me to view life from another frame of mind was "The Commitment," by Dan Savage. He put into question our concept of a "successful marriage." According to him, "til death do us part" marriages are not necessarily happy nor fruitful. There are several marriages, like his own parents', that did not withstand the test of time but from all aspects were actually successful.

Thomas and I had a dicussion last year about the fate of our relationship. He said that should a point in time come that we aren't happy together anymore, we shouldn't view our relationship with regret. That I, in case we break up, should not think that our journey together was a waste of time.

At that time, I didn't understand him, and I viewed his belief as a sort of defense mechanism developed by kids of broken marriages. I viewed it then suspiciously, like the way I viewed pre-nuptial agreements back then.

Reading my old posts about how I wanted my future husband to be makes me laugh! They sound so childish and immature, familiar and yet alien. Was this me? Was I really that crazy? Thomas, if anything, is the opposite of the guy with whom I imagined myself married. The guy I wanted to be with is moneyed, articulate, well-read, a city boy. Thomas is proud of the fact that aside from his school textbooks, he has only read one book his entire life, The Da Vinci Code. I met Thomas as a "poor German student," now he is a "stuggling young professional." Thomas is not verbally articulate, and we settled here in Erfurt as a compromise. He hates big cities.

Yet, we get along really well. We can occupy the same space for extended periods of time without killing each other. Are we two halves of a whole? Probably not. I would describe our relationship like a fusion dish. You never thought that chili and chocolate would taste so good together, but they do! I guess if ended up with my New York Kinda Guy, he would be so insufferable that we would implode.

Before Thomas, I was really wounded by a guy. On paper, we sounded so compatible. We liked books, we were both into the arts, we were both geeks. We wined and dined, and made love because I felt, this was it, he was the one. I rushed into things so strongly that I was blind to the fact that this guy was a neurotic who could crash into a hysterical breakdown at any moment.

So is Thomas the one? Could be. I don't know. I'm not saying. But it's fun having him along for the ride.