Help! I Don't Believe in True Love

David Eddie hears from a reader, who after two divorces, has soured on love. Can she save her latest relationship? Should she even try?

Writing in the Globe and Mail, David Eddie hears from a reader in a relationship.  After two divorces, she's soured on love, but her new girlfriend says she's the love of her life and wants to get married.  What should she do?

The reader writes:

I’m 48 years old and I’ve been married and divorced twice. Prior to the last breakup, I had a very supportive platonic female friend. After the breakup, we developed into being more than friends. Then, a few months later, she moved in with me. We have lived together for about three years now.

My dilemma: She says I’m the “love of her life.” She has never had kids or a serious relationship before me. I waffle because I’m cynical and soured on marriage and love. Recently, she said she would marry me if I asked. I care for her, but I don’t feel “in love” with her. And, well, at 48, just how in love can one be? I keep waffling on the issue of love. Maybe this is as good as it gets. I’m wanting stilettos when I have fuzzy slippers. Should I suck it up and accept what I have?

Eddie responds:

I hate people who say they’re “cynical” about love and marriage. Maybe it hasn’t worked out for you (yet), but that is not the fault of those glorious, venerable institutions. I’ve been married for 18 years, and I’d take a bullet for my wife any day of the week. And (here Dave’s face takes on a poetical cast) “as I slid down the wall, leaving a bloody track, I’d smile quietly to myself, knowing I’d done the right thing.”

But what you need to focus on is this: If you’re in a relationship where you’re not passionate, where you’re waffling (mmm, maybe blueberries) and dragging your slippered heels, you’re wasting not only your own time, but the other person’s as well – and that’s not fair.

I never understand people who remain in relationships out of “guilt.” I’m not a therapist, but you should examine that guilt and see it for what it really is: cowardice and fear of loneliness, with a soupçon of narcissism thrown in. ...

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