The answer to Gretchen's question

"Wow!" Gretchen wrote. "I don't understand why you two aren't together."

The short answer is, we don't understand it either.

Just a couple of weeks ago I made Marie so angry she tried to tear the skin off my face. The anger and wrongness that brought us to that awful place, that tense and screaming ugliness, is the reverse side of all the wonderful passion we have for each other, and sometimes I'm not sure how we careen from one to the other. We both have demons and hurts and awful insecurities, and at times the love within us was not strong enough to combat the fear. We fought awfully and poorly and often. In her worst moments Marie would speak to me in a hard cold voice that cut me in my most tender place, threatening me with rejection and terrifying judgement and the loss of her love, and in my hurt all the anger and ugly turmoil within me would spill out, and I would shout back irrationally, or panic and run. As human beings we are only born with two fears, the fear of abandonment and the fear of falling, and loss and hurt in a relationship are both at once. God gave us this precious gift, a soul mate, a helpmate, our heart's unending desire, The One True Great Love of our lives, but we've been too fragile and too human to heal it and keep it together. We've been separated for over a 120 wasted days.

By now too we are overburdened with practical concerns. Reuniting our split household is a tentative and uncertain thing, and with 4.29 a gallon gas eating up a good chunk of our paychecks a working separated couple does all it can do just to keep bills paid and feed themselves. We've got to manage somehow. We've got to find a place to begin. The other part is overcoming those first few tense days of being a family again. After the long habit of being apart, just living in the same space poses a challenge all its own: we have to learn to get along without the fear, and handle the little inevitable troubles without the drama and harshness.

Let me ask you, Gretchen: you've been successfully and happily married a long time. How do you make it work? How do people overcome the stubborn and foolish pride that undoes their love? Any of the other blog readers, if you have a something to share about this, I would love to listen. How do we make love work? The divorce rate in our country is somewhere around 50%. The exact number does not matter; it's too high, and reflects unspeakable pain and brokenness in the lives of many people, particularly children. How do we heal? How do we make it better?

Last night Marie and I met at a Wendy's in Tualatin. We had another tense and foolish argument, and this time it was me who was asking the jealous and irrational questions. Finally our talk softened and she reached out to me and held both her hands in mine, and we kissed and forgave each other. We went over to Hayden's in the Tualatin center square, a lovely restaurant beside a beautiful man made lake. Soft lights shine on the water and with the handsome stone buildings that surround it, the park benches and fountains and trees, you could walk around this lake and imagine yourself to be in Italy or France or any of the finest places in the world. The inside of the restaurant holds a companionable bar, and last night Conroy-Debrie were playing. We had a glass of wine and listened to the music and held each other. The band played its arresting rhythms and soaring vocals, with Dub's piercing guitar licks, a perfect complement to a good glass of wine and stolen kisses. Their show ended at 11 and we made our way out to our separate cars. It was June 20, the night before the longest day of the year, Summer's eve, and the night air was mild and smelled faintly of summer. We kissed goodbye, affection turning to longing and desire. Marie cried, because we had to say goodbye again and had no place to go. 120 days, tragic and foolish days. We have something people read about and dream about and write books about, but we haven't found a way to make it work. Marie wiped the tears from her face and got in her car. She had to work in the morning at five and I had a long drive to Colton. I grew drowsy on the way home, listening to blues under the starry night sky and had to pull into the parking lot of the Nazarene Church to sleep a few minutes, got home around 12:30. I wasn't in the mood to write so I played Internet chess for an hour till I got tired enough to sleep without thinking.

About Marie and I, it frustrates me because I can't explain it or fix it. Marie is everything I ever dreamed of and more than I could ever imagine, passionate, intense, giving, wise, strong, sexual, sensuous, abundant, spiritual, deep, exotic, skilled, pleasuring and pleasing, gloriously alive, wondrously loving. I don't want anyone else. I never have. Leaving her was never about finding a bigger, better deal because there isn't one: I'm old enough and mature enough to know she is the Real Deal; it was about ending the madness and our ridiculous fighting. I just wanted to make love and eat together and and work and hold each other and have the long comforting talks we have when everything is all right. I don't want another woman. I just want her. And I just want this part to end, to get to the happy ending if there is one.