Hi Lex -- What do you mean by "the spark is gone"?

Quote from Dr. Bernie Siegel (and I may have the exact numbers wrong, but I've got the general idea here): "My wife and I have had 35 happy married years together. And that's not bad, out of 42."

What this means to me is that Americans have gotten into a philosophy of believing that another person is supposed to make us happy, fill us up, make us whole. But after the infatuation/lust wears off, and the "spark is gone," what keeps the relationship going is commitment to having a relationship with another person.

I was recently talking with me T about the sacrifices I made for P during our 15 years together -- and then got dumped abruptly with no explanation other than "my feelings have changed." The context was that I was feeling bad about those sacrifices. My T didn't think these sacrifices were necessarily to be regretted. He said: There's always 3 people in the relationship - you, the other person, and the relationship itself."

I'm not making a judgment that "you should" stay in this relationship. I'm just putting my particular observation out there about abandoning intimate relationships because of our socially conditioning assumptions about love and intimacy.

I also believe that we have to try out relationships, and some of them are not going to last, are not meant to last, and one of the people in that relationship may get hurt, because to love is to be vulnerable. It's the nature of love and intimacy.

Don't have any solutions -- just a bit of blathering -- but I sure wish you well in getting your point across. Not an easy situation.