How men fall in love

How am I ever going to commit to one woman when I just want to have sex with everything in sight?

Chances are every man at some point has thought this question in his head, especially as a teenager. As a teenager, our hormones are running rampant and bouncing all over the place and all we want to do is have sex, and it’s all we think about. Takes quite a few years for them to calm down and settle. And I think the idea of sex overshadows men slightly, because well into our twenties and thirties we are thought to be led by our estranged penile members, dictating our every move, determining whether we’ll be happy on one day but sad the next.

I think it’s where a lot of women go wrong too. Or so my wife tells me. That for a woman to open up early and try to have a long-term relationship based on sex is going to leave her empty and unfulfilled when the relationship settles. What do you do when you have to actually get to know them?

I’ve had a few younger men question this actually. One asked me, perhaps last year, why he doesn’t feel the spark anymore? Why his heart isn’t jumping into his mouth and wanting to be around her all the time? To me that’s just the settling into a long-term relationship phase, where the couple relaxes and settles into their normal routines, and all the pedestalling and chivalry and pretense fades away. When both couples get comfortable. It’s a natural phase of a relationship. Or one that’s moving into the long term.

And perhaps we don’t know too much about the man’s idea of falling in love, or at least it’s not talked about. I’ve never read any articles about it. Us men like to imagine ourselves as iron blocks, impervious to the emotional drama that’s slung our way. Impervious, we like to portray ourselves as, especially in the media. I see it all the time, in dating tips, pickup guides, and all sorts. I read this stuff a lot because it interests me. I write about it, so I’m interested in it.

What I’ve learned about women is that sex is like a switch, they turn that shit off for months on end, but us men, we’re like machines in that sense. If we don’t have sex it’ll build, and build and build until it just needs to be handled by ourselves. And let me tell you, the longer men go without ejaculation, the stranger and fucked up those thoughts become!! But that’s not to say that I am condoning forced sex or anything like that, there are plenty of ways a man can satisfy himself whilst still being completely faithful to his partner, and without using porn. But that’s a different story, I feel I’m getting side-tracked.

For me I understood that I was in love with my [now] wife when I was blistering angry at her, but I would still want to protect her. Strange, right? The thought came to me when I was really angry at her one day as we were in town shopping, yet I still wanted to hold her hand – this may seem counterproductive but you can take away from that which you like. A good meme on Facebook was an old man, angry at his partner whilst holding an umbrella over her head to protect her from the rain whilst he, himself got wet. It sort of snuck up on me, love.

It’s not a lovey dovey all happy thing like it’s portrayed in the movies, something that I had to work hard to get my head around, it’s just the idea of being in each other’s presence and being completely comfortable. I remember bending over once and asking her if there were any spots on my bum; that sort of comfortable.

There’s also a freedom, trust and non-control to love that I find deeply interesting. I feel I’m quite a catchable guy, and if I were to end up single again I would have no problems finding another suitable mate. But, I completely don’t want to. My wife satisfies every need that I ever have, I just wouldn’t want another woman. I want to be my wife’s until my last dying breath. And for men, love is totally not staying with his partner because it’s scary outside, or he doesn’t want to lose his house, or he feels there’s nothing else out there. It’s about wanting to be with his partner because he chooses to.

And then that brings me to the age-old question about his eye wandering. I appreciate the occasional beauty, and I expect my wife does too. It’s natural. As humans, we’re naturally gifted to appreciate symmetry, but what love is certainly not is kissing / groping / sexually touching or having sex with other women. If he is doing this without his partners explicit consent then it’s definitely not love, it’s not trust either, and it’s not respecting her.

A man will respect a partner that he loves, so he definitely won’t walk all over her. Regardless of any man that says we’re not emotional beings, we just are. There’s a lot of emotion involved in respect, or so I’ve come to understand that in my near eight years of Marriage, there is a deep respect to love that’s unquestionable, so he won’t be laughing at his partner, or shaming her in front of anyone.

My friends in my earlier years would joke about me “being under the thumb” because I would tell my partner everywhere I was going to and how long I’d be. Not that I wasn’t allowed to go, only that she’d know where I was and what I was doing. Then I’d get back home and laugh, or be sad, or sometimes cry about my adventures. And she needn’t ask I’d just offer the information up to her. And to me there is a deep and sacred trust between partners, a man that loves his woman will always be truthful to her no matter what.

For me love is quite a mature concept, there’s a trust, respect, faith in each other that goes beyond the physical. I’m not sure I could have achieved that twenty years ago. I had in my head that love was the feeling in my stomach, the wanting to be around someone always, the pedestalling of their every move and behaviour, but as I grew older I realised that had become obsession, and obsession isn’t healthy in my eyes! It’s the idolising of someone, when in fact, everyone’s shit stinks the same.