I discuss lust and love, and what lies between. We lust for everything in a way. There can be a lust for food or for material things or for feelings or the people that make those feelings. The objects may be different, but lust is simply strong desire, want. It isn't need. We confuse the two, and therein lies the problem. We can love or hate what we lust after. We can not lust after what we love. I think that is marriage sometimes, rather sex in marriage, hahahahaha.
But someone living a healthy life can place these things in perspective. That ability to have perspective is what heals even more so than if you have love in your life or not. That is at least where I am lucky.
I love my wife, but don't have lust for her as I once did because she doesn't allow love to flow like it should, and puts conditions on love. So I resent that, and it steals part of my happiness because where lust and love work together they are not allowed to work naturally as I'd like them to, so the needs I have for what I lust for and love still work on me to be filled, and since I'm at a dry well I look for where my thirst can be quenched. But as a man of honor it isn't just drinking dirty water blindly. I have the dignity, out of love for myself and sense of honor, to only drink what I really like, and what I know will taste best, and I only take small sips, just enough not to die from being parched.
And I think this happens in so many relationships, and that people get so thirsty for love that they drink anything, and do so in ways that are hurtful to their mates and themselves. Some people, many people will drink anywhere even when they have something to drink, and will drink in who is bad for them. I have the good sense to know myself and what is right and wrong there. That, to me, is cheating. You can't call it theft when a starving man takes a loaf of bread, but it is dirty when a fat one takes a truckload. Again we are back at perspective, and judgment.
But that is where morality comes in. I have had too much self-denial in my life, and wasted too much of my life without what I need to be healthy and happy. At a point of someone keeping from you what you need, especially when it is by design, well, at first you have a duty to work on it, but after a time you are justified in getting what you need, and yes there is a promise in any committed relationship, but when one fails to meet the needs of another, or give love, then that contract is already broken. The obligation gets mitigated.
Now I stay because I love my wife, but mostly for my son, because I know without me he will hurt and suffer and she will crash and burn. I need to get my family out of Jacksonville and to somewhere where people are still generally decent to each other. My wife also knows that I I see sexuality and lust as different and not contingent upon love and marriage, not meaning that we should be running around like wild sluts, but that those aspects should be treated on two levels. If I had a high level of passion and love out of her there would seldom be an urge to have my eye wander and think in lustful terms, but when I don't get the love comforts and needs for tenderness and companionship filled, those other needs get compounded, and there is only so much alone a man like me can take before he is either an empty shell or so sad as to be hopeless and worthless to himself or others.
I shouldn't have to make love and still have desires unfulfilled, or not have passion. There should be a hunger in lovemaking where there is suppose to be love. In that there should be a lust, a hunger and craving, a need for the one you love, and I still have that, but do see it shown to me, and that is more hurtful than if my wife was a good lover and companion to me and came and said she loved someone else.... that is what cheating is to me. When you are cheated out of what or how things should be.
In that way I never cheat. I understand the lustful craving associated with love. I recognize the general sexual lust. The second one I can dent, but the first one lacking wears upon my soul. A wife or husband to someone should be providing that, and when they don't part of you slowly dies, so it is like a transfusion to get that elsewhere when you really need it, and you have a duty to inform the person you are getting it from on what terms love and lust are being shared.
It is funny how easily and accepting and good a casual relationship on stated terms like that can be. I guess because the expectations are clear, and responsibilities as well. The best can reside without the bags or chains.
Love should set you free....