#523 Explanation & Multiplying Love

I got a heated reaction to entry #519 from someone who thinks I am obsessed with "her". I don't think I am obsessed with the other woman. What is driving me crazy is that I don't know what's going on in his mind. Her presence at the meeting (if it even was her, which I don't know for sure) would seem to indicate that something is off kilter, and it's that that's driving me crazy. Not knowing what's going on, what he's thinking or feeling. And with the family concerns he has at the moment, I'm not going to push for answers from him.
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Something I came across in the newspaper (and what's going on, of course) got me thinking about "shared" love. Everyone always says that if you have ten children, you love them all equally, just maybe in different ways. That it's not like there's only so much love, and it's diluted by being divided among several. That the capacity for love expands, and is separate and complete for each.

Having had only one child, I have no personal experience with this. But I still have an opinion.

I think it sounds really nice, but I don't think it's true. We want it to be true, but although love might want to expand, time doesn't. Attention might want to, but it can't. So maybe when you are lying in bed at night and you think of each of the children, the love you feel is equal for each. But the actual day-to-day expression of that love will not be. One of the children might need more of you, and you will naturally give more of your time and attention to that child. That matters. Priorities matter. It's not just the abstract feeling that you hold that counts, it's also the expression of it, and I'm sorry, but that just isn't going to be equal.

There has been some concern expressed that since I loved Jay so much, any man who might come after would feel intimidated by his example, jealous of his memory. It's not the same, because, well, he's gone. There will be no division of affection. I am sure that I can love again just as deeply (although differently, because another man will naturally be different.)

I've also been thinking about the dogs in this context, about something that surprised me. Ninja (the Keeshund, the gray and black in the photos) spent his first five months of life in a tiny cage in a pet shop. Consequently, he never learned how to play, and had difficulty accepting and displaying affection. We often had the impression that he merely tolerated us. He had some emotional problems, trust issues, as evidenced by the lick-marks on his right paw in the photo. Baby, on the other hand, the blond mixed-breed, lived with us since she was six weeks old, and she was 40 pounds of pure happiness and love.

Each dog did get separate time from Jay and me. Ninja was obedience-trained, and so he got to go places with us that Baby (with her excess exuberance) couldn't, and he and I spent a lot of time practicing the commands, which he seemed to enjoy. He liked knowing that he was doing something right and being praised for it. He had a problem with his hips (Von Willebrand's Disease, which eventually was fatal), so he could not go on long or difficult walks.

Baby, on the other hand, went with us on hikes. She was very good off the leash. Ninja was hard of hearing, so if he got too far away from us, he couldn't hear us call him back, and not being a "scent" dog, he got lost easily.

I thought we knew both dogs well, and that we loved both dogs equally.

And then one day, Ninja died of a massive internal hemorrhage from the Von Willebrand's.

And we discovered that we hadn't known Baby at all as well as we thought. I guess a lot of her attention and affection had been going to Ninja, and she had been getting validation from him. Now she turned to us, and we discovered that she was a lot more intelligent and interactive than we had thought. The workings of her mind, which we had never noticed before, were fascinating. And I fell madly in love with her. I thought I had loved her before, but I hadn't really known the real her before.

So I can't help but wonder - when there is a passle of kids, especially if they are close in age, can you really know each of them that well? Since a lot of their interaction will be with each other, rather than with you? (Yeah, I know, dogs aren't children, but the social interaction, the satisfying of emotional needs, still applies.)

Now, don't go sending me flaming email that you have five children and you love them each and every one equally to distraction. I'm sure you do. But I'm wondering how well you really know each and every one. If there's one who needs you least, it's possible your knowledge of him or her is superficial. They may surprise you one day.

I don't know how any of this applies to my love life. When a man has two women, I suppose it is theoretically possible to love both equally, but in actual practice I don't think so. One will always be a higher priority than the other. In this case, I know she is a higher priority than I, and I suspect (but knowing nothing about their relationship it is pure conjecture) that it is her physical need for and dependence on him that tips the balance. Sort of like when Ninja got more attention and love from me because he needed it more than Baby did.

Maybe love expands - but time and attention cannot.