No safety rails

Yesterday afternoon, I had lunch with an amazing woman who used to work for the U.S. military, conducting capacity building in Africa. She was, to my mind, an impossible ideal of effectiveness and cultural compassion. She was very good at her job. She was exceptional.

But the woman I saw yesterday was shaken and torn. Broken. I recognized the look: she reminded me of myself in 2012.

She told me that she had fallen in love. This was what had wrecked her. Now, she cannot be with her husband of more than 20 years. He wants to "make it work", but she, knowing what she knows, cannot go back to her marriage - even though she cannot be with her lover, either. She is tormented. While we talked, she expressed surprise that I did not condemn either her choices or her pain. When she said this, I realized how often I have been on the receiving end of such condemnations.

There seems to be a particular intolerance for people who are deeply affected by love. For all that movies and books focus on the subject of romantic love, there tends to be a safeguard placed on the actual practice. Love, but don't love so deeply that it destroys you. When a relationship ends, the pain is supposed to be temporary, solvable by a pint of Ben & Jerry's and conversations with your girlfriends.

But the pain caused by true love does not fade with time. It does not become less real or relevant. It does not yield to rational argument.

I know that Sjors was a spy, and that he lied to me about that. I know that Sjors was married and that he lied to me about that. I have good reason to believe that, when faced with potential consequences to his career, he lied about his relationship with me and, through this betrayal, caused me to lose my job. I know these things and my rational mind tells me that I should hate him for what he's done. But I do not hate him. I love Sjors, and I will always love him.

I don't often share what I'm doing or thinking with people. The fact that I still think about Sjors every day seems to them that I am dwelling in the past: looking backwards. There is a peculiar pressure from the rest of the world to "move on". I'm sure Sjors received the same pressure about me.

"It was a relationship. It was a breakup. Move on."

But people say these things because they cannot understand what it is to be with the person you are supposed to be with. They have never been wrecked by the absence of that person.