By Mr. M

It has come to my attention that when it comes to relationships, I'm completely fucked up. Excuse my language, but in all honesty, I can't think of any other way to better say that sentence.

I think I should give some background history to why I think the way I do. Also, let me preface this all by saying that I actually enjoy being in relationships, and having the comfort of a partner.

From the beginning, I don't think I've ever witnessed a healthy relationship. Not that I want to blame my family, but not a single person (or at least any I can think of at the moment) has a good relationship. By good I mean: a healthy relationship built on trust and mutual respect that has stable roots and is filled with love. I have NEVER been witness to this in my family life. In fact, everything I've seen has been almost the opposite. Don't get me wrong, I love my family. Even when they annoy me, they're still my family. Essentially, most of the pairings in my family are out of necessity, or religious obligations. They need to be together for financial reasons, or because they have a house. Then there's religion- I'm married to so and so so I can't divorce because it's against God.  I would say most of the others just opted out of relationships, and just date around.

The sad thing about the couples are, I don't know if they are really how happy. Does that make sense? I don't want to sound like some spoiled kid of this generation, but isn't happiness important? I'm not talking perfection, but general content-ness. It seems like they're forcing it, or holding onto memories when they were happy to keep the ties of the relationship alive, mostly because they have kids. I really respect that it's important to put your family first, but something's gotta give. How healthy is a home environment where the kids can't see the love between their parents first hand? Honeslty, getting into a relationship that is dead, but 'works' because of my life situation terrifies me. I can only think of all the relationships that really didn't work way back when, but were done out of necessity or expectations. How many married couples were there really in the 50s? Hell how many are there now? Is this sexual revolution/ openness a retaliation by my generation to what never worked, or are we just exploring all the options?

Fast forward to the future, and I put my hand to the relationship game. I dated a few girls, and it was WONDERFUL. I really want to note that part. They were really great relationships, and I learned a lot. Unfortunately, they didn't end well. I don't mean that there were arguments or we hate each other. The ending were just sad, and the crap part was that we still like and really cared for each other. Sometimes it was distance. Other times they wanted more than I could give  at the moment. Other times they just thought they should be single as a young woman. The last batch just like me for being black or whatever.

What  this adds up to is a guy running around, not really sure how to make heads or tails of relationships in general. Compound this with my love of sex, both vanilla and a little kink, and you have a recipe for disaster. I have no real model to work off of, when I had it, it blew up in my face and I have no real clue why, and even if I manage to get into a relationship I worry that I'll be sexually satisfied. I think this is what led me to look into other relationships as well. I'm currently reading "Opening Up" by Tristan Taormino. It basically explores all types of open relationships. Am I ready for this? I don't really know. People in open relationships seem to be really strong ( when doing it right) and really happy, so it's definitely worth thinking about. Not to mention, I figured my sexual tastes will be less frowned upon by people who have an open mind. We'll see what happens.

What do you all think about relationships? How is yours and what do you wish you would've done differently in this one or others?

Check out Mr. M's blog Sex Masquerade for more.