Me and You

How do we know when a person truly loves us? Can time tell us? After a certain number of weeks, months, years can we be certain? Can you tell by how someone looks at you? Talks to you? Unconditional love I can understand - like how most people feel about their family. But with romantic love? How can anyone just trust and believe that their partner truly loves them?

I have been with my partner, my first true love, for just over two years. Do I believe he loves me? Sometimes. Do I believe he needs someone? Yes -. I just can't ascertain why that person is me.

Our relationship has been a very long drawn out bizarre arrangement, seemingly ignoring the the classic relationship path. Beginning with us being friends, to lovers, to eventually becoming an "exclusive" relationship. Then came the cheating, the crying and the break-up. Then we got back together, moved in to our own place and then came the I love yous - over two years after we first slept together.

Realistically going by this schedule of events it could be argued we are at the most stable point we have ever been at. However hindsight can be a beautifully transforming thing. I remember seeming more in love before the I love yous came. In the beginning there was nothing I wouldn't do for him, I loved him more than I'd ever loved anyone and we were inseparable. However I'd be lying if said that this was a wonderful time. I spent the most part being emotionally torn apart that he was still in love with someone else and I was too weak to leave when he kept asking me back. But hindsight just lets me watch the rose-tinted montage of our days out, nights together and the happy times.

Eventually we became a "proper" couple, he no longer relegated us to the dark end of the street. The initial ecstasy of this time wasn't to last though when I found out he had had a night with another woman while I'd been out of town. He asked me to forgive him, I told him I could but eventually the jealousy and the betrayal consumed me. I became a woman possessed - I wouldn't allow him to go anywhere without me and I sobbed endlessly when he did. I was terrified that he might leave me and eventually he did.

I was a broken woman. I was sent home from work, only to go home to drink myself into oblivion. On one hand I was relieved to be out of the relationship that had been strained for so long but I couldn't live my life without him. I just wandered around the house, not knowing what to do  with myself. One morning I walked across to his house in a still drunken state, promising myself I only wanted to collect some of my things I had left at his place. I let myself in and found him in bed. I got in beside him and just held him. When he woke he told he missed me but that we weren't going to get back together. I was devastated.

After we'd been apart for a while, he extended the hand of friendship and offered to give me a lift to work everyday. During this time we reconnected and became inseparable once again. He asked if I wanted to find a place together and we began creating our happy home just before Christmas. On New Years Eve he told me he loved me.

Now I can't be sure if he meant it or not. My cynical side wants to win but I try to think about it in another way. I know a great deal about him - I know he can be cruel, he can be selfish, he can be cold. He can also be kind, generous and loving and that's enough for me to love him as much as I do. So maybe even with my bad points, my good points will shine through if not now, then someday I will be loved.