Pets Don't Live Long Enough

I really have no need to get married again.  Not exactly what a person looking for a long term relationship wants to hear.  I'm in a good place financially.  My credit score is pretty good.  My tax return is looking promising.  I am done having kids.  I really don't want to change my name.  I could give you a million different reasons NOT to get married, but it really only comes down to one reason.  I don't want to.  I'm afraid.  I failed.  Yes, it took two people, but my marriage was a complete failure.  I was a good wife and I loved my husband for most of my marriage until it became painfully clear NOTHING I did or was going to do would ever matter to my husband or change our relationship.  I am successfully co-parenting with my ex-husband, but I would never want to return to that relationship.  I do want a life partner.

I want to have a relationship.  Why? (Insert my mother's voice here)  I do believe I would be just fine if I spent the rest of my life doing my hobbies, going to my children's and/or grandchildren's activities and traveling, but I want to hold hands with someone I love.  I want love!  I deserve it just as much as any other human being.  Yes I have friends and family that love me, but I want physical intimacy, as well as emotional. A friend recently suggested to me via Facebook that maybe women are soul mates and men are just friends to have fun with.  Sadly, I just have quit believing in the notion of a soul mate.  I can't however stop thinking that being a partner has to be an attainable goal.  How difficult is it for another human being to be my partner?

It turns out it is pretty damned difficult.  Why?  Apparently, because I am fiercely independent, do not trust easily, afraid of rejection, give too much, and have boundary issues.  I also really don't like confrontation, have a crazy ass family, and two wonderful kids that I don't need any help parenting.  How do you find a partner with the patience and skills to navigate that baggage that doesn't have kids?  Yes, I'm also not agreeing to parent anyone else's children, not because I hate other people's kids, but because I don't want to take time away from my kids that have been through enough already.  Do I even have the right to ask this of another person?  Am I selfish too?  Maybe a little, but maybe not.  Why can't I ask for what I want in a relationship without feeling like I'm asking for too much?  Is a partner too much to ask for?  Isn't there a yen to my yangs?  

I have tried in my current relationship to "not sweat the small stuff".  Like the fact that the toilet paper is always sitting on the counter and never on the roll, or that he can have all day off and when I get home from work there are dishes still in the sink, and even the fact that he gets into bed every night with the covers hopelessly balled up underneath him waiting for me to come spread them out and tuck him in like a two year old.  All these things, while small, get on my nerves.  I tell myself, I can handle these things and they are "part of his personality".  It is the huge issues like not having his half of the bills repeatedly and telling me he will pick up the children and then failing to do so that has me perplexed.  Partners don't lie.  Partners ask if there are things they can do to help and then do them!  I am in yet another relationship that is vastly one-sided.  The physical intimacy is there, but the emotional erosion has started.  I have no doubt I am in love and this relationship has potential, but a marriage certificate doesn't fix any problems.  I feel like the small issues can be worked on, but the huge issues shouldn't even be there!  I'm sure I talk to much when he is studying and I am too needy sometimes, but I have never told him I would give his mother a ride and then blown him off for something I wanted to do.  In fact I have went above and beyond to make sure he knows things in his life that are priorities are mine also.  Everyone has issues that keep them from always being good partners, but how long do you give someone to get in the game?

I guess the bottom line is I want a partner that loves me enough to value my life whatever may be happening in it.  I want a partner that thinks love is a verb not just a word to say to get me to smile or forgive.  I want a partner to love for life so I can walk in the Scottish Highlands with someone, dance in my bedroom to Sinatra, and pets just don't live long enough.