Daytime Friends

My book group had a rousing discussion last night of Graham Greene's The End of the Affair. If you haven't read it, I highly recommend it. Masterfully written, it deals with all of the big questions of belief, faith, love, lust, commitment, marriage -- you name it. We talked a lot about what love is, and about whether one can love someone and not be jealous if they are with someone else. Most agreed this was not possible -- that to share the intimate space you occupy with your lover with another without being jealous just doesn't work.

For my part, I've tried to be a grown-up participant in an open relationship, believing I had the magnanimity to be ok with it, and was unpleasantly surprised to find myself wicked jealous. The lone (brave) man in my group thinks he would be ok with it too, and wondered if maybe my reaction would be tempered with time and repeat experience. It very well might be, but I'm also not sure that sharing my man is something I particularly want to get good at. Another friend with experience with open relationships says that the key is not to know. But then something is necessarily lost in terms of the intimacy with said loved one, and then we're back to square one.

What is love? What is a successful marriage? What is the right thing to do if your needs aren't being satisfied within your marriage? The Catholic church has one answer, and Dan Savage another. I'm not really sure where I fall, except that I know I cannot abide deception. Without honesty, I don't think you can have intimacy. At least not in a meaningful way.

Contemplating all of these questions, the song that played internally was one from waaaaaayyy back -- probably because it was the very first song I heard that dealt with some of these same issues. I was 6 when "Daytime Friends" was released, and my Mom being a Kenny Rogers fan, I remember hearing this song playing often in our house:

Daytime friends and nighttime lovers -

Hoping no one else discovers

Where they go - What they do -

In their secret hideaway

Daytime friends and nighttime lovers -

They don't want to hurt the others

So they love - In the nighttime -

And shake hands in the light of day.

And I remember not really understanding it - wondering what did they do in their secret hideaway? Now that I'm 39, and I know exactly what two people do in a secret hideaway, the lyrics that particularly strike me are these:

And when it's over - there's no peace of mind

Just a longin' for the way things should have been.

And she wonders - Why some men never find

That a woman needs a lover and a friend.

The woman in the book, whose name is also Sarah, definitely doesn't have a man who understands that -- so she goes outside her marriage to find it. Is she right to do this? Is she wrong? I don't know. I only know that this Sarah is entirely capable of choosing a man who can fully embody both roles...