From the LJ of :

(Yes, , I am enjoying your LJ, and now I realize you are a friend of -- who never posts any more...)

as my advisor’s ex-husband (they continue to be great friends)

Can this really happen? Well, yes, I suppose… in this instance, it HAS happened….but somehow I feel, that if a marital relationship sours enough to break up, the friendship underlying the relationship will, too; the friendship would probably be the FIRST thing to go. In fact, to me, the marital relationship is mainly about friendship, and if there were no sex or romance or spark, a marriage would still survive perfectly well on good friendship alone…after all, many arranged marriages are founded on good companionship rather than romantic attraction. But when the marriage breaks up, the negative experience would spoil the friendship, too. I think friends can become lovers, but lovers can rarely get back to being friends…but this couple that mentions seems to have achieved this..a remarkable feat.

Oh well, thank goodness for a happy marriage…a good relationship, whether marital or not, is such a rock-solid foundation for one’s life, and is a constant source of strength and comfort and joy. When, sometimes, one is at odds with the whole world, how lovely to feel that one can turn to another person and be given unconditional and sometimes wordless comfort and solace, which enables one to face the world again. And when things are going well, there is always the joy of that special glance across a crowded room, that the poet calls “the kiss of the eyes”…

Stephen kissed me in the spring And Robin in the fall But Colin only looked at me And did not kiss at all.

Stephen’s kiss was lost in jest And Robin’s lost in play. But the kiss in Colin’s eyes Haunts me night and day.

…a great springhead of the joy of being alive. When one thinks how rare and wonderful it is to find this kind of love, I am amazed that people should be against it, just because it is between two people who are not married to each other, or between people of the same sex.