"There are two dilemmas that rattle the human skull of a person in a loveless/failing relationship that is most unlikely to improve: how do you hang on to someone who won't stay or how do you get rid of someone who won't go?
The dilemma of many in a once-loving but now sterile relationship is that we hate change, want it, yet fear it at the same time. What we really want from such relationships is to remain together, but to get better.
Life constantly sways between the sharp horns of uncertainty and the guarantee of occasional disappointment, especially in matters of the heart. Imagine finding your true love yet not having the courage to declare your affection and losing all chance of lasting happiness? Vacillation is truly the loser's dilemma.
There are some in life who have not yet found true love once, whilst there are others like myself, who managed to find love a number of times, thankfully at different stages in my life. Imagine therefore the dilemma of finding two people at the same time; each of whom wants to be your suitor and each you truly love.
Such decisions of the heart must be the hardest of all decisions one is ever asked to make and yet, if one is to be true to oneself, it would be wrong to marry either while still holding as much love for the other. There is a part of me that says, 'Far better to lose both loves, retain one's memories and keep one's heart intact. Either that or marry one and maintain a life-long affair with the other.' Dilemmas....dilemmas.
When I was growing up, my mother constantly bragged about 'Tommy Stone', the most handsome young man who was ever born in Portlaw and one who eagerly sought her hand (or some other part of her attractive anatomy) prior to my father coming on the scene. One holiday in our teens, myself and two of my sisters happened to meet Tommy Stone on a holiday to Ireland and I can tell you most certainly that we never let my mother brag about their brief contact again. Gone was the fair-haired muscular Adonis with his manly jaw structure and pearly white teeth and a smile and mouth of Irish sweet-talk that could disarm the resistance of any Portlaw virgin in minutes, and in its place hung a paunched-bellied, bald-headed, toothless wonder who looked like he'd experienced the wringer of life instead of its smoothest path since my mum and he last walked the road to Sunday Mass together as he chatted her up.
We returned back to England preserving our recent snapshots of Tommy Stone, just to remind mum how much she could change the image in her mind of 'the good old days of her courtship youth' whenever it suited her purpose.
At this point, I remember the advice my mother would have given me, had I ever found myself in such a romantic dilemma of loving two women at the same time in my life. Had she had a few rum and black currents to drink following a night out playing bingo she would have undoubtedly advised,'Go for it, Billy. If you can have the two instead of one, why not live lad?', but in the clear head of another day, her advice would have been more sober and reflective. She would have undoubtedly warned, 'Billy, choose one but choose wisely. The moral dilemma is to make peace and not remain faithful to the unacceptable, and make sure that whatever you give her as a token of your love; always give her flowers every week.'
My mother loved her flowers and asked that we placed them in her hands while she was capable of smelling them and not waste them on her grave." William Forde: April 9th, 2017.