Wives, Kids and the Future

I can honestly say that the girl with whom I am currently living is the only woman I have ever truly loved (yes, that includes my ex-wife). Recently, she brought up the subject of marriage. Not bluntly, however. Her exact words were: "Do you think we'll be together forever?" Now, I'm a smart-ass, so my first thought was: "Well, probably not. One of us has to die eventually." Then my brain kicked in and I decided that might not be the best response. So I said the next best thing that came to mind: "I don't know."

I really had no idea how to answer this question. Do I love this woman? Absolutely. Can I see myself spending the rest of my life with her? Definitely. Do I want to marry her? Hell no.

I don't even really know why I don't want to except for the fact that I once promised a woman we'd be together forever. Hell, I even promised it in front of a shitload of my friends and family. Look where that ended up. Less than ten years after we made that promise to each other, she's already promised the same thing to someone else.

My point is, I don't know what the future holds. I can't say if we'll be together forever, or in a year from now, or even tomorrow. I don't know what will happen. Maybe one of my smart-ass responses will drive her off the deep end and she'll murder me later on tonight. Who knows?

The other thing that bothers me is the discussion of children came up at the same time. This is another area where we run into problems. I want kids and she doesn't. I might seem weird that I want kids, seeing as I already have four of them. So, she asked me why I was so adamant about having kids. Good enough question, as this was one of the reasons I cited for not wanting to get married. My response, as usual, was: "I don't know."

Then I got to thinking about it. Why do I want kids so much?

Okay, a bit of a history lesson about Joe: Joe got married at a very young age and had several beautiful children. Joe should have considered himself the luckiest guy in the world. Beautiful wife, beautiful kids, decent job, everything a guy could want. So what does Joe do? Joe does drugs. Joe ignores his wife and treats her like crap. He doesn't hit her, but he doesn't actually make her think he loves her (he acutally didn't but he convinced himself he did). So, anyway, Joe's wife leaves him and takes the kids with her. Joe hits rock bottom tries to kill himself, the whole bit. So when Joe finally realizes what a dipshit he is, he gets cleaned up and decides to start his life over. This includes moving to Calgary, Alberta. So now Joe is very far away from his kids.

I'm telling you all this because I think I figured out why I want kids so much. I remember back when I was still with my wife. The best part of my day was when I would come home from work and as soon as I opened the door, I could hear the pounding of feet running for the door and my kids yelling "Daddy!" Then they would hug me and not let go, even when I tried to shake them off me. Right now, as I live in a different province than my kids, I miss that more than anything. I long to hear my children run to me as I walk through the door because they missed me.

I think that is why I want kids so much.

I'd like to hear thoughts on this if anyone feels like commenting.

Writing updates: Still plugging away at Hatred and have a few more short stories in the works. Still haven't heard back about "The Demon Inside Her." I'm really anxious about that one. Oh well. I'm still hoping for the best.

That's all for now.


Cheers,

Joe