Whatever...Love Is Love (5 page)

My love.

I can't do it. I can't leave my kids. As much as I love you, I cannot do it. They are at a very vulnerable age. My wife is a good woman. We've had a partnership—have for many years. But you must know that you are the most extraordinary woman I have ever met. You are definitely the sexiest. If I could I would live my life with you. Yes, we could try to continue the half-ass thing that we had for a couple of weeks (stolen moments and all). But it is not fair to you. You deserve to be loved fully and without reservation. I'm sorry to savage your heart again. I truly am. I am still in love with you and will be for the rest of my life. Good-bye my girl.

Yours.

Me.

I got this missive and about 200 similar ones from him over the next two years.

Our letters were always filled with drama, breaking up and not being able to keep away from each other. In retrospect, it was a lot like the good old-fashioned romance novels I read as a teenager, minus the storybook ending, of course.

Here's what our “relationship” looked like for years: He would sneak away to Los Angeles or me to New York for a day or two. We would meet at my house in LA, a hotel in NYC. We would immediately find ourselves in bed. And after hours, we would make great meals together and laugh and talk and share. And then we would go back to bed. It would have been a month or a week from the last time we were together. But we couldn't help seeing each other again even though every time we said it was the last. And we had mind-blowing sex. Eye-to-eye, raw-animal, but loving sex. I had never had sex like that before. And then again, I had never been with a married man before. The secrecy made the rush that much more intense.

Afterward, we would lie side by side talking, dreaming of what our life could be together. We would go to Africa or to a fishing camp in New Zealand, where he had just shot a movie. I would wear my brown bikini and we would get lost on a beach in the middle of nowhere. We would go to Machu Picchu and Brazil. We would meet fabulous people and tango all night. Or we would just walk hand in hand in my Venice neighborhood, eat burritos at Stroh's deli, and read the
New York Times
on Sunday. Our first trip would be to Mexico. We would proclaim our love. He would tell me that I was the one and he would never leave me. And for a few days, a few weeks, we would live this dream. And just as suddenly as it started, it stopped.

I knew the relationship was finished a few weeks before it officially ended, when my friend John and I sat in a café in Venice having lunch. John liked this man and liked that I was happy with him. I remember John saying to me, “He is nice and not an asshole. But, if he wasn't great in bed, would you still be interested in him? What if he was in an accident and his dick fell off, would you still want him?”

John described him and me as bifurcated. This man wanted his family and could be entirely present with them. Yet, he would call me in the middle of his kid's football game. I too was bifurcated. I liked the pleasure of our relationship, but I was pained by the baggage. When it got to the place where we went away for a weekend but couldn't hold hands walking from store to store, it was a big wake-up call. As much as I liked the secrecy, passion, and drama, I liked living life in the open much more.

Now, sitting on my couch watching the married guy on television, I hear him calling the actress with whom he is having an affair “sweet baby” and I can't believe what I am hearing. I remember a real scene like this, years ago in my kitchen in Venice.

“How's my sweet baby?” he would say, walking into my kitchen and taking me into a big bear hug.

“I'm good today, baby. How are you?” I would ask. And I was good. I felt strong and resilient in his presence.

“Well, let's see, I've just spent the night with the love of my life, my favorite playmate, my sweet baby, I think I'm pretty good.”

And now this “sweet baby” wants to vomit. This is who he is and might always be. I wonder if the other actress knows yet.

I made similar mistakes over the years, but never again with a married man. I would choose men and think that the adrenaline high I got from the push and pull wasn't just sex but was actually love. It was a hard lesson: adrenaline does not equal love. But it doesn't negate it either.

The definition of desire is to want something you do not have. In a marriage, or other committed relationships, especially after years together, each person seems to know the other inside and out. They
have
the person so it may become difficult to desire them. Some people seek sexual satisfaction outside their relationships, even though they may be totally sure that they would not leave their committed partner or family. The truth is, we have no idea what goes on in people's bedrooms or in their heads. Some people place more value on partnership than sex. But sex in secret holds appeal for many.

Many of my heroes have had sexual relationships outside of their committed relationships. But does that make them bad people, or take away the fact that they have contributed to this world in incredible ways? Many wives of men who have cheated stay with their husbands, and certain people are appalled by that. I'm not. I understand. To me, sexual desire and love are two different things. That certainly doesn't mean that people inside of long-term committed relationships don't have great sex. I know some who do. But not many, if I'm honest. Those who do often say the same thing, “It comes and goes.” And maybe it does. But let's be real, for many it just goes. And then what happens? People either start to lie and look outside of their relationship, or they find a way to make it work. I was told by a therapist many years ago that I just needed to heal my “daddy issues” and then I would be able to have guilt-free sex with a man I was not in love with. She wasn't a very good therapist.

It has been written that all but two of our presidents have had affairs. I'm not sure I believe the number, but it sure makes me very curious. JFK, Martin Luther King Jr., and so many others who made the world a better place were considered adulterers. Does that make them bad people? And it seems to me that the people who point the fingers are often just as guilty, if not more so.

One of my friends has been married for close to 20 years. She has beautiful children, is funny and compassionate and sexy. So was her husband. She found out last year that this kind man was not only having affairs, but much worse. This great dad, and I won't take that away from him, was having group sex with different swingers almost every day for years. Can you imagine? My friend thought they were best friends. She said what I've heard many people say: it wasn't the infidelity that was the worst part, it was the lying and the disregard he had for her. This is an extreme circumstance, but is this man a criminal? Certainly not to his kids.

I believe that the book
Fifty Shades of Grey
became a worldwide phenomenon because people were finally given a chance to explore their fantasies in a safe way. Many authors have done the same throughout the years. If you were turned on by
Fifty Shades of Grey,
go read Miller or Nin or Hemingway or Roth or Edna St. Vincent Millay.

Most people will never admit their sexual proclivities. You usually have no idea what your partner is thinking about when having sex. Could be he/she is thinking of kittens and feet. Unless you are in someone's bed and someone's head, someone's sexuality should be no business of yours. So a call to action to all therapists, please keep trying to isolate the gene that makes all of us confused about our sexuality. But maybe we aren't sick after all. Maybe there is no “cure” and we should just accept that sexuality is more complicated and fluid than we've been led to believe. Whoever has a handle on sexuality, our unconscious, and why we are often blinded by desire please let me know.

So does my having an affair with a married man make me a bad girl? If the answer is categorically yes or no then we're all missing the point. Yes, I hurt people I loved, and I take responsibility for that. I also found a freedom in expressing my sexuality that I hadn't felt before. I began to understand that for many people, sex does not equal love and that our primal physical drive isn't necessarily bad. Sometimes, two people can just admit their connection is not sexual, but they share the same values, ideas, likes and dislikes, family and friends. And, at a certain point in life, sexuality doesn't seem all that important. I'm just at the beginning of my romantic relationship with Clare and we are still in the discovery stage. Will it be that way forever? Probably not. As much as we hate to admit it, people do not stay the same and neither will we. Relationships change constantly. I think if we are conscious enough, we can accept the change without throwing out the love. I am grateful to say that most of the people I've been in romantic relationships with remain my friends and family. And I've been on both sides. Partners of mine have had affairs. Though it was incredibly painful, I eventually and quite quickly saw the humanness in all of it.

I sometimes find the most difficult thing is to live in the gray area of life—to live in the indecision, to listen to all of the voices screaming inside of us to be heard, with no judgment. I could never figure out if I was a “good girl” or a “bad girl.” Seems life would be so much simpler with clear definitions. At times I think I've figured out something only to be surprised in the next instant by who I am and what I'm capable of.

Clare and I have a collection of original black-and-white photos above our bed. They are stunning portraits of Georgia O'Keeffe, Beatrice Wood, Ernest Hemingway, Colette, Henry Miller, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Anaïs Nin, and other writers and artists that we admire. They have many things in common, including being people who brought to light, in words or pictures, our deepest feelings. They were also people who were passionate, had affairs, families, and lovers. Some were bisexual, some were just plain sexual. Some lied and some did not. But they all lived their passions and desires. They didn't assume that sex, family life, friendships all had to be the same, forever.

So let's not pretend that only bad people have affairs, or make decisions based on desire and animal passion. At least, let's throw out our inclination to point fingers and name names, and instead accept that we can never know what is in someone else's head, or how we might turn if overcome with feeling.

5

AM I PERFECT?

I
s there a secret to being perfect?

“As much as I try, I cannot get him out of my head, even though I know he is bad for me,” I said in angst to my dear friend John.

“Then I will move into your head immediately,” he replied. “We'll have plenty of room once we move him out. He doesn't belong either in your head or in your bed. He just serves your addiction to pain. You're the most wonderful, gifted, brilliant, lovable woman . . . you'd have to travel far and wide to find someone damaged enough to not cherish and love you, but somehow you're able to find them. I think you're the one who's committed to hurting you. He's just a screen on which you project your cruelty to yourself. I love you very much and won't allow you to keep doing this to yourself. The ‘mean you' doesn't deserve the wonderful you as a brain mate. When I get over there, we're going to move her out, too. It makes me feel sad when you are hurting so it's got to stop, because I won't leave you and I know you don't want to make me feel like shit. So it's got to stop. I love you more than you hurt.”

I was walking down the path on the beach in Santa Monica with my friend John Calley when we he said this to me some years ago. John was a 70-year-old movie producer, an ex–studio head who loved books, napping, and me.

John and I met when he saw a movie of mine in 2003 called
The Cooler.
He found out who my manager was, and asked if he could meet with me. All I knew was that I was meeting with a producer who possibly wanted to offer me a job.

I was living in a loft in Venice at the time, and having a fantasy affair with an actor. I was filled with anxiety and angst. John and I were supposed to meet at a fancy restaurant in Santa Monica, but I was such a hermit then that I asked if he could meet me at a dumpy Mexican restaurant down the street from me instead.

As soon as I walked into the dimly lit place, I recognized him sitting at a booth. And not because I had already looked him up. I had no idea what he looked like, how old he was, or what his list of movies was. But I knew
him
—like I knew the willow tree in my backyard when I was growing up. He may have been the most familiar person I'd ever met for the first time.

We immediately started getting into the nitty-gritty. We never spoke about movies, the business, or any of the usual formalities. We talked about love and relationships and their complications, right away. He was warm and funny, and smart, but not in an overly earnest or smothering way. He got the humor of life. John understood that all of the serious things and all of the hurtful things we live through help us grow. From that day on, and for the next five years, we spoke almost every day.