I turned thirty on the 20th. I told members of my Yahoo group that I was going to write in my blog about what I've learned about love in 30 years.

That sounds waay too effing pretentious. And boring too. And that's not exactly what I meant to say anyway.

What got me to thinking I'd like to post something on love is that there's a lot of cynicism about the whole romance-thing-over-the-long-haul. It seems as though a person's belief in the whole "in-love" or "romance" thing is inversely proportional to the number of years he or she has been in a relationship. The longer you've been in a relationship, it seems, the less likely you are to believe that that "in-love," "romantic" feeling is anything more than an initial insanity that quickly fades and leaves you with...well, with "comfortable." Which disappoints us. Disenchants us. Discourages us. And more than occasionally destroys the relationship.

The thing is, a lot of people--maybe even the people who don't believe in the staying power of "in-love" and "romance"--don't want comfortable. They want want freakin ecstasy. Right along with the "long-termness." But they don't believe it's possible.

What I have to say doesn't amount to proof. It's strictly anecdotal evidence. But what I have to say is that it is possible. I have it in my life. I think anyone can.

I've been married for four years and have a son who'll turn three next week. But I have been in love with my son's mother (aka "my wife") since I was 17, and have been in an intimate relationship with her from that time, excluding part of 1998, 1999, and part of 2000, where we were both off making sure there wasn't something else out there for us that didn't include each other.

And I swear: She takes my breath away as much as she did when I was 17. She can still make my head spin. Just looking at her can make me feel like that kid who first nervously asked her out. And she'd say the same thing about me.

Of course, it's become much more than that. I'm not that nervous kid anymore. And over the years we've built something much deeper and closer.

But it's still exciting. Sexually and romantically.

And it seems that doesn't happen with a lot of couples.

How does it happen with us?

I honestly don't know for sure, but I have some suspicions about why it hasn't gone away for us. So I thought I'd make a list of things that seem to me to contribute to it.

1) We don't need each other. Oh, hell, I've used that kind of language before--you know, the "you complete me" thing. And there's some truth to it. But we're each complete individuals on our own. What excites me about her is that she's this amazing, vibrant, sexy woman who doesn't need me, and has yet chosen to make a life with me. Being needed can be very flattering at first and might give the relationship some initial mileage...but a person who needs you--daily--to make them whole isn't, over the long haul compelling, sexually attractive, or even particularly interesting. It gets to be a burden, in fact.

2) We know we can trust each other. This is particularly important in our relationship, because it...well, there are some aspects of our relationship that are not at all traditional. I mean, c'mon. Here I am, married to her with a son, and I'm posting to a blog at a gay stories site. But my point is not our unconventionality. My point is, to delineate it further, that she knows I post to a gay stories site, and that I write erotic narrative with gay themes. Hell, she's read them. We don't hide things from each other that we know would be relevant to the relationship.

People get too reactive over the whole "lying" thing. There's lying and there's lying. Everybody does some of it every day. Our social fabric seems to depend on certain small lies. When your wife asks you if she's starting to look overweight, she doesn't really want you to tell her if you think she is. That kind of "lying" is benign. Everybody knows the kind of lie that can sow mistrust. The easiest way to evaluate it is to ask this question: "Does it seem scary to the relationship to bring this truth to her/him?" If the answer is "yes," that's a sure sign you have to tell her/him. That is, if your goal is intimacy.

I add that last qualification because I'm not judging people who withhold aspects of their lives from their spouses or significant others. There are all kinds of ways to configure a relationship. I'm just saying that if one of your goals is that whole romance thing, significant withholding of important truths is incompatible with that kind of relationship because lack of trust and lack of full knowledge can eat away at romance. Where there is doubt or uncertainty or an awareness that there are areas of the signif other's life to which you're not invited, that's a buzz-kill for romance. Conversely, there is a kind of freedom in being able to trust your significant other that, in my opinion, is in and of itself romantic; erotic, even. There's nothing too out-there about me to share with my wife. And trust me, I got some out-there shit goin' on. I'm here, right?

3) We keep an eye open for those traits that originally attracted us to each other. If you're not careful, you can take those for granted. But they don't go away, often; we just get ungrateful. We take those things for granted. We shouldn't. Sometimes I look at my wife and see the blond cheerleader/AP student who mesmerized me back in the day. She was fiery, determined, confident, soft, alluring...the mixture was intoxicating. And it's still there. Oh, it hides now and then under the time-demands of her residency requirements, our mutual schedules, the challenges of parenting...but it's there. And I make it a conscious practice to look for it.

4) We know ourselves and keep examining ourselves. I think that for a couple to really stay giddy in love, each one has to know what it is about himself/herself that made the other person giddy originally, and has to know what there is about himself/herself that's a liability to the relationship, and each one has to work to bring the good stuff and has to work--hard--at not subjecting the partner to the bad stuff. We'll each fail at that last part. And we'll fight, and get angry, and get annoyed, etc., from time to time. But because we've been consciously trying to bring the good stuff--the stuff the other fell in love with--there's a bigger picture, and we get over fighting, being annoyed, being angry...and anyway, makeup sex is pretty damn good!

If you think all that sounds really artificial and forced, all you have to do is think back on when you were on your way to becoming "a serious item," and you'll have to concede that you did just that: You brought your best stuff and held back your worst. So you snagged the prize; and you show your gratitude for her/his choosing your lame ass by getting lazy and not doing that any more? Hell, no wonder romance has died!

5) We work on keeping it fresh. I've been in love with my wife for 13 years, give or take a couple years' off a decade or so ago. That's a long time to know someone intimately...and yet she still surprises me sometimes, and in good ways, in amazing ways! I try to be the same sort of person for her too: Someone who brings some creativity, some spontaneity, some of my inner joy, to her in ways that catch her offguard from time to time. In that way we sort of inspire each other to bring that kind of thing to each other regularly. Surprises. I'm confident I won't have exhausted the mystery which is my wife even when I've drawn my last breath!

All that being said, we've had some significant fights. We had one last spring. I spent a couple of nights on the couch! But those five things prevailed, and got me off the couch. And, as mentioned above, the makeup sex was fantastic.

Anyway, your mileage may vary. But if I had to say why we still feel crazy in love with each other after 13 years, I think those five things have a lot to do with it.

Adam