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Another one dredged from long forgotten conclusions in my mind...... it took quite a while for my wife to come around to my thinking on this one... and to most of you this initial statement is probably going to be a little left field. Who you love and staying in love is a choice you make each day.

Someone recently called me a romantic. It felt nice because I know romanticism seems to be an attractive characteristic in men. A study I read once suggested most married women have affairs because the romantic aspects of their relationships had long died. I get the appeal and I am influenced. But I will leave romanticism and why women ‘need’ it alone for the time being.

I don’t think I am a romantic. I consider myself a realist and I enjoy seeing people being happy. It’s all qualified, I don’t treat everyone the same just yet and naturally it is easiest to do things for those closest to me. This is mostly the case because there are the least social rules around these people. It’s a coincidence that those things are considered romantic by them and others that observe it. Nice still :). So the ‘choice’ statement; and I guess this is where I challenge the extant romantic notions. I believe that we all decide who to fall in love with and who we stay in love with. We should give ourselves more credit in our self control and power of thought. The decision to stop looking for potential partners/love rests 100% with us. And each of us make a decision to keep looking, or stop looking and be content with the love we have.

Yes but... yes but... yes but... let me save you the trouble. I need to exclude people in damaging relationships. There will always be people who despite understanding and acceptance are just not good for us. You can choose to love these people and not be happy or safe, it makes sense to choose not to. In this proposition I am playing in the majority population. The people who are in solid relationships and marriages for years before separating.

Choice: what we have grown and developed to want and desire. The fact you like honest people and dislike dishonest people is still a choice right or wrong. We do still have the choice to understand and like dishonest people for the reasons they are dishonest. Perhaps like a thief who steals to provide for his starving family. If you believe your mind is your own then you must believe you have the ability to change your thoughts on a topic and therefore you believe in choice.

This pretty much flies in the face of romantic notions of love. That there are perfect people out there and you will live happily ever after. Hollywood is a disease in this respect; there is no perfect man or woman that matches your ideal. Love is about hard work and commitment for something beyond romance. Flowers are nice but someone who gives you everything they have emotionally, physically and financially as they sit beside your death bed is far beyond romance. That is choice and commitment beyond sunsets and beaches. It is acceptance of who you are and your strengths and weaknesses.

Back to love. We are all human (like the thief). In your life there will be many people you could love. And people you choose to love. Where you draw the line is completely up to you, I think realising that it is a choice helps. We can choose to focus on what is there, or what isn’t. That focus is the only difference between happily married/committed and moving on.