<em>"What is this thing called love?"</em>

[caption id="attachment_361" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="I Love My Wife"]<a href="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/Picture-037.jpg"><img class="size-medium wp-image-361" src="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/Picture-037-300x199.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="199" /></a>[/caption]

In the late 1970s, when I was still somewhere on the far side of innocence and naivete, I remember seeing a humorous Broadway musical titled "I Love My Wife."

It was a typical -- for that time -- look at what was known by various terms as "swinging" or "wife swapping," and of course it ended with the main character realizing that for all he liked to look at other women, he loved his wife and he didn't want to cheat on her.

In the end, he was a good husband.

The kind of husband I always thought I would be, the kind I always wanted to be.

Yet I have failed once at marriage, and I fear beyond fear that I am slipping into a second failure, even though I have never cheated.

Of course, there's cheating ... and there's cheating.

My lovely wife of 17 1/2 years is very unhappy with me right now. She says that I'm not affectionate, that we don't do things together and that I would rather be alone than spend time with her. The sad thing is, even though I don't think of myself in any of those ways, my actions speak very loudly in those areas.

[caption id="attachment_364" align="alignright" width="200" caption="On Broadway"]<a href="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/200px-LoveMyWifeLogo.jpg"><img class="size-full wp-image-364" src="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/200px-LoveMyWifeLogo.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="191" /></a>[/caption]

Just the fact that I have essentially fallen apart the last two years and am now working to put myself back together, and that I am doing it 1,300 miles and three states from home says a lot. And the fact that my not being at home is a huge weight -- no pun intended -- off Nicole's shoulders says even more.

I understand it. As much as it hurts, I understand it. When you love someone enough to marry them, seeing them fail or fall apart must hurt tremendously. I'm certain that the main reason my first marriage failed was that my wife looked at me four years into our marriage and saw that I had not really matured at all.

For all I can say and have said about infidelity ruining our marriage, my cheating -- in the form of not progressing with life -- did every bit as much damage as her sexual trysts.

Over the last year or so, Nicole has been doing more and more things to protect herself in the event I really do go over the cliff. I absolutely can't blame her, and I understand -- I really do -- why she no longer trusts me or sees me as the man she fell in love with and married.

The strangest part of it is that I have actually been feeling as if I'm on something of an upturn lately. I have been feeling better about myself and I fully expect to have my weight under control by the time I leave the ranch at the end of June.

One way or another, it will matter.

One way or another, I will find a way to be the man I want to be again.