This competitive pursuit is real — and dangerous.  Not even making a “commitment” to my true lover puts an end to it.  The other still pursues me.  If I make a commitment to the other, my true lover still pursues me.  There is no rest from this endless battle for my heart.

There are a couple of things I can do.

I can harden my heart against the mystery of romance, choosing to live a life of religious rules and principles that promote my allegiance to my true lover without allowing my lover to experience true intimacy and romance.  Like the wife who says, “I will be a dutiful wife to you:  I will cook your meals, have sex with you once a week, bear your children, clean your house, and by these things you will know that I am your wife.  But don’t expect to ever ‘know’ me.”  True oneness — that true romantic mystery of intimacy — is held at bay.

My other option is fraught with danger.  It is the willingness to live with an open heart, to live with the tension between the two lovers who vie for my affection.  This is real love and real life.