What about love?

I'm laughing out loud, my dogs are looking at me like I've lost my mind and it's your fault ;-p

I truly care for my wife, but the romantic, passionate love ... I hold that in check. It would just be like cutting myself with razor blades every day.
Consider me well trained.

Here's the awkward bit: I'd love to find someone to love. I'd love to have a friend where I can let myself go. But: I am scared.

Remember a few days ago I cracked this joke about hell: the soldiers are Italian, the cooks are English, the bureaucrats are German ... and someone said the lovers are American ...
... I can relate to that in a way, I had two American lovers. My SiL is American. Definitely a culture clash. But I live in New Zealand. And what I see here, so much, so much, is relationships that are trench warfare. All men are paedophile violent rapists. The women are nagging, demanding, distainful exploiters. Those are the attitudes. Go to a party and you don't find them in the same room. Segregation almost. (they still fuck like bunnies, though, particularly after an intake of Dutch Courage). But there is so much of those precepts, those attitudes to go round, I'm just not sure that I want to actually get involved with another local woman. And you can add a pinch of that Puritan ethic, too. Wowsers aplenty. I am sure there are exceptions. But dare I let myself fall in love?
It's a bit like I would never advise a European woman to take up with an Iranian or Arab man. Every single instance I have seen did end up with abuse, tears and violence and heartbreak turning to fear.

There's a proverb in German: burnt child shuns the fire.
I'm just too afraid to let my passions run.

Boy, I know that one.  It sucks to suppress your passion; I feel bottled up.  Every once in a while I forget, try again, go down in flames again, and remember why I stopped trying.

Someone compared the cycle to Charlie Brown and Lucy with the football.  For some reason, this Simpsons clip always comes to mind.

Well said .... this is me too.  The majority of my sexual passions my wife considers perversions, so I keep them bottled up.  Whenever I consider sharing them with her, I get a flashback of the anger in her eyes such sharing causes, so I stuff them.  It sucks, but it is self preservation.

Love comes in many forms. But it's hard to know what kind you have for the other when they don't make it easy to love them.

This....{sigh}

I always wanted something like this.