In my experience, when we read these mushy gushy love quotes that are INSTANTLY relatable, they're written by women. It's not that guys don't write them, too, but you just see an overwhelming amount of them with female authors. We relate to these the best because we can think on the same plane, as women.
So, when I find beautifully crafted poems on love that REALLY resonate with me, and they're written by a man, it's like finding a four-leaf clover.
E.S. is an Instagram poet who has written a number of poems — the majority of which are about love. Unlike the typical romantic poet, though, he does an amazing job of capturing what a woman is looking for out of love in short, sweet (and often straight-forward) prose. And on top of that, he speaks to not only women, but also to the men that love them — often times telling them the things he's learned of love (and of what women REALLY want).
We've highlighted a few our favorites here for you to check out, but for more E.S. poems you can visit his Instagram account.
At the age of 10, I took a pledge to remain a virgin until marriage.
By Samantha Pugsley
"Believing that true love waits, I make a commitment to God, myself, my family, my friends, my future mate and my future children to be sexually abstinent from this day until the day I enter a biblical marriage relationship. As well as abstaining from sexual thoughts, sexual touching, pornography, and actions that are known to lead to sexual arousal."
At the age of 10, I took a pledge at my church alongside a group of other girls to remain a virgin until marriage.
Yes, you read that right — I was 10 years old.
Let's take a look at who I was as a 10-year-old: I was in fourth grade. I played with Barbie dolls and had tea parties with imaginary friends. I pretended I was a mermaid every time I took a bath. I still thought boys were icky and I had no idea I liked girls, too. I wouldn't get my period for another four years. And most importantly, I didn't have a clue about sex.
The church taught me that sex was for married people. Extramarital sex was sinful and dirty and I would go to Hell if I did it. I learned that as a girl, I had a responsibility to my future husband to remain pure for him. It was entirely possible that my future husband wouldn't remain pure for me, because he didn't have that same responsibility, according to the Bible. And of course, because I was a Christian, I would forgive him for his past transgressions and fully give myself to him, body and soul.
Once I got married, it would be my duty to fulfill my husband's sexual needs. I was told over and over again, so many times I lost count, that if I remained pure, my marriage would be blessed by God and if I didn't that it would fall apart and end in tragic divorce.
I believed it. Why wouldn't I? I was young and these were people I trusted. Everyone knew I'd taken the virginity vow, of course. Gossip is the lifeblood of the Baptist Church. My parents were so proud of me for making such a spiritual decision. The church congregation applauded my righteousness.
For more than a decade, I wore my virginity like a badge of honor.
My church encouraged me to do so, saying my testimony would inspire other young girls to follow suit. If the topic ever came up in conversation, I was happy to let people know that I had taken a pledge of purity.
It became my entire identity by the time I hit my teen years. When I met my then boyfriend-now husband, I told him right away that I was saving myself for marriage and he was fine with that because it was my body, my choice and he loved me.
We were together for six years before we got married. Any time we did anything remotely sexual, guilt overwhelmed me. I wondered where the line was because I was terrified to cross it.
Was he allowed to touch my breasts? Could we look at each other naked?
I didn't know what was considered sexual enough to condemn my future marriage and send me straight to Hell.
An unhealthy mixture of pride, fear, and guilt helped me keep my pledge until we got married. In the weeks before our wedding, I often got congratulated on keeping my virginity for so long. The comments ranged from curious (how in the world did you manage?) to downright disgusting (I bet you're going to have one busy wedding night!).
I let them place me on the pedestal as their virginal, perfect-Christian-girl mascot.
I stood in the hotel bathroom beforehand, wearing my white lingerie, thinking, "I made it. I'm a good Christian." There was no chorus of angels, no shining light from Heaven. It was just me and my husband in a dark room, fumbling with a condom and a bottle of lube for the first time.
Sex hurt. I knew it would. Everyone told me it would be uncomfortable the first time. What they didn't tell me is that I would be back in the bathroom afterward, crying quietly for reasons I didn't yet comprehend.
They didn't tell me that I'd be on my honeymoon, crying again, because sex felt dirty and wrong and sinful even though I was married and it was supposed to be okay now.
When we got home, I couldn't look anyone in the eye. Everyone knew my virginity was gone. My parents, my church, my friends, my co-workers. They all knew I was soiled and tarnished. I wasn't special anymore. My virginity had become such an essential part of my personality that I didn't know who I was without it.
It didn't get better. I avoided undressing in front of my husband. I tried not to kiss him too often or too amorously so I wouldn't lead him on. I dreaded bedtime. Maybe he'd want to have sex.
When he did, I obliged. I wanted nothing more than to make him happy because I loved him so much and because I'd been taught it was my duty to fulfill his needs.
Sometimes I cried myself to sleep because I wanted to like it, because it wasn't fair. I had done everything right. I took the pledge and stayed true to it. Where was the blessed marriage I was promised?
I let it go on this way for almost two years before I broke down. I just couldn't do it anymore.
I told my husband everything. My feminist husband was horrified that I'd let him touch me when I didn't want him to. He made me promise I'd never do anything I didn't want to do ever again. We stopped having sex. He encouraged me to see a therapist and I did. It was the first step on a long journey to healing.
Ten-year-old girls want to believe in fairy tales. Take this pledge and God will love you so much and be so proud of you, they told me. If you wait to have sex until marriage, God will bring you a wonderful Christian husband and you'll get married and live happily ever after, they said.
Waiting didn't give me a happily ever after. Instead, it controlled my identity for over a decade, landed me in therapy, and left me a stranger in my own skin. I was so completely ashamed of my body and my sexuality that it made having sex a demoralizing experience.
I don't go to church anymore, nor am I religious. As I started to heal, I realized that I couldn't figure out how to be both religious and sexual at the same time. I chose sex. Every single day is a battle to remember that my body belongs to me and not to the church of my childhood.
I have to constantly remind myself that a pledge I took when I was only 10 doesn't define who I am today.
When I have sex with my husband, I make sure it's because I have a sexual need and not because I feel I'm required to fulfill his desires.
I'm now thoroughly convinced that the entire concept of virginity is used to control female sexuality. If I could go back, I would not wait. I would have sex with my then-boyfriend-now-husband and I wouldn't go to hell for it. We would have gotten married at a more appropriate age and I would have kept my sexuality to myself.
Unfortunately, I can't go back but I can give you this message as a culmination of my experiences: If you want to wait to have sex until marriage make sure it's because you want to. It's your body; it belongs to you, not your church.
Kindhearted Brian Burnie was so grateful when his wife recovered from cancer that he developed an addiction to helping other sufferers, but his actions have resulted in the end of his marriage
A multi-millionaire who gave away his entire fortune has split with his wife after his Good Samaritan act destroyed their 30-year marriage.
It’s the ironic twist in the tale of a bizarre story which started when big-hearted Brian Burnie’s beloved wife Shirley fell ill with breast cancer.
The philanthropist was so delighted when she made a full recovery that he developed an addiction to helping cancer sufferers just like her.
Yet as the 70-year-old sold off their £16million mansion, auctioned their belongings and ploughed all the proceeds into his own cancer charity in 2009, the love of his life was at the end of her tether.
Although the pair failed to see eye-to-eye on his non-profit venture Daft As A Brush, Brian maintained all he needed was his family, publicly declaring at the time: “I’ve no interest in bricks and mortar. I’ve no interest in possessions.”
Speaking for the first time since the split, Shirley reveals: “I didn’t want to give everything away. We needed a home and an income and we have three children. I wanted security for us and our family.
“It took over his life, becoming more important than anything else to him. I said to him often that we had other things to consider, but his top three priorities were the charity, the charity and the charity.”
North News & Pictures ltd
Inside: Brian and Shirley Burnie in Doxford Hall in Northumberland
After selling off their 10-acre luxury estate Doxford Hall, complete with spa and hotel boasting a swimming pool and manicured lawns, the couple moved into a tiny rented terrace house in nearby Morpeth, Northumberland, opposite a council estate.
Brian’s runaround became a battered old Ford Fiesta.
He envisaged a simple existence where the pair would enjoy each other’s company rather than the trappings of wealth.
But an unfortunate chance encounter between his wife and a gossip at the local hairdresser threw his dream into disarray.
“I learned that he had bought a new home in Gosforth without telling me,” says Shirley.
“I confronted him and he admitted it was true. He’d owned it for three months and said nothing. I felt he’d made his preparations for the end of the marriage and waited for me to find out.
“There had to be a reason why he kept that quiet, I believed, and I assumed it must have been because he had decided the marriage was over and he was leaving.”
For heartbroken Shirley it was the final straw after her husband had repeatedly put his charity work before her since she won her own cancer battle.
In a burst of refreshing honesty after getting the all-clear, she said: “I didn’t intend to have to beat cancer and then spend the rest of my life living in a house like this and doing everything for everyone else. I’m sick of bloody charity and the hard work — we all are.”
Yet Brian was so blinded by his new devotion he failed to heed the old adage that charity begins at home.
Having given away all their collective wealth he then embarked on a charity campaign to get cancer patients free travel to and from hospital and cancer screening.
Shirley says that as well as giving up his money he was soon working 12 hours a day and barely seeing his family.
“I felt he had put me in a position where we had to end the marriage,” she says.
They divorced in 2012.
North News & Pictures ltd
Kind: But Brian Burnie is now living in a small flat above his charity HQ
But Brian tells a different story, insisting he never wanted to end their relationship. And he still maintains there was nothing sinister about the purchase of the house.
“I never intended to live in it, I bought it for the charity but it wasn’t right and I had to get different premises,” he told the Sunday Mirror.
“I wish I’d never bought it because I could have put the money to better use.”
He goes on: “We live in a selfish, greedy society. If we can introduce our children to charitable acts at a young age, there is hope that the flame will take in them and they’ll see how much you get from helping others.”
His children are all grown up and he still sees them regularly, even though his actions mean they won’t get a penny.
The eccentric jazz-loving Geordie, who left school with no qualifications aged 15, adds: “I had enough money to set them up for life, but I think that would be wrong.
“Your children have to make their own way.”
The marriage break-up has not surprised everyone. When they married in 1981, Brian insisted they ask for donations to Tyneside Leukaemia Research instead of wedding presents.
And their honeymoon, in a pal’s caravan in Cockermouth, Cumbria, was spent mostly with Brian working and Shirley going out for walks alone.
“I was a war-time baby and my mum and dad made me the way I am. I was born in a bedsit during the Second World War,” Brian says, trying to explain his actions.
“Nobody had much but I grew up knowing that if my mum and dad had food on the table, they’d share it with those around them.”
He never went to university but modestly says he had a “knack for business” that made him a vast fortune over 40 years.
He progressed from grocery delivery boy to builder’s apprentice, to trained engineer, to running his own company, first in construction, then petrochemicals, and later recruitment.
He recalls: “We acquired the lifestyle, Doxford Hall, we lived very well, but nothing gave me as much pleasure as giving it all away.”
It was a trait which made him the perfect man in many women’s eyes – a millionaire with a heart of gold.
Shirley was no different and indulged him in his passion, including hosting a fish and chips lunch for 5,000 war veterans in their walled garden.
But when she was diagnosed with cancer she needed her husband’s charitable nature the most.
Yet no sooner had she secured her place on the long road to recovery than his generosity began to spiral out of control.
What to some may have looked like a touching tribute, Shirley describes as “madness”.
And whereas her husband became known locally as St Brian, she started suffering from charity fatigue. “Each year it just got bigger and bigger — no event was a one-off,” Shirley said at the time of the sale of Doxford Hall.
“I’m happy to do my bit, but if you’re married to someone like Brian, it takes over your life. He sweeps everyone along.”
The tale of the man who had it all, then gave it all away features in TV documentary Jon Richardson Grows Up, on Channel 4 tomorrow at 10.35pm. There is no mention of the couple’s sad split, though it does show Brian living alone in a small flat above Daft As A Brush HQ.
Asked if he kept anything for himself he replies: “Nothing. I live off my pension, even that goes to the charity when I die.”
Shirley says: “Brian has what he wanted. We keep hearing he’s never been happier, which hurts a bit given that we had 30 years of marriage and three children, but he has made his choice.”
We all want the same thing: a love that will last a lifetime.We want love to endure, to face challenges, and to come out the other side stronger than before.
These people have done love right. They’ve withstood the test of time to prove that love has no expiry date.
SHARE with your friends who are either happily married or hopeful romantics!
