>>33861301
>If what i did was retarded is there any way for me to rectify it?
What you did was unwise, though hardly uncommon. You surrendered what should have been a pledge of lifelong fidelity to a man who has offered you no such pledge in return. Once desire is satisfied, the veil of illusion it casts is lifted, and the man who appeared enamoured may find his ardor spent.

Passion is the bait by which nature ensnares us into propagation; it burns fiercely, but briefly. When it fades, only character and will remain; and these are the true foundations of love, not the fever of attraction.

Marriage, though a poor institution in many respects, serves at least as a covenant of will: a man binds himself not merely to his momentary feeling, but to a promise that endures when feeling dies. In this sense, it is the only safeguard love possesses against the fickleness of passion.

Of course, the way things work nowadays is different. The modern world, having traded duty for liberty, has made fidelity almost obsolete. Anyone may dissolve their vows at a whim, and promises, once sacred, have become mere words, easily revoked when convenience demands it. Thus, even the institution that once restrained human selfishness now bends before it.

You cannot restore what is given once; but you can resolve henceforth to treat affection not as a matter of sensation, but as a matter of character.