What is your "price of admission"?

Seriously? I have a saying you have no chance of stimulating any part of me if you can't stimulate my mind. Not everyone is superficial.

Plus, I think we can all admit that we will pay a higher price for a better looking person.

This was posted on one of our wedding sites and I thought I'd post it here and get a reaction from this group as well.

"So, I was watching Dan Savage the other day, and he introduced me to the concept of a relationship's price of admission. The way he explained it is that no one is perfect, and our imperfections are our price of admission. And in a relationship, the goal is to meet someone who is worth their price of admission. What I'm willing to pay might not be what someone else is willing to pay, which is how some couples end up "perfect for each other". I'm sure that a lot of you are friends with couples where the two people are great with each other, but you know that they'd drive you CRAZY if you were dating them!"

What's YOUR price of admission? And how high of a price are you willing to pay in terms of putting up with a partner's imperfections?

How can you put a price on love? Really!

"A good leg will fall; a straight back will stoop; a black beard will turn white; a curle'd pate will grow bald; a fair face will wither; a full eye will wax hallow. But a good heart, Kate, is the sun and the moon; rather the sun and not the moon - for it shines brightly and never changes but keeps his course truly..." Henry V

I so agree with this quote. I shudder at the thought of putting a 'price of admission" on relationships. Sure, I do know what i like and what i don't like but, once in a relationship, times change, people change and hopefully the love has grown to compensate for those changes.

I was with a man for 25 years, married for 23. There were things I was attracted to in him when we first got together, just as he was attracted to me. Later, those same things became annoying, just as some of my "attributes" became annoying to him, but, we loved each other and so we took the imperfections along with the rest. When you are genuinely loved by someone and are in love with that person in turn, there is no price too great to pay for love.

This man I called my husband put up with ten years of my kidney disease and other related illnesse. He put up with times I was in hospital (sometimes for 4-6 months at a time), almost losing me twice during kidney transplants, my daily dialysis runs at home, taking care of the children while I was hospitalized, cooking meals, running errands, cleaning the house, doing the laundry, caring for the garden, working all day and then driving for an hour and a half for a mere hour visit in the hospital, driving over an hour back home, going to bed at 11:30 at night, only to get up at 4:30 in the morning and do everything all over again.

Was that too steep a price of admission for having me as a wife? I always thought so but, he did not. Why? Because he saw relationship and marriage as commitment, as real love in a real world the way it should be, without counting costs. He gave first with the hope and faith that his love would be returned in kind. Nothing more and nothing less.

I have to admit, that I don't think I reciprocated equitably to the love that i received and for that I have many personal regrets but I can tell you this...I refuse to stoop to worrying about the price of admission if I ever have the chance to love again. I will be happy enough to have a second chance to make up for some of my past miss steps and shortcomings in loving the first time. Love isn't so much about what you get or reluctantly give up as it is about what you give with your whole heart, regardless of the other person's short comings.

That confession reveals a marvelous person indeed.