So What you Feel Becomes Mine as Well

During the long Memorial Day weekend my husband and I sat down and had some interesting discussions. We spoke about finances -- more about that in another entry -- but also more about our situation and our feelings, which have at times been for the good and at others, completely exhausting. I never know which I'm going to get.

He told me he'd been back and forth about whether he was being a bad person. He said he felt like he wasn't loving me enough because he felt if he truly loved me that he'd be able to lay aside his own needs. He felt guilty for having the needs he had even though he'd told me at other times when angry and frustrated that he didn't want to be made to feel guilty for being normal and having a normal libido. I understood what he was trying to say for I've felt it myself. Saying you don't want to feel guilty because when you look deeper you do, and you resent that feeling -- you hate that you feel guilty for something that you should not feel guilty for! Why should you feel guilty for having your own set of needs? That's just not fair to expect someone to lay aside their needs like they don't exist. Oh, it can be done but even when it's successful for the short term, it does deep and lasting damage to the relationship between two people over the long haul.

I told him that he had loved me more than enough. That he wasn't a bad person for having those needs. That he was normal. That he was right for insisting upon taking care of himself after trying so hard for so long. I truly believe all these things. He was doing the best that he was capable of -- being who he was -- just as I was.

And then I learned the question that was hidden within all this. I thought I'd answered before, but it was apparent that it hadn't been clear enough for him. He was still struggling with the conflicting emotions he had between doing what he felt he needed to do and doing what was actually the right thing for himself. And he needed me to answer a question that would help guide him.

We had been discussing the possibility of living as roommates in a sexually barren marriage. In other words, the way I wanted to live with him. In my mind's eye that is as loving partners, comrades and dear friends, as parents and companions, always knowing we have each other's backs. Without the physical pressures that have lingered, other than affection.

He said he could see doing that if he had hope that there was a point where that would end, when I would get better and come back to being his wife in every sense of the word. He said he thought he could do that if that was going to be the result. But he said he felt that if he agreed to do that, that he would be waiting forever. And that was his question. Would he?

I hated to answer this. It made me seem so base. So unworthy. So shallow. To answer it made me reveal all that I had lost for him and how much he had retained for me. To answer it proved that he was the better person than I was, more capable of commitment, loyalty and constancy. But I knew that if I did not answer it honestly I would be hurting him more and perpetuating the cycle of deception within myself that I had vowed to break. So I had to tell him that he probably would.

By all that is holy, karma is such a first-class bitch.


((Song: "Run Around" by Blues Traveler. Lyrics:
http://bluestraveler.com/albumLyrics.php?aid=4#3))

Addendum

I wanted to add a small post as an addendum of sorts to my last post:

I want to state here for the record that I love my husband. I do and always will. He is one of the best men I've ever met. He's a good man and he's got his own pain and confusion, just like I have. He tried to deal with what has happened to us in the best way he knew how, even if he didn't make the right choices all the time any more than I did. We are, after all, only two people trying our hardest to muddle through.

I value so many things about him and mourn the fact that I can no longer give him all the things he wants, needs and deserves in this life. I was selfish for many years about this, knowing that I had something good and wishing to keep it around while forcing him to be satisfied with less.

I cannot do that to him or to myself any longer or deny who I am now because of what this thing that has happened to me has shaped me into. It is no longer fair of me to want him for all those things he can provide for me and be for me without being able to give him what he needs to feel fulfilled. And though he loves me, he doesn't understand me either. I've become someone different and sometimes the person you loved isn't the person standing in front of you years later.

One Last Chance To Get Myself Together

You know how sometimes it feels like life is sneaking up at you from every direction and slapping you in the back of the head, then fading back into the shadows before you can turn around and slap back? Life's done a lot of that to me lately.

Right now I'm sitting here typing and looking down at my fingers and my hands and my arms. I see veins popping through the surface of my skin that start halfway down my forearms and run to the middle of the backs of my hands. My skin doesn't have the firmness it once did either. It looks thinner somehow, a bit crepy. Older. It reminds me of my grandmother's arms, thin and delicate and oh so pale. My arms now are like echoes of her arms, and though it scares me to see them and I find myself thinking, when did all this happen? there is also a small part of me that warms inside because I can see my grandmother reflected within me. It's like she's still alive. I can think of no greater honor than to be like she was.

I didn't get that job at my office. I expected it to turn out that way and was relieved that it did for the most part. I didn't really want the job as much as my pride demanded that I place my name in the hat for it to see what would come of it. I needed to measure what sort of worth my current company placed on my tenure there. Being told I didn't have enough managerial experience (I was manager of a retail store for over a year and assistant manager of another retail store for approximately the same amount of time while the person who received the job had only been assistant manager for 3 months) was the icing on the proverbial cake. Being told I needed to keep trying for an assistantship when I had made it clear to the hiring manager beforehand that I had not done so because of the restrictive hours (nightshift, while I have a daughter) was yet another bone of contention. It was obvious that these things were excuses, plain and simple.

On the upside, I now know where I stand at my current company. Any hesitation I may have had about leaving them due to some misguided sense of loyalty is completely gone. I see the green light towards pursuing other employment, post-haste.

The only other thing stopping me from seeking gainful full-time employment was removed today as well. I had been told that I would perhaps need surgery for a long-term issue of mine that I looked forward to "fixing." I've dealt with this issue for about 14 years now. It is called dyspareunia* and vaginismus.* This was today's diagnosis and I feel that it is finally probably the correct one. In the past it's been diagnosed as anything from urethral diverticula to complications from a traumatic c-section to vulvodynia. You name it, I've heard it.

For more information on the words I've used above, see the following site:
(http://www.vaginismus.com/faqs/vaginismus-questions/dyspareunia-diagnosis-treatment/)

I've gone from being hopeful that it would be resolved, to struggling to ignore that I even had it, to soldiering on through the pain and ending up becoming psychologically traumatized, to blaming myself, to blaming others, and finally to a mixture of deep, agonizing despair and resigning myself to everything. I can only say that it may seem like a small thing to deal with but the impact this has had upon my most personal relationships -- not to mention my own self-worth -- has been devastating. I am not able to explain the entire why of it, but suffice to say that I would not wish this sort of ongoing emotional and physical pain upon anyone.

As treatment I will have to undergo some physical therapy, which includes dilator therapy. The physical therapist uses a series of gradiated-sized dilators. The insertion of these is coupled with pelvic floor exercises and other things designed to "retrain" the muscles so that they can stop unconsciously spasming.

Everyone I've told this to has expressed some form of the "wow, dildos now, and you're paying someone to do this to you?" idea. Especially my male friends, who also add a healthy dose of laughter and some added wistful/lustful murmurings of wow, where do I sign up for this job? I can tolerate their humor and their laughter to a point because it doesn't affect them, they don't understand, it is a source of humor for them. But then there is my husband. This has affected him in every way, shape and form, yet he couldn't stop his chuckles when I finally got to the therapy part in my retelling of the appointment. I could see his lips quirking and I knew exactly the sorts of thoughts running through his head. And when I mentioned the name of the therapist (Debbie) he began a running commentary of Debbie Does Dallas.

While I laughed a little along with him and I knew there was a bit of humor to the whole situation I admit to leaving our bedroom and sitting at the kitchen table with my back to him, letting the tears course down my cheeks as he was casually joking about the humor in using dildos and calling them dilators. I didn't let him see that I was crying, though. There was no point; if he had seen me he would have asked what the matter was and I would have had to try again to explain. And again, he wouldn't understand, which would have brought me to a greater level of frustration and despair that I just don't have the energy to do any longer.

The point is, he doesn't really have any fucking concept of the pain I carry. I've explained and explained ad nauseum. He doesn't understand why I have reacted to it like I have. To him it becomes a geez, can't you get over it already sort of thing that I've seen behind his eyes and heard upon his lips. Or worse, when he gets frustrated his real thoughts and feelings come out and he lets me know he believes that while I may experience some pain (and he's seen me bleed so he cannot deny that there is pain), it's a problem that can be fixed like any other and since I haven't tried enough (whatever that means) it is really nothing more than an excuse I use to avoid him physically. He makes it become about HIM and not about ME. Even when he is genuinely concerned and thoughtful I know that he doesn't really understand and never will.

To be fair, it did become more and more about him over time. When the symptoms first began to appear after the birth of our daughter, I did it through the pain for years because I didn't want him to feel the sting of rejection and because I loved him enough to subsume my own desires in order for his to be met. At the very beginning of it, I wanted it too, but less and less as the years went by. I began to anticipate the pain, to tense up, and tense muscles on top of unconscious spasming makes it worse. I then began to attempt to avoid sex with a multiple array of excuses, feeling guilty as I did so. Another few years saw me begin to dislike and finally become disgusted by sex. I felt guilty for feeling this way since it wasn't his fault that I was like this, so my guilt caused me to continue to do it with him.

Continuing only fed my growing feelings of resentment. Resentment, because more and more the burden of carrying that guilt caused me to project it at him and to find him as the cause of it all. I struggled to understand why I felt I had to protect his feelings at the cost of my own. What made him more important than me and why wasn't he seeing what I was giving up for him? Which was essentially, my enjoyment of sex. Oh how I resented him for that because I didn't want to take responsibility for the fact that my own behavior was partially at fault. I had a choice, and though my choice was motivated by my feelings of duty and obligation and responsibility for him -- that wasn't his fault. At any time I could have said, enough.

I fully recognize my part in all this. But still and all, he had his as well. Rationally I understood in some fashion that he was trying to assure himself he still mattered to me by seeing me express it physically (a natural reaction, and I'd probably have made the same error if I'd felt someone pulling away from me.) Whatever his reasons, though, I told him time and again that it hurt for me to do it. A test, of sorts. Did he truly believe me? If he had, I felt, he would have stopped something that hurt me. But he didn't stop initiating and each time he did I was faced with a choice. A test of his own, for me to take. Say no, which led to him feeling rejection and anger and the unspoken implication that I was a frigid bitch, or say yes and make him feel assured but make myself feel as if I was merely the object he used to satisfy his baser physical needs. His test was often enough that eventually I felt while his words said he believed me and he cared and that I didn't have to do it with him, his actions told me deep down where rationality doesn't make a difference that I did have to do it or I had failed him, that I didn't love him enough. And followed to its logical conclusion in my head? Plain and simple. Sex mattered to him more than me or my feelings about it did. For good or ill, right or wrong, that is what I felt.

Somewhere in the midst of all of this (and it took years and years) all passion and desire for him drained out of me. I couldn't sustain it. I tried to, but I failed. The most aggravating and exhausting thing is that somehow no matter how much I explain this to him, he doesn't get it. He doesn't seem to see how that could happen. So I have to ask: does this cycle not make sense to anyone reading this? Do I sound crazy?

But here's the thing.

His own sexuality has never been so basely threatened.

If it had, he might get it. I don't know. But honestly, he has no idea how he'd react in the situation I was in. None whatsoever. He seems to think that I should be able to just forgive him and forgive myself and just go get it fixed and everything will be hunky dory. But it's not that easy. I know some can do it but not me. I am just not that person, I suppose. I'm not that big. Those feelings -- disgust for sex, bitterness, anger, sadness, resentment, frustration -- are all primally attached to him now and the loss of my physical desire for him has been the price. I am saddened to say that, but that it how it is.

Take back what I said earlier about not wishing this upon anyone. If there was one person that I would wish what I've experienced on for a year, it would be him. He of all people should have to have this experience and have to experience it like I have, not like he thinks he would. He has no idea of the vast difference that exists between a woman's sexuality and a man's. Oh, he thinks he does. But when you get right down to it he expects me to react like he would, with his libido, and he resents me for not doing so -- for not being him. How insane is that? So yes, he needs to grok it, truly grok my full experience. To emphathize and not just sympathize or imagine some sort of scenario. Perhaps then it would not be this pivotal matter, this constant central source of confusion and emotional pain that it has always been.

And as far as my own sexuality?

I can't even begin to make anyone really understand the loss I've suffered. My desire for sex has been weakened to the point of near non-existence. Its power over people -- men in particular -- makes me bitter and cynical and disgusted. Why? Because its power to hurt people and make them question themselves runs so deep and I hate that its power is such. For it has done that work upon me. How so? Well, I question whether any other man would ever be able to love me. All men want sex and will, no matter what they tell me. They'll say, "It's all right, honey, I love you just the way you are and I understand your problem," and meanwhile silently resent me for not being able to give them what they want. It is what I have experienced so far and it is the way I would think over time, and one tends to project how one reacts upon the motives of others no matter how accurate that may truly be. Rationally I know that not all people think that way and that the man that wants to be with me might actually be telling me the truth.....but will I be able to believe? That is the real question, and the central issue. The loss of my own confidence in my sexual self. If I cannot give to someone, can they love me? How am I worth it?

I dealt with trying to build my confidence in many ways. But more about that another time.

I know this therapy sounds ridiculous, but who knows. It might just work. I can't just not try it; I need to explore all options no matter how seemingly out there they might be. It comes too late to save my marriage because the problems that originated from this eventually wore down all the passionate and desirable feelings for intimacy with him on all levels but dear and loving friendship, but perhaps it is not too late to save the rest of me. I struggle with the feeling of hope. For too long hope has been something shot down, time after time after time. We'll see, I suppose.


((Song: "One Last Chance" by James Morrison. Lyrics here:
http://www.james-morrison.net/lyrics/#Wonderful%20World))

I Should Just Be My Own Best Friend

In keeping with the spirit of my last entry, I've determined to forget about relocating for the foreseeable future. The job that I wanted will be available again come spring 2008 and if I still want to pursue it, I can. For the moment I'll pursue other avenues here, get settled, adjust to the changes that will take place, and go from there.

So I've been trying to get a promotion at the company where I'm currently employed. I had an interview last week and I'm still waiting on the verdict. It's an assistant region manager position in title, but the job description is more on the order of manager. I'll be pushing for pay that reflects that distinction should they offer it to me -- which will be an approximate $3 an hour raise. I fully expect them to refuse. If so, I'll be on my way to find a job that pays me about $1-$2 more an hour with half the responsibility.

Talking about my personal relationships is a bit harder. I'd like to say that things have settled down -- and to a large extent they have -- but there are still so many things that keep coming up over and over again. Turning up like a bad penny, so to speak. I understand from whence they come but it doesn't make it any easier to deal with. There's a part of me that feels as though I am talking to a wall. That part of me is a bitter, impatient part that wonders, what the hell have I been talking to you about over and over and over and over? Do you have a set idea of how you think I feel, and if what I actually do feel doesn't match with that, you dismiss what I am saying and tell me I don't actually feel that at all? And how dare you tell me how I feel? And don't you realize that this feeling I have had -- that my feelings and thoughts have to be a certain thing or they aren't valid -- is one of the very things that has been so damned damaging to us?

No. I don't think he does. Grrrrrrr.

I've been talking with a friend lately about having relationships that are equal and respectful. I'll be adding a post here and there about that soon.


((Song: "Tears Dry On Their Own" by Amy Winehouse. Lyrics:
http://www.inetlyrics.com/amy_winehouse/tears_dry_on_their_own.htm))

Live Your Life Filled with Joy and Thunder

It's been nearly a month since I've blogged here. My apologies, but it's been a bit crazy.

I didn't get the job that I wanted and that left me feeling a little cut adrift. Until the prospect of it was taken away I hadn't realized that I'd started making plans in my head about how my life was going to be when I had it. I'd been so concerned with the changes, and frightened of them, that I hadn't seen that I was also embracing them.

So, learning that I wasn't going to be considered sort of took the wind out of my sails there for a few weeks. I suffered through quite a bit of disappointment and was feeling very much like the proverbial rat in a cage. I'm through the majority of bitterness now but I am still sore inside that my life will remain here in this place for at least another year. I found out exactly how much of me wanted to be somewhere else and have the ability to create myself anew.

Instead, I must now confront my other option: staying here. Getting a nowhere job just because I have to. Deciding whether living from paycheck to paycheck again is worth my freedom. Because yes, I shamefully admit to thinking that maybe being where I am, married and comfortable, isn't so bad. But I knew that I would suffer from these moments of wanting and told myself that this time, I would not allow it. I would follow my head -- which knows that this is the right course -- and not my heart, which is full of shoulds -- "I should not do this. I should take the easiest and safest and securest route. I should stop and see I have a great life and a man who loves me and I'm lucky and I should stop bitching."

Well. Those shoulds are not accurate. Because no matter what, the person that I know that I am will eventually out again. You can only keep yourself hidden for so long. For good or for ill, I am not a woman that changes easily. The only changes I make -- and keep -- are the changes that I truly wish to change. No amount of telling myself that I am doing the "right" thing will help me to forget that I am not doing the right thing for me. Oh, I know that is true for many people but I am not concerned with that, only that it is true of myself. I have learned that eventually if I stifle those "right thing for me" feelings they bubble up and I do things that remind myself of it, things that hurt me, and I am tired of that. So I will pause and listen and not only listen, but act. Take heed.

In many ways, this job falling through is likely the best path for me right now. I have strong urges to fly away and move off, stemming from a few sources (not all of which are healthy by any means.) It's no doubt for the best that I have to remain here and get healthy, strong and independent before I go off chasing what it is that I need to chase. I will be here for my daughter as she also does the required transition.

Yes, it will be for the best. But eventually, I will be ready to move and reform a life. Maybe by that time, some things will also be ready for me.


((Song: "Sweetness Follows" by REM. Lyrics here:
http://www.davemcnally.com/lyrics/REM/AUTOMATICFORTHEPEOPLE/))