Post by RexCorvus on Oct 14, 2016 17:13:47 GMT -5
“I wasn’t looking for Heaven or Hell, just someone to listen to the stories I tell”
With age, I can now look back and see the winding path through the hills and valleys that have gotten me to this place. To tell this story I have to start at the very beginning because each boulder and fallen tree that has disturbed way has led me to this place.
When I was an infant my father abandoned my mother and I with no money and no food. It is only recently that I have learned that he got involved in dealing drugs. One night he brought home a lot of money and my mother told him she wanted no part of it and to take it back. Well, he left and never came back. She told me Vietnam changed him, he just wasn’t the same after he returned from the war.
My mother was distraught. She was young, I think only 20 at the time. She didn’t know how to deal with it. She tried to get him to come back, she started hanging out with an unsavory group of people. My her parents, my grandparents, told her that they were going to take me in and that I shouldn’t grow up around that. Today, I know she regrets allowing them to take me but she was in no shape to raise me. No money, no job, and an emotional mess. I am better off for it.
My grandfather was disabled by a massive heart attack at 45 years old. My grandmother hadn’t worked since before she married my grandfather. She never drove and smoked like a chimney. As a little kid I helped my grandfather walk. He would say I was his cane. They were very proud of me and loved me as their own. We were poor. My grandfather had a small pension but we mostly lived off of social security, food stamps, and disability.
I was 12 years old and came home from school one day to find my grandparents, and my mother in the living room. When I came in they asked me to sit down, that they had something to tell me. My father had been killed drinking and driving. There were 6 people in the car, the rest survived, but when it flipped and he was ejected. I laughed it off, because I acted like I hated him. I went to my room, turned on some music and cried. I hated him for leaving me, but I deep down wanted to meet him. I wondered was I like him? Did he like the things I liked? Did we look alike?
It was about this time that my grandmother began getting sick. She started coughing a lot, being tired all the time, spitting up thick yellow mucus. She could only sleep upright by positioning herself into the corner of the couch. I use to get up in the middle of the night and sit in front of her to make sure she was still breathing. I started hanging out with a group of unsavory guys. I began drinking and taking drugs. I would try anything. I lost my virginity then to a very heavy girl, who used sex as a way to find self worth. I became popular for all the wrong reasons. I was the bad guy that girls found exciting. I mostly dated girls older than me and had A LOT of wild sex at a very young age.
I quickly went from drinking stolen beers from friend’s fridges, to doing Speed, LSD, PCP, Coke, and Heroin. After 3 years of boozing and drugging, several of my friends got busted and sent to a rehabilitation center. When they got out, we started going to AA together. Several friends relapsed, but I knew I had to straighten up or I was going to be dead or in prison. I told my grandparents about everything I had been doing. They knew I had come home after drinking a couple times, but had no idea the extent of how messed up I was. Within that year my grandmother died from emphysema. I was 15 and had to take over responsibility for taking care of my disabled grandfather. I got a job and worked full time and went to school full time and took care of my grandfather as best I could. About every 3 months he would go into congestive heart failure and I would have to take him to the hospital. They would adjust his medicine and get his heart back in rhythm. I was so frightened that he would die as well. I didn’t know where I would go. But grandpa was a fighter, he lived a long life. He saw me graduate high school and eventually go to college and get a good job.
I met my wife while working my way through college. She was 17 and I was 21 when we started dating. God she was beautiful and feisty. Her family had moved to the area, from NY about 5 years before we met. We fell in love. We worked at the same place and often closed together. I was a manager. After everyone would leave we stayed and she would initiate all the time! God I remember her riding me for broke in the small little office on a wobbly rolling chair. Giving me BJs in the parking lot, bending her over tables in the back room. I remember I had hernia surgery, and the Dr. told me I needed to wait 6 weeks before having sex. She stayed over after surgery and helped take care of me. Well she couldn’t wait 6 weeks she got me hard and climbed on and started riding me. When I came I thought I ripped the stitches it hurt so much!… (sigh)
After 4 years she desperately wanted to get married. I loved her, but was so concerned about money. I grew up with nothing I knew what poor was like. She was middle class and had no idea. I still was at my grandfathers taking care of him and the house as well. I tried to push her to wait, but she got angry and gave an ultimatum we get married or break up. I agreed to get married but only if we lived with my grandfather for a while. We got married and we tried to live with my grandfather for a year but him and my wife fought constantly. I would come home from work and she would be crying. I don’t know if he or she did that on purpose, so we would move out or if they genuinely didn’t like each other. My aunt divorced and agreed to move in with him. So my wife and I moved out.
Sex had been declining ever since we had fought about getting married. We didn’t have sex on our marriage night, and only once our whole honeymoon. Sex even as newlyweds was maybe a once a month occurrence. I began my career, which had me working out of town every other week. We bought a house within walking distance from her parents so they could be there to help out. After 4 years our first baby came. I switched jobs so I didn’t have to travel, but I worked a lot of overtime to support the family, and she became a stay at home mom which is what she wanted.
I had complained about our lack of intimacy at this time. I seem to cycle through being able to deal with it by overloading myself and then it crashing down on me to where I can’t ignore it anymore. It was during this time that she wrote me a very open letter about it. She said she felt terrible about how the intimate part of our lives was being ignored. She said she felt at fault for it, but that she couldn’t help it. She said she had no desire for it. She stated she loved me and wanted to do things with me and be near me but had no desire sexually. She said she remembered how it was in the beginning of our relationship and she thought that she was like that because it was so new and exciting. She didn’t expect it to remain like that but she wanted it to be normal, she deserved it and so did I. She spoke of us cuddling and holding hands more and that we should go out to movies and dinner. She didn’t want to feel pressure to have sex. She said it made her feel like a failure as a wife and a woman. She knew it bothered me, but I hardly ever complained about it. She said she wanted to enjoy it and she wished she could wave a magic wand and make it better, but she couldn’t. She told me she tried to talk to her OBGYN and the lady just looked at me like I was weird or defective. She was humiliated by the whole thing. She said she couldn’t talk to her friends because she was too embarrassed. She said I had a right to be upset and she wished there was an easy answer. It made her feel pretty damn lonely. She said just remember that I love you.
That letter meant a lot and went a long way for me. It brought me back to the, I can live without sex, because we love each other mindset. I blamed myself internally for not being able to kindle the desire in her. Maybe I was too fat, maybe I didn’t earn enough, etc… In a couple more years she wanted another child and we quickly got pregnant again. By this time we were only having sex when she wanted to get pregnant. She tracked her ovulation cycles. She kept charts in her night stand where every morning she would record her temperature, her cervical fluid consistency, if she had any breast tenderness, her spotting/periods... so she knew exactly when she was ovulating. When she knew she was ovulating she would offer sex. It became the boring missionary or doggy sex, with no foreplay, no oral, no multiple Os. But offer a starving man food and he will take it.
My grandfather passed when my wife was pregnant with our second child. She wanted a bigger house so we bought one in a new subdivision and was having it built. Then nine months after her birth, I was diagnosed with Testicular Cancer. New house, new baby, lost my grandfather, Sept 11th and cancer. The whole timing of everything fucked with my head. I really withdrew inward. I began reflecting on my life. I went through a lot of self analysis and started to see bits and pieces of the path I had walked, but it was a discovery point not a true realization.
I grew resentful. As a part of Testicular Cancer, they check your sperm count before and after the removal of your testicle. Because they have to check it immediately after ejaculation to get an accurate count and activity of your "swimmers" you have to do it at the lab where they test it. Well there is no "private room" for this act to be accomplished. You are given a specimen jar and pointed to the public restroom.
Being diagnosed with cancer messes with your head, and being diagnosed with TC in a sexless marriage majorly F'd with mine. I begged her to come with me when I had to do the sample. I hoped for her assistance, but at least be there for support. She adamantly refused with a horrid fright upon her face.
I did what I had to do and the Dr told me that afterwards I had low count and slow swimmers. He told me I probably wouldn't be able to have any more children unless I stored some. My wife wanted more children, so I again provided more samples for storage. Well my wife tracked her ovulation cycles. She kept charts in her night stand where every morning she would record her temperature, her cervical fluid consistency, if she had any breast tenderness, her spotting/periods... so she knew exactly when she was ovulating. When she was she would offer sex. So even with my low count and slow swimmers, we had 2 more kids. That was when I said no more and scheduled a vasectomy. This was about 10 years after the letter she wrote, I hit one of my I can’t stand this anymore points. I started questioning her and I found EP. I did research on sexless marriages and starting having “The Talk” which led to fights and her telling me “Maybe I am just not capable of giving you what you need.”
My wife has had small problems ever since we got married 20 years ago. They are not hugely impacting issues, but just small odd things. For example, tiredness, eyes having problems with dryness, cancer sores, etc… She began bleeding A LOT during her periods. She had an ablation but it continued. She got to a point to where she was bleeding 18 days every month. She went through rounds of tests but nothing every showed. She felt like she was just crazy because nothing ever came back as an issue. Finally after years of tests and different Dr. someone tested her for Lupus. She was diagnosed a few years back. Her symptoms have increased but not debilitatingly. Her worst impact has been the tiredness, the bleeding and lichen sclerosus on her vagina. She is on medicine now to help delay symptom increasing.
I think it affects her thyroid as well. Many people even Drs have asked if she has thyroid problems because her neck is enlarged. But again the tests come back negative. I believe this disease has robbed her of her sexual desire over many years. I provide for the family. She can only work part time at minimum wage and has no health insurance through her job. I have a large sense of responsibility and because of my past could never abandon my family. My wife needs my support, she needs my income, she needs my health insurance. She just doesn’t need my sex. She is now in early menopause at 40 years old because of the Lupus
Thank you for reading my story.
RC
With age, I can now look back and see the winding path through the hills and valleys that have gotten me to this place. To tell this story I have to start at the very beginning because each boulder and fallen tree that has disturbed way has led me to this place.
When I was an infant my father abandoned my mother and I with no money and no food. It is only recently that I have learned that he got involved in dealing drugs. One night he brought home a lot of money and my mother told him she wanted no part of it and to take it back. Well, he left and never came back. She told me Vietnam changed him, he just wasn’t the same after he returned from the war.
My mother was distraught. She was young, I think only 20 at the time. She didn’t know how to deal with it. She tried to get him to come back, she started hanging out with an unsavory group of people. My her parents, my grandparents, told her that they were going to take me in and that I shouldn’t grow up around that. Today, I know she regrets allowing them to take me but she was in no shape to raise me. No money, no job, and an emotional mess. I am better off for it.
My grandfather was disabled by a massive heart attack at 45 years old. My grandmother hadn’t worked since before she married my grandfather. She never drove and smoked like a chimney. As a little kid I helped my grandfather walk. He would say I was his cane. They were very proud of me and loved me as their own. We were poor. My grandfather had a small pension but we mostly lived off of social security, food stamps, and disability.
I was 12 years old and came home from school one day to find my grandparents, and my mother in the living room. When I came in they asked me to sit down, that they had something to tell me. My father had been killed drinking and driving. There were 6 people in the car, the rest survived, but when it flipped and he was ejected. I laughed it off, because I acted like I hated him. I went to my room, turned on some music and cried. I hated him for leaving me, but I deep down wanted to meet him. I wondered was I like him? Did he like the things I liked? Did we look alike?
It was about this time that my grandmother began getting sick. She started coughing a lot, being tired all the time, spitting up thick yellow mucus. She could only sleep upright by positioning herself into the corner of the couch. I use to get up in the middle of the night and sit in front of her to make sure she was still breathing. I started hanging out with a group of unsavory guys. I began drinking and taking drugs. I would try anything. I lost my virginity then to a very heavy girl, who used sex as a way to find self worth. I became popular for all the wrong reasons. I was the bad guy that girls found exciting. I mostly dated girls older than me and had A LOT of wild sex at a very young age.
I quickly went from drinking stolen beers from friend’s fridges, to doing Speed, LSD, PCP, Coke, and Heroin. After 3 years of boozing and drugging, several of my friends got busted and sent to a rehabilitation center. When they got out, we started going to AA together. Several friends relapsed, but I knew I had to straighten up or I was going to be dead or in prison. I told my grandparents about everything I had been doing. They knew I had come home after drinking a couple times, but had no idea the extent of how messed up I was. Within that year my grandmother died from emphysema. I was 15 and had to take over responsibility for taking care of my disabled grandfather. I got a job and worked full time and went to school full time and took care of my grandfather as best I could. About every 3 months he would go into congestive heart failure and I would have to take him to the hospital. They would adjust his medicine and get his heart back in rhythm. I was so frightened that he would die as well. I didn’t know where I would go. But grandpa was a fighter, he lived a long life. He saw me graduate high school and eventually go to college and get a good job.
I met my wife while working my way through college. She was 17 and I was 21 when we started dating. God she was beautiful and feisty. Her family had moved to the area, from NY about 5 years before we met. We fell in love. We worked at the same place and often closed together. I was a manager. After everyone would leave we stayed and she would initiate all the time! God I remember her riding me for broke in the small little office on a wobbly rolling chair. Giving me BJs in the parking lot, bending her over tables in the back room. I remember I had hernia surgery, and the Dr. told me I needed to wait 6 weeks before having sex. She stayed over after surgery and helped take care of me. Well she couldn’t wait 6 weeks she got me hard and climbed on and started riding me. When I came I thought I ripped the stitches it hurt so much!… (sigh)
After 4 years she desperately wanted to get married. I loved her, but was so concerned about money. I grew up with nothing I knew what poor was like. She was middle class and had no idea. I still was at my grandfathers taking care of him and the house as well. I tried to push her to wait, but she got angry and gave an ultimatum we get married or break up. I agreed to get married but only if we lived with my grandfather for a while. We got married and we tried to live with my grandfather for a year but him and my wife fought constantly. I would come home from work and she would be crying. I don’t know if he or she did that on purpose, so we would move out or if they genuinely didn’t like each other. My aunt divorced and agreed to move in with him. So my wife and I moved out.
Sex had been declining ever since we had fought about getting married. We didn’t have sex on our marriage night, and only once our whole honeymoon. Sex even as newlyweds was maybe a once a month occurrence. I began my career, which had me working out of town every other week. We bought a house within walking distance from her parents so they could be there to help out. After 4 years our first baby came. I switched jobs so I didn’t have to travel, but I worked a lot of overtime to support the family, and she became a stay at home mom which is what she wanted.
I had complained about our lack of intimacy at this time. I seem to cycle through being able to deal with it by overloading myself and then it crashing down on me to where I can’t ignore it anymore. It was during this time that she wrote me a very open letter about it. She said she felt terrible about how the intimate part of our lives was being ignored. She said she felt at fault for it, but that she couldn’t help it. She said she had no desire for it. She stated she loved me and wanted to do things with me and be near me but had no desire sexually. She said she remembered how it was in the beginning of our relationship and she thought that she was like that because it was so new and exciting. She didn’t expect it to remain like that but she wanted it to be normal, she deserved it and so did I. She spoke of us cuddling and holding hands more and that we should go out to movies and dinner. She didn’t want to feel pressure to have sex. She said it made her feel like a failure as a wife and a woman. She knew it bothered me, but I hardly ever complained about it. She said she wanted to enjoy it and she wished she could wave a magic wand and make it better, but she couldn’t. She told me she tried to talk to her OBGYN and the lady just looked at me like I was weird or defective. She was humiliated by the whole thing. She said she couldn’t talk to her friends because she was too embarrassed. She said I had a right to be upset and she wished there was an easy answer. It made her feel pretty damn lonely. She said just remember that I love you.
That letter meant a lot and went a long way for me. It brought me back to the, I can live without sex, because we love each other mindset. I blamed myself internally for not being able to kindle the desire in her. Maybe I was too fat, maybe I didn’t earn enough, etc… In a couple more years she wanted another child and we quickly got pregnant again. By this time we were only having sex when she wanted to get pregnant. She tracked her ovulation cycles. She kept charts in her night stand where every morning she would record her temperature, her cervical fluid consistency, if she had any breast tenderness, her spotting/periods... so she knew exactly when she was ovulating. When she knew she was ovulating she would offer sex. It became the boring missionary or doggy sex, with no foreplay, no oral, no multiple Os. But offer a starving man food and he will take it.
My grandfather passed when my wife was pregnant with our second child. She wanted a bigger house so we bought one in a new subdivision and was having it built. Then nine months after her birth, I was diagnosed with Testicular Cancer. New house, new baby, lost my grandfather, Sept 11th and cancer. The whole timing of everything fucked with my head. I really withdrew inward. I began reflecting on my life. I went through a lot of self analysis and started to see bits and pieces of the path I had walked, but it was a discovery point not a true realization.
I grew resentful. As a part of Testicular Cancer, they check your sperm count before and after the removal of your testicle. Because they have to check it immediately after ejaculation to get an accurate count and activity of your "swimmers" you have to do it at the lab where they test it. Well there is no "private room" for this act to be accomplished. You are given a specimen jar and pointed to the public restroom.
Being diagnosed with cancer messes with your head, and being diagnosed with TC in a sexless marriage majorly F'd with mine. I begged her to come with me when I had to do the sample. I hoped for her assistance, but at least be there for support. She adamantly refused with a horrid fright upon her face.
I did what I had to do and the Dr told me that afterwards I had low count and slow swimmers. He told me I probably wouldn't be able to have any more children unless I stored some. My wife wanted more children, so I again provided more samples for storage. Well my wife tracked her ovulation cycles. She kept charts in her night stand where every morning she would record her temperature, her cervical fluid consistency, if she had any breast tenderness, her spotting/periods... so she knew exactly when she was ovulating. When she was she would offer sex. So even with my low count and slow swimmers, we had 2 more kids. That was when I said no more and scheduled a vasectomy. This was about 10 years after the letter she wrote, I hit one of my I can’t stand this anymore points. I started questioning her and I found EP. I did research on sexless marriages and starting having “The Talk” which led to fights and her telling me “Maybe I am just not capable of giving you what you need.”
My wife has had small problems ever since we got married 20 years ago. They are not hugely impacting issues, but just small odd things. For example, tiredness, eyes having problems with dryness, cancer sores, etc… She began bleeding A LOT during her periods. She had an ablation but it continued. She got to a point to where she was bleeding 18 days every month. She went through rounds of tests but nothing every showed. She felt like she was just crazy because nothing ever came back as an issue. Finally after years of tests and different Dr. someone tested her for Lupus. She was diagnosed a few years back. Her symptoms have increased but not debilitatingly. Her worst impact has been the tiredness, the bleeding and lichen sclerosus on her vagina. She is on medicine now to help delay symptom increasing.
I think it affects her thyroid as well. Many people even Drs have asked if she has thyroid problems because her neck is enlarged. But again the tests come back negative. I believe this disease has robbed her of her sexual desire over many years. I provide for the family. She can only work part time at minimum wage and has no health insurance through her job. I have a large sense of responsibility and because of my past could never abandon my family. My wife needs my support, she needs my income, she needs my health insurance. She just doesn’t need my sex. She is now in early menopause at 40 years old because of the Lupus
Thank you for reading my story.
RC
