The Choices I've Made (or A Tale of Two Sexless Marriages)
Jan 15, 2017 2:55:42 GMT -5
Isabellas39 and greatcoastal like this
Post by Deleted on Jan 15, 2017 2:55:42 GMT -5
In life we eventually learn that if we don't make our own choices; no matter how small or how great, choices get made for us. Sometimes those choices that are made for us happen to turn out to be good for us. Sometimes not so good. Choosing for ourselves can also result in undesirable outcomes. But at least there exists a sense of empowerment when the choices being made are ours to make. If the result of any choice that we make yields a less than desirable outcome, we can only blame ourselves. That is, if we choose to hold ourselves accountable for those bad choices that were made. We can own them, or not.
It's my belief that, in life, we are never left without a choice. It may not be the one we want to make at all, for whatever reason: or it may be one we feel will be fair to everyone. We may decide to make a choice that sacrifices a part of ourselves for what we may justify or rationalize as being for the good of all involved. Sometimes we simply need to make a choice with only our own best interest in mind. Or we could choose to do nothing at all. No matter what the reason or situation, we still have a choice. What matters is that it's YOUR choice to make and YOUR choice to own it.
All that to say that I've made choices from the very beginning that have led up to me joining this club. I've made choices that (If I may borrow a very descriptive phrase from our highly esteemed Baz) have put me in this "shithole of a sexless marriage." For the second time.
My first marriage was off to a bad start from the very beginning. I chose to marry because it was the "right" thing to do. I was told to get off my 'high horse' by a good friend, and I chose not to listen. I was so naive. So gullible. I fell for the classic Spanish soap opera man trap. I allowed myself to be fooled, hog-tied, and manipulated. I can claim that I was under duress because it was something of a shotgun wedding. But no one would've actually shot me had I chosen not to go through with it. Afterwards, I chose to work 16 hours a day in order to provide my family with all the necessities and some non essential comforts of life. I chose to do more of my fair share of everything. It felt at times like I was actually doing everything. And of course, healthy food and sleep were not the only things that were lacking. There was no ... you guessed it ... Sex or intimacy. I was doing THAT for myself too. I was always tired from working long hours, but believe it or not, I would have found the strength to frack, had the opportunity been offered to me. I was sex starved and would have even accepted scraps at that point. However, my first wife was a refuser and used sex as a means of manipulation. I was in a situation where I was being mentally, emotionally, and in a way also physically abused.
Coming home after working two shifts to a napping wife and a near empty refrigerator was the norm. I barely had enough time to eat anyway. I remember a day when I came across a photo that a relative had taken of me while I sat on a couch in the living room. I would look in the mirror each day and saw what I looked like, but there was something about that photo that frightened me. Besides the unpleasant physical aspect of having lost too much weight, there was no light in my eyes in a well lit room. It looked like someone had sucked the life out of me. Yes. Someone most certainly did. It was that photo that woke up something inside of me. I was faced with a choice. Stay or die (in more than one way). So I chose to leave and to live.
My point with bringing up all of that shitty stuff with my first marriage is that It was MY choice to sit in that shithole for 3 years before realizing that the stench was going to bring about my death by way of asphyxiation. Climbing out of that shithole was not easy. What actually made it so difficult for me to pull the plug on my first marriage was the gut wrenching and emotionally torturous choice I had to make that involved leaving my then 3 year old son behind. To make matters worse, he was turned into a psychological weapon of mass destruction that she threatened to use against me if I took away her cozy lifestyle.
Despite all of her refuser tactics, of which so many of you are familiar with (for example: Gaslighting), I finally followed through with a choice that I didn't really want to make. But my will to survive overcame any fear or threat that she could have used to sink me deeper into a shithole that I helped dig myself into. All of my earlier stupid choices put me in it. I could only blame myself.
So there I was, separated and finally free. At least in body. It would take me some time to break away from the invisible mental chains that I had allowed myself to be wrapped in. In the meantime, after moving into an attic room in my parent's house, I continued to provide my child with all that was needed to sustain a healthy mind and body. It didn't take me long to realize that I could never be the nurturing father that I am while living under the same roof with Mrs. Hellfire. I never thought it possible before leaving, that I could do more for my son living away from him than with him living under the same roof. I actually got to see him more often than I did when I was working those long hours. And the time spent with him was quality time that we both can recall to this day. We are closer now than we could have ever been under those circumstances. Our close relationship continues to this day, despite the fact that we live on opposite coasts. But the best thing that I could've ever done for him was to spare him the damaging experience of growing up in a very dysfunctional household.
I don't want to give the impression that all of my choices were bad ones. In both marriages there were some good choices that I made that benefitted everyone involved. But in the end, as far as the first marriage was concerned, the best choice I made (to haul my ass out of that situation) ultimately benefitted the two people that mattered the most in that situation. My 3 year old son, and of course, myself. His mommy wasn't too happy with having her status quo disrupted. But she soon moved on to spread her special brand of hellfire somewhere else.
Did I forget the lessons learned from marriage #1 and repeated the same mistakes in marriage #2? I believe that I made a different set of choices during my second marriage and with those choices came a different set of shittiness. Then there were those choices that I allowed others to make for me that only served to dig me in deeper and to pile it on higher. With that said, it didn't take me long to move to the opposite end of the stupid choices spectrum.
With my second marriage I jumped out of the frying pan and into the icebox. At first the coolness of the situation felt refreshing. Mind you, I was living within the scorching inferno of hell. So any change in temperature that lowered the mercury a bit was a welcomed change. Unfortunately, and if I may indulge in a storybook comparison, wife #2 turned out to be the cold porridge. Wife #1 was the way too hot porridge. Like in hot tempered. And in other non-sexual hot things. Often, in my dreams, I'm enjoying a mouthful of just right.
With wife #2, I made the mistake thinking that I could tango for two and that my passions would be contagious. Sorry about this overused cliché, but it can be so useful sometimes. So yeah, it truly does take two to tango. It's not a passionate dance when the person that you think is dancing with you is simply just riding on your shoes.
As I've mentioned before, I dated wife #2 for several years prior to getting married. We had frequent sex back then. But only because I was initiating and she was just going along for the ride. Somehow I didn't see that as dysfunctional during that time. It was like that throughout our dating years, and unsurprisingly, it was also that way for the following 25 years of marriage. But it was my choice to marry her. It was my idea. During 6 years of dating she never brought up the idea of marriage. The truth is that I made the choice to marry her because I was still on my high horse. I wanted to do the right thing by everyone. Once again, I neglected my own needs. Doing the "right thing" got me burned in my first marriage. Doing the right thing with my second marriage got me frozen out. By both my MIL and her frigid daughter.
So one bad choice led to another. I got married and moved in with my MIL. Crazy, right? Yeah. I lost my mind. I've been known to do that on occasion. Where was GPS tracking when I needed it?! Actually, I was thinking with my heart. My MIL had lived all of her life with her sister, who had tragically passed away, and I thought it would be a good idea for her not to be alone during her grieving process. I thought the constant company of her daughter and her (sarcasm alert!) beloved son-in-law would help her get through such a difficult time in her life.
Why did I put myself into that situation? Well, because my empathetic heart has the power to override the rational controls in my brain. My brain had detected many red flags with my wife and her family prior to getting married. But my redder heart blinded me to the fact that my empathetic nature could never be appreciated. I was sunny Florida thinking that I could thaw out the frozen Alaskan tundra.
Speaking of Florida, there came a time when I couldn't take the stress of living in a situation where there was no nurturing of any kind going on around me. So I left. I needed a mental vacation. I packed some bags, got into my car, and drove down by myself all the way to the Sunshine State to experience the warm loving embraces and company of my mother. And of course, the warmth of the Florida sun. My wife's family was not warm or communicative. They avoided touchy-feely people, and I happen to be the touchy-feely type. So I experienced an unhealthy dose of physical distance. One time I went to give my MIL a birthday kiss (on the cheek) and she abruptly pushed me away. Totally unexpected and a bit shocking. I got the message. "Never try that again". Well, I never did. Anyway, the pear did not fall far from the tree in some ways. My wife never pushes me away, but she's not very communicative and definitely not in any way that involves expressing emotions. Physical intimacy is never reciprocated. I don't count a quick hug or a puckered up kiss as physically intimate gestures.
My Florida visit lasted a full year. We never called it a separation, but essentially that's what it was. Although I was in good company and had the opportunity to see more of my sisters, I was feeling lonely. I was an emotional mess. Looking back, I know that I could've and should've enjoyed my time there more than I did. But I chose to torture myself constantly. During that time, I spoke with my wife almost everyday. The daily 'talk' was mostly about me needing a change of environment. I tried to change her mind about things. It was a daily exercise in futility. Nothing was going to change and deep down I knew it. But as the saying goes, "Hope is the last to die." So I kept at it, until the last feeble ember of hope faded away.
It was love at first sight with the Sunshine State from the moment I arrived in St. Augustine on the way down to South Florida. I was 10 at the time. We actually had the opportunity to live down there, but certain choices were made for me by my Sil and Mil that made that type of change impossible. My sister-in-law wanted to maintain her independent lifestyle and my mother-in-law wanted to stay put in NJ. So that was that. My Sil put the fear of change in my wife's mind and even used my health situation against me back then by reasoning that I was better off staying close to the NJ Drs. that were monitoring my progress. I was a post-transplant patient back then. Only 2 years out. There was truth in her reasoning. But I hated that she was using that reason to convince my wife to stay in NJ instead of just admitting that she didn't want to be burdened with any thing that would restrict her freedoms in any way. My SiL basically didn't want to be weighted down and restricted with caregiver responsibilities. The matriarch ruled with an iron fist. My wife was to stay and be primary caregiver to my Mil as she aged.
I was angry, bitter, and very resentful. I felt helpless and hopeless. I needed the good insurance which my wife's job provided. And I couldn't be traveling back and forth to see my Drs for follow-up. After a year, I chose to return. But under the condition that we would get our own place. I wouldn't be returning to live with my Mil.
While I was in Florida, the loneliness and lack of intimate physical contact got to me. I met someone during my stay there and experienced the kind of passion and intimacy that I had dreamed about. It was a brief relationship, but it awakened something inside of me that left me even more dissatisfied with the way things were back home.
So here I was back in NJ, feeling the pangs of discontent, while missing Florida (and my mom's warm hugs) and still trying to make things work out between my wife and I. The following summer after my return to NJ, my wife's best friend and her husband asked us if we wanted to travel to Spain with them. Prior to that trip we flew down to Florida to visit family.
While we were down South for a week, my wife surprised me with a display of high libido. It was like she became possessed with the libido of a porn star. That hormonal spike only lasted ONE day. It was during the end of our Florida visit, just before flying out to Europe. We flew to Spain for 10 days and then back to NJ. We only had sex once while we were there and it wasn't good sex. Especially not after experiencing 'one day horny wife' sex. SHE was even taken by surprise and couldn't understand why she was so horny. It was simply not her natural state.
It was shortly after returning from Spain that we found out she was pregnant. She was already 40, and like marriage, she never brought up the subject of having children. So it was a shocker for her. It was an even bigger shock to me since I had been told by the transplant doctors that I would be permanently sterile after undergoing a BMT for leukemia. The chemo would nuke planet Sperm. None would survive the devastation, and no plans were made to transport any of them off the planet and into orbit, where they would be put into suspended animation aboard USS Sperm Bank.
We both had mixed emotions about the baby news, but for different reasons. She wasn't sure if she would make a good mother, and I came to the realization that my dream of living in Florida and enjoying a different environment had instantly evaporated. That's what crossed my mind at the moment I received the news. Florida had become my paradise of hope. But in reality, even if I had gotten the chance to live there, I realized that it didn't really matter so much where I ended up living. What mattered was who I ended up living with. Was I excited to become a father again? Not initially. Not under those circumstances and in a tiny NJ apartment. But the thought of having a second chance at raising a son under the same roof made a part of me very happy. I made one of the most heart breaking choices in my life and sold my house in Florida (that was being rented out at the time) and bought one in NJ so that my wife and son could enjoy living in a larger and more private space.
When we moved into the new house, I was still recovering from my BMT and wasn't physically or emotionally ready to reintegrate fully into society. During that time my wife had just started a new career. So I once again made a life altering choice. I decided to take on the role of stay-at-home dad. It seemed like the practical thing to do at that time because of the circumstances. However, becoming a SAHD imposed its own kind of isolation that was different from the involuntary forced isolation that I had to endure during my post BMT recovery phase. THAT was necessary for my survival, since my immunity system was still slowly building itself up. But my SAHD status was voluntary and self-imposed. I am now 15 years deep into this role-reversal, that together with my SM, has wreaked havoc with my self-esteem, and created feelings of inferiority that I have struggled to overcome. My current SM has deepened certain insecurities that I need to dispel. Needless to say, it's left me with a need for validation as a sexual and emotional human being. As you all know, an SM can really mess you up in SO many ways.
My life has been relatively peaceful and uneventful for many years. Routines are rarely broken. Predictability reigns. I should be happy, considering what my life was like during marriage #1. But there exists a restlessness within me. A disquietude of spirit. I am heart hungry, soul starved, and suffer from a depletion of vitamin touch. Passion and intimacy is something that I only experience in my dreams. I am married to an asexual and there exists an emotional disconnect with a teenage son that has Aspergers. I've come to accept that neither my wife nor my son possess the capacity to nurture me in the ways that matter most to me. I accept the fact that they are 'wired' differently and that they will never connect with me in an emotional way. I accept the fact that my wife will never be able to connect with or appreciate the sexual being that I am.
Despite all of that, I love my family deeply. We've shared a lifetime of experiences in our own ways. We are a small family that depend on each other to maintain stability and a sense of safety within the predictability of our day to day. Should I be wanting and needing more than what I experience now? The fact that I'm even posing that question is a clear indication that I'm thinking about more. As an empathetic soul that craves emotional connection, and as a sexual being that craves physical connection, I feel that I am deserving of more.
I've shared with you in this post the many choices that I've made that have put me in an SM. Not just once, but twice. I made bad choices on both ends of the choices spectrum. In one SM I chose to do too much and got burned. In my current SM I chose to not do the things that would have empowered me in the long run. In this SM, I feel like I've been left out in the cold. From what you've read, you can understand why. But I hold myself accountable for the situation that I've put myself in. I am, for the most part, responsible for that.
In many ways, I'm disappointed with myself. I lost myself during my first SM. Pulled myself out of a bad situation. Got myself together and eventually found myself again. But somehow I managed to lose my way once again. I started out with a plan for self-improvement and financial independence early during my relationship with my wife. I enrolled myself in a nursing program and was half way through when fate seemed to intervene. The future, and all the plans that I had made became irrelevant as I focused on surviving from one moment to the next. Although it wasn't my fault to be sidelined by a potentially terminal disease, I let it sideline me for good. I never went back to finish what I had started. Choosing to stay home and serve as primary caretaker to a child is a noble task fraught with it's own different set of challenges and difficulties. But I put myself in a situation of financial dependency and role reversal negatives. Even so, its still been a very gratifying and life enriching experience. I got to do something with my second son that I never got a chance to experience with my first.
Brother Baza stated in his response to my first post, that I'm way out ahead of the pack, being that my wife and I are fully aware of the current situation. To be honest, I don't feel like I've made much progress towards making the necessary changes in my life. Most of my choices have involved making personal sacrifices and putting the needs of others ahead of my own. Honestly, that's not something that I want to continue doing. I'm not saying that I would neglect the needs of others. But not if it's going to mean sacrificing any chance that I might have to experience what I've been missing for too many years. As I mentioned in my first post, the only way that I'll have any chance of fulfilling my very real needs is to bring about some kind of change. I've come to the point where I need to think about making a choice with my best interest in mind. But that's a difficult thing for me to do when for most of my life I've lived believing that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one. A lot of that comes from having a caretaker personality. But I also realize that I am responsible for my own happiness and that taking care of #1 is not necessarily a bad thing. I need to learn how to put my needs before the needs of others once in awhile. At least in this situation, without feeling selfish or guilty.
There were some questions that were posed by Unmatched and Baza with regards to what I had written in my first post, that I'd like to address. As mentioned before, there is a full awareness by both my wife and I that my needs are not being met. This is something that has been discussed on many occasions. It's become completely apparent by now that my needs are NEVER going to be met by her. So ... "What next"?
I recently Googled a post, from the now defunct EP, titled "Outsourcing Your Needs". It was posted by Enna30, and included the 3 "classic choices" of ILIASM. It was amazingly well written and informative, and it most certainly gave me a lot to carefully consider about the pros and cons of outsourcing.
At this moment in time, I'm unwilling to choose #1 as an option. It would be detrimental to my health to continue putting up with things as they are. Doing so has created negative physical, emotional, and spiritual effects that I'm proactively working towards eliminating. Choice #2 is not one that I'm ready, willing, or able to carry out at this time. My situation in this SM is different from my first in that I'm no longer financially independent. Being financially independent during SM #1 made it relatively easy to get out of that situation. I was 24 at the time and yet the whole experience took its toll on me. At 55, although I've made fantastic strides at improving my physical, mental, and spiritual health through diet, exercise, and meditation, I know that I wouldn't be able to handle the upheaval that a divorce would create. I'd most likely shorten my lifespan by making such a choice at this time in my life. And frankly, I don't feel that it's something that I want to put my family through right now. Also, I've been out of the work force for over 20 years. I don't have a career or any marketable skills that would allow me to become financially independent. However, in two years, two events are due to occur that might change the dynamics of the situation. My wife's retirement and my son's graduation from High School. Choice #2 might then become a viable choice, depending on what the situation is like when that time arrives. That leaves me with Choice #3. One that is far from being the ideal solution. There have already been brutally honest discussions about this option. She's essentially given me a 'free pass' so that I can experience what I'm needing with someone else. Even so, the odds are against me coming across a compatible someone that finds themselves in a similar situation. Anyway, my (sexless) life goes on. But in my dreams, anything is possible.
Thanks for reading.
IMD
It's my belief that, in life, we are never left without a choice. It may not be the one we want to make at all, for whatever reason: or it may be one we feel will be fair to everyone. We may decide to make a choice that sacrifices a part of ourselves for what we may justify or rationalize as being for the good of all involved. Sometimes we simply need to make a choice with only our own best interest in mind. Or we could choose to do nothing at all. No matter what the reason or situation, we still have a choice. What matters is that it's YOUR choice to make and YOUR choice to own it.
All that to say that I've made choices from the very beginning that have led up to me joining this club. I've made choices that (If I may borrow a very descriptive phrase from our highly esteemed Baz) have put me in this "shithole of a sexless marriage." For the second time.
My first marriage was off to a bad start from the very beginning. I chose to marry because it was the "right" thing to do. I was told to get off my 'high horse' by a good friend, and I chose not to listen. I was so naive. So gullible. I fell for the classic Spanish soap opera man trap. I allowed myself to be fooled, hog-tied, and manipulated. I can claim that I was under duress because it was something of a shotgun wedding. But no one would've actually shot me had I chosen not to go through with it. Afterwards, I chose to work 16 hours a day in order to provide my family with all the necessities and some non essential comforts of life. I chose to do more of my fair share of everything. It felt at times like I was actually doing everything. And of course, healthy food and sleep were not the only things that were lacking. There was no ... you guessed it ... Sex or intimacy. I was doing THAT for myself too. I was always tired from working long hours, but believe it or not, I would have found the strength to frack, had the opportunity been offered to me. I was sex starved and would have even accepted scraps at that point. However, my first wife was a refuser and used sex as a means of manipulation. I was in a situation where I was being mentally, emotionally, and in a way also physically abused.
Coming home after working two shifts to a napping wife and a near empty refrigerator was the norm. I barely had enough time to eat anyway. I remember a day when I came across a photo that a relative had taken of me while I sat on a couch in the living room. I would look in the mirror each day and saw what I looked like, but there was something about that photo that frightened me. Besides the unpleasant physical aspect of having lost too much weight, there was no light in my eyes in a well lit room. It looked like someone had sucked the life out of me. Yes. Someone most certainly did. It was that photo that woke up something inside of me. I was faced with a choice. Stay or die (in more than one way). So I chose to leave and to live.
My point with bringing up all of that shitty stuff with my first marriage is that It was MY choice to sit in that shithole for 3 years before realizing that the stench was going to bring about my death by way of asphyxiation. Climbing out of that shithole was not easy. What actually made it so difficult for me to pull the plug on my first marriage was the gut wrenching and emotionally torturous choice I had to make that involved leaving my then 3 year old son behind. To make matters worse, he was turned into a psychological weapon of mass destruction that she threatened to use against me if I took away her cozy lifestyle.
Despite all of her refuser tactics, of which so many of you are familiar with (for example: Gaslighting), I finally followed through with a choice that I didn't really want to make. But my will to survive overcame any fear or threat that she could have used to sink me deeper into a shithole that I helped dig myself into. All of my earlier stupid choices put me in it. I could only blame myself.
So there I was, separated and finally free. At least in body. It would take me some time to break away from the invisible mental chains that I had allowed myself to be wrapped in. In the meantime, after moving into an attic room in my parent's house, I continued to provide my child with all that was needed to sustain a healthy mind and body. It didn't take me long to realize that I could never be the nurturing father that I am while living under the same roof with Mrs. Hellfire. I never thought it possible before leaving, that I could do more for my son living away from him than with him living under the same roof. I actually got to see him more often than I did when I was working those long hours. And the time spent with him was quality time that we both can recall to this day. We are closer now than we could have ever been under those circumstances. Our close relationship continues to this day, despite the fact that we live on opposite coasts. But the best thing that I could've ever done for him was to spare him the damaging experience of growing up in a very dysfunctional household.
I don't want to give the impression that all of my choices were bad ones. In both marriages there were some good choices that I made that benefitted everyone involved. But in the end, as far as the first marriage was concerned, the best choice I made (to haul my ass out of that situation) ultimately benefitted the two people that mattered the most in that situation. My 3 year old son, and of course, myself. His mommy wasn't too happy with having her status quo disrupted. But she soon moved on to spread her special brand of hellfire somewhere else.
Did I forget the lessons learned from marriage #1 and repeated the same mistakes in marriage #2? I believe that I made a different set of choices during my second marriage and with those choices came a different set of shittiness. Then there were those choices that I allowed others to make for me that only served to dig me in deeper and to pile it on higher. With that said, it didn't take me long to move to the opposite end of the stupid choices spectrum.
With my second marriage I jumped out of the frying pan and into the icebox. At first the coolness of the situation felt refreshing. Mind you, I was living within the scorching inferno of hell. So any change in temperature that lowered the mercury a bit was a welcomed change. Unfortunately, and if I may indulge in a storybook comparison, wife #2 turned out to be the cold porridge. Wife #1 was the way too hot porridge. Like in hot tempered. And in other non-sexual hot things. Often, in my dreams, I'm enjoying a mouthful of just right.
With wife #2, I made the mistake thinking that I could tango for two and that my passions would be contagious. Sorry about this overused cliché, but it can be so useful sometimes. So yeah, it truly does take two to tango. It's not a passionate dance when the person that you think is dancing with you is simply just riding on your shoes.
As I've mentioned before, I dated wife #2 for several years prior to getting married. We had frequent sex back then. But only because I was initiating and she was just going along for the ride. Somehow I didn't see that as dysfunctional during that time. It was like that throughout our dating years, and unsurprisingly, it was also that way for the following 25 years of marriage. But it was my choice to marry her. It was my idea. During 6 years of dating she never brought up the idea of marriage. The truth is that I made the choice to marry her because I was still on my high horse. I wanted to do the right thing by everyone. Once again, I neglected my own needs. Doing the "right thing" got me burned in my first marriage. Doing the right thing with my second marriage got me frozen out. By both my MIL and her frigid daughter.
So one bad choice led to another. I got married and moved in with my MIL. Crazy, right? Yeah. I lost my mind. I've been known to do that on occasion. Where was GPS tracking when I needed it?! Actually, I was thinking with my heart. My MIL had lived all of her life with her sister, who had tragically passed away, and I thought it would be a good idea for her not to be alone during her grieving process. I thought the constant company of her daughter and her (sarcasm alert!) beloved son-in-law would help her get through such a difficult time in her life.
Why did I put myself into that situation? Well, because my empathetic heart has the power to override the rational controls in my brain. My brain had detected many red flags with my wife and her family prior to getting married. But my redder heart blinded me to the fact that my empathetic nature could never be appreciated. I was sunny Florida thinking that I could thaw out the frozen Alaskan tundra.
Speaking of Florida, there came a time when I couldn't take the stress of living in a situation where there was no nurturing of any kind going on around me. So I left. I needed a mental vacation. I packed some bags, got into my car, and drove down by myself all the way to the Sunshine State to experience the warm loving embraces and company of my mother. And of course, the warmth of the Florida sun. My wife's family was not warm or communicative. They avoided touchy-feely people, and I happen to be the touchy-feely type. So I experienced an unhealthy dose of physical distance. One time I went to give my MIL a birthday kiss (on the cheek) and she abruptly pushed me away. Totally unexpected and a bit shocking. I got the message. "Never try that again". Well, I never did. Anyway, the pear did not fall far from the tree in some ways. My wife never pushes me away, but she's not very communicative and definitely not in any way that involves expressing emotions. Physical intimacy is never reciprocated. I don't count a quick hug or a puckered up kiss as physically intimate gestures.
My Florida visit lasted a full year. We never called it a separation, but essentially that's what it was. Although I was in good company and had the opportunity to see more of my sisters, I was feeling lonely. I was an emotional mess. Looking back, I know that I could've and should've enjoyed my time there more than I did. But I chose to torture myself constantly. During that time, I spoke with my wife almost everyday. The daily 'talk' was mostly about me needing a change of environment. I tried to change her mind about things. It was a daily exercise in futility. Nothing was going to change and deep down I knew it. But as the saying goes, "Hope is the last to die." So I kept at it, until the last feeble ember of hope faded away.
It was love at first sight with the Sunshine State from the moment I arrived in St. Augustine on the way down to South Florida. I was 10 at the time. We actually had the opportunity to live down there, but certain choices were made for me by my Sil and Mil that made that type of change impossible. My sister-in-law wanted to maintain her independent lifestyle and my mother-in-law wanted to stay put in NJ. So that was that. My Sil put the fear of change in my wife's mind and even used my health situation against me back then by reasoning that I was better off staying close to the NJ Drs. that were monitoring my progress. I was a post-transplant patient back then. Only 2 years out. There was truth in her reasoning. But I hated that she was using that reason to convince my wife to stay in NJ instead of just admitting that she didn't want to be burdened with any thing that would restrict her freedoms in any way. My SiL basically didn't want to be weighted down and restricted with caregiver responsibilities. The matriarch ruled with an iron fist. My wife was to stay and be primary caregiver to my Mil as she aged.
I was angry, bitter, and very resentful. I felt helpless and hopeless. I needed the good insurance which my wife's job provided. And I couldn't be traveling back and forth to see my Drs for follow-up. After a year, I chose to return. But under the condition that we would get our own place. I wouldn't be returning to live with my Mil.
While I was in Florida, the loneliness and lack of intimate physical contact got to me. I met someone during my stay there and experienced the kind of passion and intimacy that I had dreamed about. It was a brief relationship, but it awakened something inside of me that left me even more dissatisfied with the way things were back home.
So here I was back in NJ, feeling the pangs of discontent, while missing Florida (and my mom's warm hugs) and still trying to make things work out between my wife and I. The following summer after my return to NJ, my wife's best friend and her husband asked us if we wanted to travel to Spain with them. Prior to that trip we flew down to Florida to visit family.
While we were down South for a week, my wife surprised me with a display of high libido. It was like she became possessed with the libido of a porn star. That hormonal spike only lasted ONE day. It was during the end of our Florida visit, just before flying out to Europe. We flew to Spain for 10 days and then back to NJ. We only had sex once while we were there and it wasn't good sex. Especially not after experiencing 'one day horny wife' sex. SHE was even taken by surprise and couldn't understand why she was so horny. It was simply not her natural state.
It was shortly after returning from Spain that we found out she was pregnant. She was already 40, and like marriage, she never brought up the subject of having children. So it was a shocker for her. It was an even bigger shock to me since I had been told by the transplant doctors that I would be permanently sterile after undergoing a BMT for leukemia. The chemo would nuke planet Sperm. None would survive the devastation, and no plans were made to transport any of them off the planet and into orbit, where they would be put into suspended animation aboard USS Sperm Bank.
We both had mixed emotions about the baby news, but for different reasons. She wasn't sure if she would make a good mother, and I came to the realization that my dream of living in Florida and enjoying a different environment had instantly evaporated. That's what crossed my mind at the moment I received the news. Florida had become my paradise of hope. But in reality, even if I had gotten the chance to live there, I realized that it didn't really matter so much where I ended up living. What mattered was who I ended up living with. Was I excited to become a father again? Not initially. Not under those circumstances and in a tiny NJ apartment. But the thought of having a second chance at raising a son under the same roof made a part of me very happy. I made one of the most heart breaking choices in my life and sold my house in Florida (that was being rented out at the time) and bought one in NJ so that my wife and son could enjoy living in a larger and more private space.
When we moved into the new house, I was still recovering from my BMT and wasn't physically or emotionally ready to reintegrate fully into society. During that time my wife had just started a new career. So I once again made a life altering choice. I decided to take on the role of stay-at-home dad. It seemed like the practical thing to do at that time because of the circumstances. However, becoming a SAHD imposed its own kind of isolation that was different from the involuntary forced isolation that I had to endure during my post BMT recovery phase. THAT was necessary for my survival, since my immunity system was still slowly building itself up. But my SAHD status was voluntary and self-imposed. I am now 15 years deep into this role-reversal, that together with my SM, has wreaked havoc with my self-esteem, and created feelings of inferiority that I have struggled to overcome. My current SM has deepened certain insecurities that I need to dispel. Needless to say, it's left me with a need for validation as a sexual and emotional human being. As you all know, an SM can really mess you up in SO many ways.
My life has been relatively peaceful and uneventful for many years. Routines are rarely broken. Predictability reigns. I should be happy, considering what my life was like during marriage #1. But there exists a restlessness within me. A disquietude of spirit. I am heart hungry, soul starved, and suffer from a depletion of vitamin touch. Passion and intimacy is something that I only experience in my dreams. I am married to an asexual and there exists an emotional disconnect with a teenage son that has Aspergers. I've come to accept that neither my wife nor my son possess the capacity to nurture me in the ways that matter most to me. I accept the fact that they are 'wired' differently and that they will never connect with me in an emotional way. I accept the fact that my wife will never be able to connect with or appreciate the sexual being that I am.
Despite all of that, I love my family deeply. We've shared a lifetime of experiences in our own ways. We are a small family that depend on each other to maintain stability and a sense of safety within the predictability of our day to day. Should I be wanting and needing more than what I experience now? The fact that I'm even posing that question is a clear indication that I'm thinking about more. As an empathetic soul that craves emotional connection, and as a sexual being that craves physical connection, I feel that I am deserving of more.
I've shared with you in this post the many choices that I've made that have put me in an SM. Not just once, but twice. I made bad choices on both ends of the choices spectrum. In one SM I chose to do too much and got burned. In my current SM I chose to not do the things that would have empowered me in the long run. In this SM, I feel like I've been left out in the cold. From what you've read, you can understand why. But I hold myself accountable for the situation that I've put myself in. I am, for the most part, responsible for that.
In many ways, I'm disappointed with myself. I lost myself during my first SM. Pulled myself out of a bad situation. Got myself together and eventually found myself again. But somehow I managed to lose my way once again. I started out with a plan for self-improvement and financial independence early during my relationship with my wife. I enrolled myself in a nursing program and was half way through when fate seemed to intervene. The future, and all the plans that I had made became irrelevant as I focused on surviving from one moment to the next. Although it wasn't my fault to be sidelined by a potentially terminal disease, I let it sideline me for good. I never went back to finish what I had started. Choosing to stay home and serve as primary caretaker to a child is a noble task fraught with it's own different set of challenges and difficulties. But I put myself in a situation of financial dependency and role reversal negatives. Even so, its still been a very gratifying and life enriching experience. I got to do something with my second son that I never got a chance to experience with my first.
Brother Baza stated in his response to my first post, that I'm way out ahead of the pack, being that my wife and I are fully aware of the current situation. To be honest, I don't feel like I've made much progress towards making the necessary changes in my life. Most of my choices have involved making personal sacrifices and putting the needs of others ahead of my own. Honestly, that's not something that I want to continue doing. I'm not saying that I would neglect the needs of others. But not if it's going to mean sacrificing any chance that I might have to experience what I've been missing for too many years. As I mentioned in my first post, the only way that I'll have any chance of fulfilling my very real needs is to bring about some kind of change. I've come to the point where I need to think about making a choice with my best interest in mind. But that's a difficult thing for me to do when for most of my life I've lived believing that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one. A lot of that comes from having a caretaker personality. But I also realize that I am responsible for my own happiness and that taking care of #1 is not necessarily a bad thing. I need to learn how to put my needs before the needs of others once in awhile. At least in this situation, without feeling selfish or guilty.
There were some questions that were posed by Unmatched and Baza with regards to what I had written in my first post, that I'd like to address. As mentioned before, there is a full awareness by both my wife and I that my needs are not being met. This is something that has been discussed on many occasions. It's become completely apparent by now that my needs are NEVER going to be met by her. So ... "What next"?
I recently Googled a post, from the now defunct EP, titled "Outsourcing Your Needs". It was posted by Enna30, and included the 3 "classic choices" of ILIASM. It was amazingly well written and informative, and it most certainly gave me a lot to carefully consider about the pros and cons of outsourcing.
At this moment in time, I'm unwilling to choose #1 as an option. It would be detrimental to my health to continue putting up with things as they are. Doing so has created negative physical, emotional, and spiritual effects that I'm proactively working towards eliminating. Choice #2 is not one that I'm ready, willing, or able to carry out at this time. My situation in this SM is different from my first in that I'm no longer financially independent. Being financially independent during SM #1 made it relatively easy to get out of that situation. I was 24 at the time and yet the whole experience took its toll on me. At 55, although I've made fantastic strides at improving my physical, mental, and spiritual health through diet, exercise, and meditation, I know that I wouldn't be able to handle the upheaval that a divorce would create. I'd most likely shorten my lifespan by making such a choice at this time in my life. And frankly, I don't feel that it's something that I want to put my family through right now. Also, I've been out of the work force for over 20 years. I don't have a career or any marketable skills that would allow me to become financially independent. However, in two years, two events are due to occur that might change the dynamics of the situation. My wife's retirement and my son's graduation from High School. Choice #2 might then become a viable choice, depending on what the situation is like when that time arrives. That leaves me with Choice #3. One that is far from being the ideal solution. There have already been brutally honest discussions about this option. She's essentially given me a 'free pass' so that I can experience what I'm needing with someone else. Even so, the odds are against me coming across a compatible someone that finds themselves in a similar situation. Anyway, my (sexless) life goes on. But in my dreams, anything is possible.
Thanks for reading.
IMD
