I think I'll write this in chunks because it is a bit emotionally draining and also because of time contraints.
I'm 44 and H is 41. We have a son, who is almost 4. H and I met in college. We were friends for a year or so before we began a romantic R. We lived together for 3 years before marriage, and have been married for almost 18 years. As H stated here last fall, our SL has been pretty much the same from the get-go, with some better times here and there and some worse times too.
My father is an alcoholic; my parents' R was based on fighting. My mother is a control freak, very rigid and very judgemental. It was pretty much "her way or the highway." Unless my father was drinking. Then they "communicated" by seeing who could yell the loudest and who could have the last word.
My father crossed my sexual boundaries by taunting me about my developing body. He teased me when he learned that a boy had a crush on me. He made it seem "dirty" and I was left with the overwhelming feeling that becoming "a woman" was very dangerous. I did everything I could to stay a little girl to avoid further abuse.
I received a "love note" from a boy in my 4th grade class, and I remember crying as I tore it into tiny pieces and buried it in the trash. "How dare that boy do this to me," I thought. When I started having crushes I never revealed them to ANYONE. I wrote about them and hid the notebook in my closet. (Alas, I did not keep that notebook.)
I had the occasion to see a "crush" at a function when I was 30 years old. I was instantly transformed into my 14 year old self and I COULD NOT speak to him. I actually ignored him when I spoke to his mom. It still bothers me to this day.
When I was somewhere between 10 and 12 my mother burdened me with information about her sexual past. She was date-raped by her boyfriend when she was passed out from drinking. She had an unwed pregnancy (with my father) and couldn't marry him because he was already married (separated and trying to get a divorce). This was in the 50s. She was hidden from relatives and she left town to have the baby. My sister died the day after she was born.
As a result of this inappropriate knowledge, I came to associate sex and pregnancy with shame. I vowed to myself that "this will never happen to me."
Lucky for me I was a late bloomer. I didn't get a period until around my 14th birthday, and breasts followed after that. By this age I was able to "handle" it, but I have always struggled with acceptance of my woman body.
I was a "wallflower" during high school, with no dates until my senior year. My mother just couldn't understand why the phone wasn't ringing off the hook and why I wasn't "chasing" boys like my female cousins.. She thought I was far prettier than she was. "If I had looked like you, I wouldn't have been sitting at home." I was given contact lenses at 15 because that would make me more attractive to boys.
Eventually my mother deemed me weird and abnormal because I appeared to prefer reading and other solitary activites to being out with friends and chasing boys. She also had absolutely no idea how to handle a sensitive child. I see now that my sensitivity unnerved her.
I went to college and started coming into my own. I couldn't have picked a better major than music for that. I had friends, I had boyfriends, I had a social life and I started feeling more comfortable with myself. For the first time in my life, I felt I belonged somewhere.
I waited until I was 23 to have sex (with H). I participated in sexual activities with other boyfriends, but never intercourse. I felt ready to have it, but none of boyfriends passed my litmus test. H was the first person with whom I felt completely safe.
I have always been reluctant to admit how old I was when I first had sex. I have also had difficulty admitting that I discovered MB early, I'm guessing maybe at 8? (I'm more comfortable using an acronym for the word, too.) ********* OK, that's it for now.
Your story has some parallels to my wife's story. Azzhole dad. Mother who 'overshares' (although, my W, I think, found out about how she was conceived -- essentially a date rape -- from one of her aunts. Gee, thanks for sharing.)
Really - I know it can be draining and time-consuming, but I know that many of us, me included, really appreciate your openness.
My father crossed my sexual boundaries by taunting me about my developing body. He teased me when he learned that a boy had a crush on me. He made it seem "dirty" and I was left with the overwhelming feeling that becoming "a woman" was very dangerous. I did everything I could to stay a little girl to avoid further abuse.
I wouldn't call the way my father was toward me abusive, but it was teasing and icky. It was NOT healthy, I'm sure of that.
I also had NO dates in high school or college until I was a senior and was swept off my feet by a professor (he was only five years older than me). I had sex the first time with the man (boy) I married at age 22.
I don't think I ever associated sex and love. Sex was proof that I was attractive, okay, normal.
MrsCAC4 and Lil, This could have easily been written by MrsGGB as well. Her parents were both distant. Mom was an alcoholic and was verbally abusive, calling her fat to her face. Dad told her frequently that she shouldn't go to college that she wouldn't amount to anything. MrsGGB didn't date in high school except for one guy her parents set her up with, whom she later got engaged to, again at her parents insistence. She and her cousins referred to him as "fire hydrant material". She had sex for the first time with me at age 21. I don't think she ever associated sex and love either.
Mrs.CAC4... I am glad you started your own thread. I was a late bloomer too, but managed to blossom toward the end of HS and in college. It's still a puzzle to me why I reverted to my shy, awkward shell as a married woman. Thanks for sharing your journey here.
Thanks for the encouragement, hairdog. Putting this in writing is definitely helping me, and if it helps others, even better.
Your story has some parallels to my wife's story. Azzhole dad. Mother who 'overshares' (although, my W, I think, found out about how she was conceived -- essentially a date rape -- from one of her aunts.
Wow. Did your MIL marry your wife's bio father? Did your wife grow up with him? The biggest thing that sticks out in my mind is that a child that is the product of rape is a daily reminder of the incident. I can't imagine this not having an effect on the way your wife was treated and viewed by her mother. Getting married simply because two people had sex and the woman got pg can create its own problems, never mind having date-rape in the mix.
Has your wife talked about this? Has she talked about her feelings about it?
On a lighter note, your "Hairdog, who..." taglines crack me up!
Lil, I see my father's behavior as abusive, because I believe he abused his power -- as an adult over a child, as a father over a daughter. It was bullying behavior from a man with a history of bullying his younger brothers, and who was bullied himself as a kid.
My father had only brothers (3) and a very sexually repressed mother who admitted toward the end of her life that her husband had never seen her naked. My father used to joke that his mother only "did it" 4 times.
A brief bit of the backstory of my wife can be found here. Has she shared her feelings about this? Yes, to some extent. Basically, it supports her view of men as savages, as cads, as testosterone-poisoned creatures; and her view of her mother as essentially weak. She tells it as a story in which her mother was getting ready to go off to college, and her father "marked his territory" by getting her pregnant, and forcing her to give up her dreams. Whether this is, in actuality, the way things went down, is questionable, as it is told through layers of strong, negative emotions.
I'm glad you're finding a therapeutic value in writing. That's why many of us are here.
Hairdog, who does not seek approval, but who appreciates the recognition of his comic genius.
