The Bumpy Road to Recovery #2

[Bagheera]

The more I read as time goes on, I honestly don't think I have it in me to do it. I have a question for you. I have been kind of relating to you in the sense that I'm the female version ( sorta ) of you. Hope you know what I mean there. So, in saying that, here's my question to you...... Don't you ever feel cheated? I mean, should it be that dang hard??

To be honest, yes, I have felt cheated in the past, before we started to fix things together. When my marriage was at it's worst, I felt like I had been sold a false bill of goods: and was now trapped with kids to support and be a father to, a wife who demanded an exclusively monogomous relationship while at the same time not desiring my physically. I was sexually pent up, felt taken for granted (as long as I brought in a paycheck and mowed the grass, that's all she seemed to expect from me), bitter, and not a nice guy to be around. I felt like she had pulled the post-marriage and post-first-child bait and switch, and the sensual, sexual woman I had initially married was gone for good, replaced by Mrs. Proper Mommy who has no time or energy for sex.

So I can understand that you are now in a very similar position, feeling cheated, trapped, pent-up, and bitter about the whole situation.

But it CAN change, and it is VERY MUCH worth the effort.

Even when my wife and I were at our most estranged, she was still the woman that I fell in love with, the mother of MY children, the woman who had stood by me through more adversity and struggle in life than I would have ever wished on anyone. We somehow managed to maintain enough of a connection, emotionally AND physically to keep us both hanging in there, sticking it out. If asked, we could both still recall the happier times of our meeting, courtship, and early marriage -- although such memories came with a grieving for something lost along the way. Neither of us cheated on the other, although both of us were tempted: me from the need for a physical connection, her for the need for an emotional connection.

There was one difference between us, however. My wife had reached the point that she had resigned herself to living in a parallel-life, mediocre marriage for the rest of her life. To her it was better than the unknown of trying to start over with someone else, and she is by nature very loyal and supporting, even when she herself is unhappy and not getting her needs met. I, on the other hand, simply could not stand to be in a sexless marriage for the rest of my life -- it felt like a prison sentence -- and for many years had resolved to stick it out only until the kids left home. When I hit the mid-40's in age, and went through my brand of mid-life crisis, I decided that I couldn't make myself wait that long: it was time to either fix the broken marriage or cut ties completely and try to find someone else to start over with.

However, I also felt like my wife, and my marriage, deserved every possible effort on my part to set it right. I knew that I could not walk away from it UNLESS I had done my very best to make it work out and repair it. I wouldn't be able to look back with a clear conscious otherwise.

So I set about getting past my anger and resentment, and educating myself on relationships, marriage, and how men and women approach sex and sexuality. I have a shelf full of sex and relationship books. And as I learned things, with may "Ah hah!" moments, I began to apply them in my marriage.

It takes patience, and small baby-steps, and the ability to keep at it day after day, reminding yourself constantly of that new action/reaction that you're trying to instill, until it becomes habit. And it takes being able to forgive yourself for the days that you back-slide and do it all wrong again. It takes extreme perseverance.

Has it been worth the effort? Damn straight it has. I have my lovely, sexy, sensual wife back again, and she's more of a tigress than I ever dreamed she'd be in bed. Yes, she still hides behind the Mrs. Proper Mommy persona by day, and sometimes by night, but I can accept that now -- because I know what delights wait under the starched apron and skirt....and how to bring them out to play again -- not as well or as often as I'd like still, but we'll get there.

Hang in there. I know it's hard as hell to have hope in your current situation, but it's there, underneath the piles of baggage.

-- B.