Waiting More Than a Dozen Years

[TeaEarlGreyHot]

As a statement, that is perhaps true – but as a reality that’s all over to you. You chose to have nothing unique to offer. How’s that working for you apart from providing you with periods of smoothness in your life?

I'll let you know when I truly get back to that, if I really can. The last time I got firmly grounded in that way of being, I had women swarming around me. I had to (metaphorically speaking) swat them away like gnats and misquitoes (the madding horde). Note that I didn't advertise that I had nothing to offer, I was just being that. I was not God's gift to anyone and when I dropped any pretense that I was something special, that is when people see me as most special. I know it's a paradox.

Interestingly, I've noticed the same thing in my teaching. When I come from the POV that there is nothing special about the experiences I've had (and that they are available to anyone who was interested enough to pursue the same type of experiences) the class outcomes, what people say they get from my classes is "magical." If I start from the POV that I've got all this really useful experience and knowledge, it comes across okay but not quite the "gee whiz" experience that the other way provides. I can always fall back onto what I know from experience as a default safety position, but it's more fun if I remind them that they can know it, too.

Let me expand on what I mean as being smooth and see if I can explain it on other terms that are easier to relate to. It does not mean that life is without it's ups and downs, it's chaotic twists and turns. It does not mean that for me at all. I describe it metaphorically as being in the eye of the hurricane. Calm, centered, focused. It is the art of being there and not being there all at the same time. Watching and participating from the inside out and the outside in all at the same time. For some, that is very, very disquieting.

As an example, I was put in charge of a weekend project with a number of volunteers, some whom had volunteered previously, and so the had some experience in the project work and knew what to expect (ah, expectations from the past). I was nothing like they expected, nor did I do things the way they expected or had experienced. One of these people challenged me a week or so before our weekend project and was a little distressed that I did not share his sense of urgency in getting stuff lined up like he had been used to with others in the lead (or when he was put in charge). I did not dismiss his concern and in fact recognized that for his own comfort, he needed to know what the structure was and how things were being lined up for all the resources and equipment we needed. But I also asked him to trust that everything would come together and that I was accountable for that and that I took that accountability seriously.

After the weekend, he said it was the best volunteer experience that he ever had. In fact the entire volunteeer staff, as well as those who were the recipients of our volunteer project all agreed that it was unlike any volunteer they had previously and whatever it was that I brought to the project, they wanted to be able to create and replicate for themselves elsewhere in their lives (I was coming into it with no expectations of how it would go while seeking to produce a specific outcome at the end of the weekend). I challenged the notion that it had always been done a certain way and that we just needed to do it that way again to produce the results. We could have done it the way it had been done in the past and been fine. But there would not have been any real sense of extraordinary.

I was asked to become a lead in these weekend service projects and people would come and volunteer simply because I was there. But there was nothing special about what I did or how I did it. There was no trick I used. I was just being who I really am, not someone I was expected to be, should be, or ought to be out of some title I was given (although the title conveyed some automatic authority in a hierarchy).

Another example, literally from hurricane recovery work I've volunteered for: the folks at FEMA noticed that people migrated to me as we worked with people whose homes were damaged or destroyed by hurricanes and flooding. While you had to manage your own well-being in such devastating conditions, and for some it was hard to be in the presence of such destruction and upheaval, just being was all that was required. No expectations about what the people impacted should feel or how they should be, just being there and being acutely aware of what it was they were experiencing and sharing and then being with that. I was a calming voice and guide to what we could provide in the first days of the disaster recovery when lives were turned upside down. The people I worked with through FEMA noticed that and wanted me on the front lines dealing with people as they came into our disaster relief center.

How does that work out for me? Pretty well when I'm in that zone. It's a powerful place to be and a powerful way to feel. And there is nothing special about it (other than I can be that way with relatively little effort). But it requires I give up my preconceptions and expectations (the baggage of life). Sometimes, I don't wish to give that stuff up. And when that happens I'm out of the eye and into the eyewall with all it's sound and fury.

An SSM requires, at its foundation, that there be some expectation of some level of sexual intimacy that is not being met. That's the expectation that has come up for me after a long period of time, that it should have some minimum way of occurring that is not being met. As I indicated in my previous post to Bagheera, I have the experience of what a very intense and satisfying sexually intimate relationship could be like as well as the experience of what it's like when it suddenly goes away. The sudden loss revealed the expectation that I was unaware of.

But, if you did not have the expectation, would an SSM have any cogent meaning? It's difficult living without expectations because practically all the rules and measures we have are based upon an expected outcome; the way things should or ought to be. We have our expectations about relationships and marraiges and what they should look like.

As a thought exercise, what if that premise is fundamentally flawed?

[TeaEarlGreyHot]

We are in the cold silence period, post fight where my W does not talk to me or spend time with me

[Walking]

Hi TEGH

When we met, even though we had other problems in the relationship, our sex life was one that "proved" that women at the age of 39 reach their sexual peak.

As a 39 year old women, this statement is a little alarming! You mean it's all down hill from here? :0 lol

[TeaEarlGreyHot]

Hi TEGH


As a 39 year old women, this statement is a little alarming! You mean it's all down hill from here? :0 lol

I really can't say. I completely missed my sexual peak. Statistically, it occurred when I was 19, probably on a Thursday at 2:30 pm ;->

I was a virgin until 4 days after my 20th birthday. So, it wasn't even a case of "you really missed it, you shoulda' been here yesterday!"

[Walking]

You've pegged it TEGH

The last time I got firmly grounded in that way of being, I had women swarming around me. I had to (metaphorically speaking) swat them away like gnats and misquitoes (the madding horde). Note that I didn't advertise that I had nothing to offer, I was just being that. I was not God's gift to anyone and when I dropped any pretense that I was something special, that is when people see me as most special. I know it's a paradox.

Your life feels the smoothest when you are at your most authentic.

I've only learned this really recently, but this amazing thing happens when you surrender - and just be you - the you you expect yourself to be. There is nothing wrong with expectations of yourself - we fall over when we have expectations of others.

Your examples are fantastic, teaching, weekend project – you have an outcome in mind – and you use your unique skills and experience to take you there.

Our life is like that too. I don’t think we need to spend a lot of time worrying about all the steps along the way – we just need to have a clear vision for how it should work out in the end and put the arrangements in place we need to get there.

Use the analogy of the weekend project as an analogy for your life. You accepted your responsibility for the task and the outcome. I suspect you also scanned for risks and barriers – and got those out of the way. Like – you recognised what that guy needed for him to feel comfortable contributing to your outcome and you gave him what he needed – assurance he could trust you – but importantly you trusted yourself.

That’s what this is down to. When we trust our self explicitly, and know that the life we are living is for our best possible good – we are on the way to fulfilment.


V

[Bagheera]

In my post, TEGH, I gave you two areas to explore. You addressed one of these areas in detail:

C'mon, Bagheera, this is not about me being attracted to low drive women. If a "sexless marriage" is one were sexual intimacy occurs less than 10 times a year, then I suddenly encountered one and it was completely unexpected. But the outcome is the same. I ended up married, for a while, to a woman whose reason for being with me was to not have sex with me....I don't think it's because I attract or am attracted to low drive women. What I do say, is that I give and have given these women the space and the relative safety to be non-sexual if (and in my case when) they reach that point without dire threat of draconian consequences.

So what about the second area that I mentioned?

On the other hand, it may be that you have failed to understand and develop the personal attributes and behaviors that keep you sexually attractive to your partners.

As you stated to Virginia, you apparently have no trouble attracting women initially:

The last time I got firmly grounded in that way of being, I had women swarming around me. I had to (metaphorically speaking) swat them away like gnats and misquitoes (the madding horde).

However, your history indicates that you DO seem to have trouble keeping them sexually interested in you in the long-term. While I think that you are correct in stating that menopause and your wife's medical history have *contributed* to your sexless marriage, I do not think that they are the ONLY contributing factors --> they are just easy to point to.

If you and your wife were to divorce today, do you think that she would go through the rest of her life as a celibate, single woman, or do you think it likely that she would find another man who could "reawaken" her sexual interests again (as happened with your first wife)?

Simplistically put, every sexual relationship involves two people, and each person in that relationship has a responsibility (if they want to keep that sexual relationship alive in the long-term) to continue to *attract* their partner, make sexual *advances*, and likewise respond positively to their partner's sexual advances.

* Sexual attraction involves what is called sexual "polarity;" that is, men are inherently attracted to femininity, while women are inherently attracted to masculinity. Thus, the more feminine is the woman, and the more masculine is the man in the relationship, the higher the degree of sexual polarity and the more sexually charged or energized the relationship will be. Conversely, the more androgynous the partners are (the less feminine the woman and the less masculine the man), the lower the sexual polarity and attractiveness in the relationship.

* Sexual advances, in turn, fall into two categories: "enticement," generally the 'feminine' role, and "pursuit," generally the 'masculine' role. Doing either requires taking a risk, making yourself vulnerable to rejection, and putting forth time, energy, and effort in order to maintain a healthy sexual relationship. Often, however, partners become lazy, stop putting forth this effort, and become wrapped up in other things (children, careers, hobbies), and therefore they lose the sexual excitement that their relationship once had.

There is a lot more to it than the above, but the general point I am trying to make is that the failure of a long-term sexual relationship is RARELY the fault of just one partner -- both partners contribute to the failure.

Are you willing to entertain the notion that YOU -- your character and behavior -- have contributed to your ultimately sexless relationships?

If you are, then you have a choice:

(1) You can say "I am the way that I am, and I'm not willing to change my behavior." In which case, you should expect more-of-the-same behavior from your partner, also. Or;

(2) You can begin to explore what changes you *can* make, while remaining true to yourself and your moral values, that will enhance (or recapture) your sexual attractiveness to your partner. As I've stated before, this course of action has the added side-benefit of making you feel better about *yourself* as a man, and happier with your life in general, regardless of how your partner responds (or fails to respond).

You've asked for concrete examples. Read through my "The Bumpy Road to Recovery" threads in detail. Review the journey that I have been experiencing for the past two years. Go through the advice that I have been given. No, my case is not like yours, but there *are* some similarities, so take what applies to you and disregard what doesn't.

-- B.

[TeaEarlGreyHot]

If you and your wife were to divorce today, do you think that she would go through the rest of her life as a celibate, single woman, or do you think it likely that she would find another man who could "reawaken" her sexual interests again (as happened with your first wife)?

Before we go too far down this path, let me state that my first wife isn't exactly in Nirvana. I realized that she is equally "trapped" in nearly the same (sexual) way as I am (once a year, maybe). She is also trapped by the choices she's made and feels, at times, that she has to vigorously defend the choices she made. But when she lets her guard down, she has told me (at various times and has told others) that she made the wrong choice. It's been worded different ways by her:

"If only I had waited (for things) to get 'better'..."

"If I knew that I would have gotten better...."

Or, very directly when she apologized to me years ago for what she did. What triggered it for her was the fact that when she had her second child (by him and he was not traveling or having the work schedule that I had after our son was born), and she felt the same feeling about him as she had felt about me and felt herself drifting out of that marriage and towards another affair, there was an OMG moment for her when she realized what she had done.

It was what pregnancy and the post-partum period did to her emotions and the way she felt about the world.

It wasn't me at all, and it never was.

She told me how sorry she was for that. Yet, she can still get pretty defensive about what happened. And there is much more to her part of the story that I won't be sharing here. But as she has shared with me, her sex-life isn't exactly like she thought it might have been when she left me for him (it released a degree of guilt and inhibition about being sexually involved with two men at once, one her husband trying put things right, one that was not) and she realizes just how much she gave up (the inevitable comparisons do come and moreso when your latest sexual partner does not quite live up to what you had once before). According to her I was and still hold the place of the best lover she has ever had. I'll just leave it at that for the moment.



As for my current wife, I don't know what she'd do if we divorced and frankly I'm getting to the point where I don't care. It might be time for her to find a nice new relationship and settle down with that. She could tell him (or her for that matter) what diagnosis code(s) apply from the DSM-IV. Or maybe she could take up with her first husband again, like she did during her second marriage. For that matter, maybe she already has.

As for the madding horde, you make a poor assumption that I even desire to keep 4 or 5 women entertained (sexually or otherwise) at the same time for a long period of time, even in rotation. As I have told some of them, I don't play hard to get, I am hard to get (in that I don't necessarily rush into bed with anyone). So, I have turned down some offers that some men, maybe many men, would not have passed up (both as a married man and when I've been single). But from my POV, none of these were prospects for long-term relationships. The sex may have been good, but without the rest of the emotional connectedness, its just sex, not intimacy. What I am seeking once again is sexual intimacy.

I don't and haven't ever followed my dog's approach to life (when it comes to women)...eat it now, I can always vomit later.

And you need one and only one to be the one long-term prospect. Every other relatonship, flirtation, or simple attraction is superfluous if and when you think you've met the one.

Are you willing to entertain the notion that YOU -- your character and behavior -- have contributed to your ultimately sexless relationships?

I've already gone far, far beyond this point well before I gave voice to what you read here. The question for you, in return, how far are have you been willing to go? Or are you more committeed to failure, than you are committed to success. You are may experience "resistance" as you read this. I ask you to notice it, but not be overwhelmed by your sense of resistance. This is a good stopping point, if you wish.

That said, I will continue.

I have not only "entertained the notion," that I "have contributed to" my "ultimately sexless relationship," I have taken on that it isn't a contribution at all. It's not that I contributed partially, it's that I caused it, 100% of it, that I am totally, completely, and utterly responsible for and at cause and accountable for a relationship that is completely devoid of sex and sexual intimacy and for every peripheral event.

Just to check-in, have you ever accepted that you are 100% responsible and accountable for what you've experienced with your wife? (and if not, why not?)

So, if I'm 100% accountable for this sexless condition, then nothing, no condition, excuse, behavior, circumstance, or reason that I might be tempted to assign to her would have any bearing or influence on what has happened in the past, what is happening now, or what will happen in the future. No "blame" of any sort can be directed towards my wife and there must be an entire and complete "hold harmless" zone around her.

I know, I know, you've told yourself all your life that there are some things that you can't control or that you just can't be responsible for.

In fact you can go the one-step further and say I caused this. Not her, not anything else, not a matter of hormones, age, body functions, just me.

And if this is what I caused (we won't debate whether I set out to cause it, the fact is that it exists in the here and now, in this temporal spacetime) how could it be anything other than perfect? We'll get to the SSM question next, but a question for you to consider is did you ever consider your marriage "perfect" when you were saying that it was an SSM? How could it be anything other than perfect if you are 100% responsible?

So here is the big question: while my marriage is truly sexless (not the therapists definition of less sex less than 10 times per year) and we are not really discussing sexless marriages but "sex-starved" marriages, how can a marriage be classified, for me, as "sex-starved" if I am 100% responsible, caused it all to be the way it is and it is a perfect reflection of what I caused?

Answer: It cannot be a sex-starved marriage. Never.

And you cannot change that which "is not."

Nor can you, I, or anyone else change a sexless one if we are 100% responsible.

Now, you might think this is a nonsensical discussion unless you've been paying attention,

If you've been paying attention, you already know that I'm here, right at this point and way beyond anything under "contribution?"

How can you tell? Because I said I should have gone it alone after my first marriage.

And I am not alone.

So, all there is to choose is do I go it alone from here until the end of my life.

And that's what I'm weighing, not whether my current wife will find another man (or woman) that could reawaken her. Frankly, she does not need me.

[TeaEarlGreyHot]

And that's what I'm weighing, not whether my current wife will find another man (or woman) that could reawaken her. Frankly, she does not need me.

I meant to add this: Qued to Dire Straits (Money for Nothin):

"I want my QVC"

But we are in day 4 of the great freeze. She won't talk to me, won't be in the same room with me, will barely ackowledge my presence.

I guess she did not like being told that rather than exhibiting a little consideration of others and giving them some space to exist, she just keeps expanding her domain to occupy all the available space until they get fed up and decide to push back.

She was very unhappy when I could cite the statistics of when and how she did things. She asked me how I would feel, I said it did not matter. If the statistics sounded close, why would I challenge them and then asked "would you have done stuff differently if you knew that someone was counting how many times you did a certain thing (and if the answer is yes, then which is the true reflection of you?)" Although the realy nasty therapist stuff didn't come up until later, it did occur to me to ask why she and her staff observe children and families from behind one-way mirrors.


Before I even gave her very recent example in the previous 24 hours where I said nothing, even though I knew I was correct, I pointed out that I was going to regret doing that because she was going to turn it around and say something like "you just have to be right." And then she went and did it which just proved the point. But what she did not like was I told her that it was an intentional choice on my part not to correct her ("no matter what") and that the space for virtually any conversation was entirely hers.

"I will tell you I don't know even if I do know." There is a reason why people defer to you. She told me that she thought I was just trying to avoid conflict (seems I heard that here, too). No, I'm just worn down by 23 years of fighting this and I've just given up. Some things are just not worth worrying about and I'll just keep withdrawing topics that I'll engage in.

The latest thing is political and I pointed out that i am not her political enemy so why keep picking a fight with me (I've largely stopped watching the various political shows and I acknowledged plausible deniability if I don't know and don't watch, I'm not lying.

"You think it's okay to stop talking to me?"

I think it's okay to give you the whole stage because from all the evidence it really does not matter what I think, what I want or what I know. You are the world's foremost expert (lots of protest over that).

We got back to the incident from 21 years ago that she had brought up a number of weeks ago as evidence as to why she says she should be afraid of me when I get angry. Although we both agree that over the years there have probably been 6 times when I've probably yelled and displayed something like driving away angry, I've never threatened her. I pointed out that it also leaves me nowhere and no way to display anger (I assert it is a way to control me) other than to walk away, not say anything, and give her the entire stage to think and do as she pleases even if she is wrong and dismisses me about something I know about.

I'll be happy to be corrected, she said. Well, she just proved that she wasn't.

I think she was a little taken back because I had recalled many of the details of that incident from 21 years ago, even though I had long since forgotten about the incident. I told her

"you brought it up"

It took a while to recall some of the particulars of that fight and I still can't recall it all. It did involve a trip to go to Travis AFB and after I was done, I was going to Lake Tahoe to ski. The ultimate result was I left my skis at her place and I did not go skiing. I can't remember why that trip was such a contentious one.

But I suggested that maybe it was wrong to gather up all my stuff from her condo and then throw it all out the front door onto the short lawn in front of my car.

"Maybe, I should have just taken all of my stuff out the front door and put it in my car calmly and gone home. But what I remember was it was stuff just like this, just like the way everything gets twisted around and how difficult it was."

"I was planning to leave and I wasn't just going home so I could catch my plane the next day. I was planning to leave you forever. No calls, no coming back, no second chances, I was done. And if I had done that we would not be sitting here today arguing. I don't know what brought me back that time, but I do know my reaction to throw everything out the door was because I was so very finidhed arguing with you."

She told me how her reaction was not rational but gave no explanation of the basis. Instead she turned back to me asking me if how I react is from my past. Well, that's how she defended her view for the bext couple of minutes until she went to the therapists Bible and my past.

The DSM-IV and how many things she could find in there.

I think another therapist trained in these things would tell her that is a really stupid thing to do

Oh yes, the words "passive agressive" came up.

Towards the end she told me, I hope you know how brilliant I think you are.

She also started to get the message about the space to be who you are and she said, I hope I've given you the space to be who you are. I thought too much damage has been done and emotions are too raw, because if I lead you through ther house to our closet, then to look at each room and see your imprint not mine, then I take you through my music, my photography (which she brought up as something that drove her crazy), and then the whole wide world of sexual expression that she had effectively cut off from a fully informed POV of what I was looking for from the beginning of the relationship, no she hasn't given me much space at all.

In fact, I came away with this...if it's so easy for her to code me in the DSM-IV and that is the first time in 23 years she has ever gone that route, might she also be using the same knowledge to play me, as a strategy, to keep me at a certain point in this marriage.

That is what is on the agenda next.

She went out to get her nails done with one of her friends on Saturday afternoon. She hasn't spoken more than about 2 dozen words to me since then.

[Bagheera]

Once again, TEGH, you completely skipped over the main point that I was trying to make and began attacking straw-men of your own construction (not mine). I wrote:

Simplistically put, every sexual relationship involves two people, and each person in that relationship has a responsibility (if they want to keep that sexual relationship alive in the long-term) to continue to *attract* their partner, make sexual *advances*, and likewise respond positively to their partner's sexual advances...[snip]

...the general point I am trying to make is that the failure of a long-term sexual relationship is RARELY the fault of just one partner -- both partners contribute to the failure.

You are 100% responsible for YOUR HALF of the marriage and sexual relationship. Your wife is 100% responsible for HER HALF of the marriage and sexual relationship. The complete failure of your sexual relationship is *not* entirely her fault, and is *not* entirely your fault, but is instead due to long-term actions and reactions on BOTH of your parts: *that* was my point. From the very start of your thread here, I have been trying to tell you the following:

(1) Improving your situation -- your sexless marriage -- will require change.

(2) The only person in the marriage that you can change is yourself.

(3) Therefore, begin making positive changes to your life, for YOURSELF.

Start living your life as your own man: become the dominant force in your own life --> not *her*. In order to be happy with your life, you NEED, as a man, to become self-determinate once again. Revive those activities and hobbies that used to bring you joy, reclaim your own space, set your own boundaries, and renew your senses of self-worth and self-fulfillment. None of this requires acting angrily -- if she becomes angry about it, just let her and don't rise to the bait. Just quietly DO what YOU need to do, for YOURSELF.

These changes may not (initially) improve either your marriage or your sex-life, but you might also be surprised. In general, a strong, assertive woman, such as your wife, is sexually attracted to a man who is STRONGER than she is -- and who shows it. When she pushes you, she needs to encounter something solid and strong...and NOT a marshmallow that gives way and retreats further. At what point will you finally realize that you will NEVER be able to give up enough or give in enough to make your wife happy or sexually attracted to you? Because that ISN'T what she wants in a man...because that isn't being a MAN at all.

-- B.

[TeaEarlGreyHot]

Before I came back over here to reply I was continuing to read your Bumpy Road thread.

I cut a bunch out of my post this morning and just trimmed it back to what you saw, but I probably left out the very best.

Given your response, you aren't ready for it.

I am hardly a shrinking violet in my life in who I be and what I do. You seem to think otherwise. You seem to think it's hard work, takes time, etc., etc., etc. It isn't and it does not.

Want to know how long it takes to transform your life? It takes this long, the time it takes you to read the following sentence.

"We got your biopsy results. It's cancer and it's malignant."

How long did it take you to read that. I came in at under 2 seconds AND when I heard those words (and those were the words my doctor said to me, to us, because my wife was with me when they broke that news), my life and more importantly my relationship to everything in life immediately and irrevocably changed.

You ask any cancer survivor who is willing to talk about their experience (because fear can crush you and talking about it can be daunting) and although we all have our different ways of dealing with the situation, the one common denominator I've found is this: complacency about life and living goes away.

You realize that "someday" or "oneday" are myths. There is only the here and the now. That can fade somewhat as your survival continues and the prospects to get to 5 years and beyond start looking promising. You can slip back into old habits and your mortlaity is just below the surface. Yet, acting frantic to race against the clock can be just as disquieting.

And that whole transformation of my life (and it was transformative) took place just a little before she decided that she no longer wanted a sexual relationship with me. She had said the following and has said a number of times since then (sometimes in frustration, sometimes in admiration): "you are the most self-contained person I've ever known. You, literally, don't need anyone." What do you hear when you read that?

She is correct in her assessment. I don't need anyone, not even her. My existence is not defined by "needing" someone else. I made that very plain at the beginning and, as a concept, it bothered her early in our relationship.

That I wish and am willing to share my life and that I choose to live my life in close proximity to people and to interact with them seems to run counter to this. It's a choice whom to allow in your life and how far. And I'm aware of the story that plays into. Marshmallow? No. Someone who is old, tired and dying and has given up certain parts of his life, yes.

As for what you think women want (and therefore apply your POV to what my wife does), assertiveness might work for you as a word to describe it AND in her case, nothing could be further from the truth. The correct word is there, you just miss the application of it.

What do women (or anyone for that matter) "want?" It's the experience of "want" that they seek, not the having or the being. In absence of the "want" because you now have what you say you "want" you replace that want with another one (want). Ours is a "wanting culture," never satisified. Many have trained for that all their lives. The man they "want," they can't have (or as Dana Carvey goes further to say "because he has a boyfriend").

It is a word game and the occurrence of our lives occurs only through the langauge we use. No language, no occurring life. No way to relate to any of it, just pure stimulus-response-reaction. But let's imagine for the moment that it is not just a word game.

So, you assert that what my wife wants is assertiveness. I'm sure you base it on some well-meaning and well-intentioned POV. In this case it simply has no ground-truth, as in facts on the ground.

Let me backfill, she and her siblings all tell me that I am so much like their father. Laid back, even keeled most of the time, dry, punny humor, and flashes of insight and knowing that seemed to come out of nowhere (how did he know that?). We all jokingly say that she married her father when she married me. But that is just a back-story.

Her second husband was a very assertive person, she would say "controlling." He always pushed back, set limits and then took steps to enforce them. Nothing physical I ever heard about, but definitely verbal dissatisfaction expressed and fairly directly at that. He had very definite opinions about the way things should be (some of which they apparently both agreed upon).

So, do you care to guess what he got for all of his assertiveness and "being a man?"

Lets see, in the last 7 years of their marriage he got no or very little sex and sexual intimacy (she refused him on that point and he was quite unhappy about that), he got a wife who started to buy a lot of clothes and shoes. The shoes, more than 200 pairs. I don't think he ever knew (but he may of suspected) that she was driving around in her hot little convertible (and she just bought a new convertible last year) and during the days she was off sleeping with her first ex-husband. Oh yes, and when the opportunity arose for another promotion and a transfer back to where they met and they first started out, that's when she told him "I'm not going."

Does this sound strangely familiar? So, what is the common factor? The only thing that I share with him is that we've both been married to her, made love to her only to have her turn sexless and a shoppper extraordinaire, and then for something that is perfectly normal as part of the relationship and next steps, she turned both of us down on what we asked for. We also share something else, though I may know it and he does not. We've both had a spouse have an affair on us. He, too, is a cancer survivor though his diagnosis came long after they were divorced.

Yes, he and I are very different and have dealt with her in completely different ways. For the longest time I only had her side of the story. But I think I have part of his side of the relationship. And if you think my loss is impressive, think about what it must have been like for him. Assertive, confident with a family and a career on the up and up. And boom, no sex and no moving back.

And until today I've never put that together in the way you are just reading it.

There is one other thing I will say about what is going on here. I know a portion of her story. She's told me what it is, what drives her.

She is invisible. No matter what she does, no matter how accomplished, she will go back to being invisible (and that is not a good thing).

So, in high school, for example, she put down her clarinet, and took up being the marching band drum majorette with this tight-fitting, busty, gold sequined outfit while twirling a flaming baton (it was the early 1960's) and I've heard plenty of "dirty old men" rememberances of her.

Only someone who is invisble would take the family car (a sedan) that they been given to drive (and it was in her name) and trade it in for a convertible to drive around in (and be noticed). When we met she was driving a Fiat convertible and she basically drove convertibles or T-Tops/sunroofed vehicles until she went into her SUV driving phase for about 6 years. The truck driving phase was when our sexlife passed into the sexless zone (less than 10 times per year).

Only someone who is invisible would have so many clothes that they take up two-thirds of our large walkin closet and three other closets in the house. Shoes, well maybe 40 pairs. Jewelry, so much that the floor standing jewelry cabinet with the mirro in the front door is getting heavy enough that its hard to move it to vacuum the carpet).

Only a person who is invisible would fill up and decorate the house (and displace stuff that I owned before we were married) so that their mark on the house would be seen. (I say that if I moved what is mine out of the house, you'd barely know I was gone).

Oh, and we joke about this, about our marriage being the best kept secret in town, but in a way it is telling. We got married on the other side of the country in a small ceremony on the side of a mountain (how fitting for me). So, our friends, family, children did not attend even though they were invited. There are a number of people who know we are married, but because she kept her last name from the last marriage (for professional reasons and I concurred with that), there are far more that don't know that.

Anyway, we held a retirement party for a friend of ours and the people that were invited to this party at our house (there were about 150 people total, probably 50-60 at any one time in our house), were mostly the friends of my wife or aquaintances with my wife but freinds and coworkers of our retiring friend. It was a great party and I was happy that we hosted it for her. As the party wrapped up around 9:30 pm, I was going around picking dishes and stuff, putting stuff in the diswasher, etc. One of the people who was left noticed and commented how nice it was that I was staying to clean up.

"I ought to, I pay the mortgage on this house every month."

How nice, he thought out loud, that I was kind and generous enough to pay the mortgage for her house.

I said to him, "John, I live here. We're married."

To him, he had seen us together for years, seen my wife in her professional setting with the same name that she had always had for as long as he had known her, and just knew this as her house. I did not see it in the way then that I see it now.

I know my own story and I know you have one, too.

But enough for now.