Waiting More Than a Dozen Years

[TeaEarlGreyHot]

Earl,

Do you ever listen to yourself?

Do you ever look back at the posts you've written here, and ask yourself what it is you truly want?

Yes, and it is not about "wanting," it is about choosing. It is not about "doing," it is about "being."

And I not only have what I've written here, I have a collection of writings that go back over 40 years. It is interesting to see my view into the future and contrast that with what has actually occurred and become my past.

The core of who I "be" is still largely the same one from 40 years ago, though some views have changed with experience.

And what I can say about now compared to 6 months ago when I titled this "waiting" is that I had been waiting for my wife to change her position on sexual intimacy on her own and that "waiting" is no longer the operative word.

What is different is that I now have the explicit answer I did not have 6 months ago.

[SillyOldBear]

Argue about my post count and the length of your penis for as long as you can stand it, but in the end it's not going to make any difference for you. You'll grow tired of it by and by. I'm just some guy who answered your call for advice with some advice you didn't want. I'm not the problem that's got you upset. You're only trying to pick on me because I'm right here in front of you and you think you can win this one.

But there's nothing to win. You and I are not having a contest of wills. You are contending against nothing.

[Walking]

Hey Captain

What is different is that I now have the explicit answer I did not have 6 months ago.

Reading between the lines - I understand that you've had the conversation with your wife, she has said "put it away ... it ain't going to happen ... EVER." (I expect your wife is far more articulate though! – I’m Australian, I’ve got an excuse for terrible grammar) and you've accepted that you are no longer waiting for sex within your marriage?

I further assume (I do know what happens when I assume) you are now deciding what you want to do about that ... and you're leaning towards staying married and accepting a celibate life on the basis that you now have some evidence that you are not worth fighting for (sexually)?

I sometimes wish I could be as cerebral as you seem to be in your writing – and cognitively I understand it’s a powerful thing to disassociate “me” from the circumstances that affect “me” …. But are you really that good at disassociation?

I’m glad that you “get” it. I’m pleased that you can equate what you rationally know to be the case with what is …. But you are a human too, with human wants and needs – and one of those in most healthy people is intimacy.

Just because you can rationally understand how you got to this point in your life … does that make it OK?

Kind thoughts to you, V

[TeaEarlGreyHot]

Virginia:

You summarized my current situation well. The real opening was her saying, in the midst of all this, "I hope I've allowed you to be who you really are."

No, absolutely not. And we went from there.

But when it came down to putting sexual intimacy back into the relationship, her answer was no. I could say there is always hope that she might reconsider, given what was said (and no I did not threaten to walk away or go off and do a "Tiger Woods" on her, though I doubt I would have gotten a different answer).

Now, to answer your questions: Yes, I am that good at "disassociation." It's not something I have to remember to do, it is who I am. It does, however, require a level of self-awareness to keep from purely reacting, being nothing more than a machine that responds and reacts to stimulus.

Look at the reaction above your reply. I gave specific answers to the machinery and pointed out where the machinery was running and took the answers I gave and turned it into something that I did not say. There you see a stimulus/response reaction machine in action running exactly as programmed. And because that machinery is running, it is unable to separate "what is happening" in specific and measurable terms and what he is saying about it and telling himself what it "really means."

There is an expectation of the way things should be and I am not immune to it. However, there is a great likelihood that I will notice it on my own rather than it being pointed out to me.

Is it okay to have a marriage in which there is no sexual intimacy given what we say is "needed?" From the standpoint of the expectation, the answer is "no." And that answer requires the expectation having more weight than the acknowledgement of what is real and actually happening.

The answer in this marriage is there is no person I can be, no thing that I can do that will alter this sexless marriage into one that is sexually intimate. How do I know? Because I've been explicitly told that. I was told that more than 11 and a half years ago after the first year of no sexual intimacy and it's been confirmed just a couple of months ago.

"Waitng" (as resistance) was futile.

[TeaEarlGreyHot]

There was something I wished to clarify.

I further assume (I do know what happens when I assume) you are now deciding what you want to do about that ... and you're leaning towards staying married and accepting a celibate life on the basis that you now have some evidence that you are not worth fighting for (sexually)?

I am looking at what to do next. The message that "you dominate everything and everyone" with the trail of dead relationships has gotten through. So, that aspect has lightened up.

For the moment I am accepting a celibate life because it is stable, it maintains an important principle of fidelity to the relationship, and there is a certain predictability to it, not because that I have made the statement that I am not worth fighting for. Rather, I've already gone more than 111,280 hours (or more than 4600 days). Will it matter if that extends longer?

The question I am asking myself is do I want to go through another divorce and then search for and create the relationship that I sought 24 years ago(and as I pointed out to her, very clearly stated at the outset of this relationship)?

[TeaEarlGreyHot]

My last update of the decade and probably for awhile (though I may comment elsewhere).

I complete my first calendar decade without any sexual intimacy since the 1950's. Even though it is 12/30, the prospect for a sudden about face is zero. She had surgery yesterday and I'm in charge of taking initial care of her recovery.

(Although the my first time ML was in the early 70's, as a teenager in the late sixties, there was some "sex play." None of that has happened in this first decade of teh 21st century.)

I received an interesting Christmas gift from my wife...a Bose Wave Radio and CD system. So, the fact that I've gone back to recover "my" music, even if I do not play it in her presence (or I'm listening to it in her presence on my MP3 player) has, apparently, been noted.

The day after Christmas, we went to see "Invictus" (those studious amongst you will note that my signature contains the last few lines of the poem). We were going to go see "Up In The Air" on Sunday, but she bailed out of that idea.

Anyway, she's at home, in bed, recovering. I moved back upstairs to the front guest bedroom (had to turn the heat back on in that room) so that I'm close at hand. She can call to me or page me on the phone intercom. This is the first time I've slept on the second floor of my house since 2004.

Currently, I'm sitting in the bed watching ESPN and waiting until it's time for her next dose of pain medication in about an hour.

In the next decade, I resolve my sexless life will come to an end...whether that be because of my death or because this marriage comes to an end matters not. I am well along completing my autobiography that lays out my life experiences, including this long sexless portion of my life, so that it is no longer a silent part of my life.

I see lot's of discussion about 180's. Well, I'm outbound on a slow climbout.

Contacting departure control on 125 point 3. Good night.

[Walking]

Captain my Captain .....

I'm staying with old friends over the New Year Weekend. They were friends of my ex-husband and I and I guess I got them in the divorce.

I've spent the weekend regaling them with hilarious stories of my exploits over the past 12 months including innumerable anecdotes of the completely unsuitable men I've got dirty with and escapades that surely prove that life post divorce is a great big adventure that opens a world of new and enticing opportunities. Indeed they are impressed and have expressed a little bit of envy for the exciting life I vividly paint over a couple of bottles of good Aussie red.

I went to bed last night, sore from laughing and happy to be with old friends .... and terribly sad that this new life has come at such a high cost. Friends lost, relationships divided, an entire history of two good people - my ex husband and I - just gone.

Living an authentic life is hard work and it's lonely.

I loved being married to my ex. I loved our friendship, his ability to always get just the right gift (I love how your wife got you something SO appropriate for Christmas - and it really does demonstrate that she cares deeply about your happiness as she perceives it if not your sexuality!!)

When I read your post this morning I felt a little bit of envy for you ... I may be having great sex and prima facie a life I'll be very proud to relive to all who will listen in my old age ... but I don't have what you have, a partner who trusts you sufficiently to tend to them when they are at their most vulnerable.

There is a lot to be said for a shared history of loving devotion - and sex or not - you shouldn't underestimate the gift of your companionship with the woman who has shared your life all these years.

Happy New Year Captain. I raise my cup of hot English Breakfast to you.

V

[TeaEarlGreyHot]

Captain my Captain .....

Feeling "slightly more daring," Virginia? I hope you understand that question/statement.

And Happy New Year to you.

I sit in this bed in the guest bedroom, TV off, listening to the wind in the leaves and trees outside (and the fan on my laptop computer as it churns through it's background programs). It's already down below -5°C and dropping down to at least -10°C (down to -15°C with the windchill) in the AM. The furnace has gone into the nighttime setback and the house is starting to cool down.

I did not stay up until midnight on New Year's Eve. After giving my wife her pain medication, I came back to the guest bedroom, turned off the TV and went to sleep. I awoke at 3AM knowing that the next dose would be soon. She paged me at 3:30 AM and then I was awake for a couple of hours. It seemed a fitting end to a decade that I will say is the least satisfactory in my life. No champagne or sparkling wine. No acknowledgement whatsoever.

Not that there were not accomplishments and completion of some lifetime goals (e.g. I reached the last of the 50 US States and have reached more than 50% of the more than 3144 county and county-equivalents in the US in the last decade. Not quite my "50-by-50" goal but close enough. My map of travels, by county, is on Flickr). But as time went on, what was missing became a large part of my life. It is an adult form of something's wrong (see below).

What I can say about what I miss about New Years is the "specialness" I once felt about it. Whether it was being in a small, intimate party with a few (hundred thousand) friends in Times Square (been there, done that), or really being with close friends to share good times and friendship at midnight, or just to be in bed with my wife to ring out/ring in the year with our own special celebration of lovemaking, there was an anticipation and excitement to it. That was as true of being with my ex-wife and with my current one.

Not anymore and it has not been that way for quite some time

You speak of history being gone, it can be gone even though the two people are still together because one person decided that it was no longer important regardless of what the other felt.

There are parts of my life that are "authentic." And yet, there is this whole side of my life where there is no self-expression of who I am as a loving, sexual being. As for being caring when someone is vulnerable (or even when they are not)...yes, that is a side of my authentic self, an expression of who I am, the generosity of self that I am for other people. That is as natural to me (and to those who know me) as breathing, that for me to be any other way but that would be an indication that something was seriously wrong (with me).


My wife knows that about me. My ex saw some moments of that, too, while were together, though it did not really flourish until we were separated and she was committed to a divorce.

No, there is a combination of things at play here that range from "expectation" that I will do my part as her husband to knowing this side of who I am and trusting that both will be there in this moment of vulnerability.


I appreciated my wife's gift to me. I had an intuitive sense that she might be getting it for me (I have a way about these things), though until I opened it up, I did not know for sure (I had been considering one for myself though I had said nothing about it to her). Already have come the questions about where I am going to put it. Honest answer, I don't know. If I bought one for myself, it would probably be for the office, not home. That appeared to be the "wrong answer." Anyone willing to take bets that it ends up in "her" bedroom since I don't sleep there anymore?

What gets lonely is giving up one part of one's self to have some fragment of another part "survive."

This has gotten a lot longer than I intended but let me add one other thing that fits into several conversations where both you and I have been participating.

No one gets through childhood, adolescence, and into adulthood "undamaged." No one, except those with no memory or no capacity for long-term memory (their past does not exist for them in any tangible way). For some people, the degree of damage as a result of one or more traumas, may be more severe and have more longer lasting effects on lives than we realize.

I assert that almost no one is self-aware enough to even point to these incidents, know what they were and how they shaped our lives. The more traumatic events or incidents that are classifiable as "abuse" are more easily identified and yet, the echoes of those events (both large and small) travel long after the events themselves have passed. And while I'm not advocating abuse, I suggest, as others might, that these defining events are what is required for us to develop some of the very characteristics that others see as our "strengths" and our "best qualities."

You've already identified some of your strengths as a result of some of your early life experiences (and treatment). You and I and everyone else share exactly the same reaction to some initial event (and sometimes recurring series of events), that creates the damage and has us respond. We all responded with the following: "Something is wrong" and it should not be this way. And what we said or did next "froze" something in each and everyone of us whether it was said outloud or quietly to ourselves: "I'll never say, do, or be that way again." Something like "I'll never trust men/women/boys/girls again" for whayever reason you've determined something is wrong (and to avoid that "wrongness" in the future. The first time it happens is at a fairly young age (4-7), old enough to have some mastery of language and enough memory and socialization skills to see things in terms of right and wrong. It also tends to be self-reinforced.

Your identify your independence as stemming from this type of event either in part or almost in full. There are several other episodes that are equally as defining later in your life. They could be different types of events or remind you (though you aren't necessarily conscious of it) of the first time you told yourself that something was wrong. The last formative one usually has to do with your ability (or inability) to "go home" or go back to where you once were late in adolescence.

If you think about what people tell you about your very best qualities or what they like about you or what make you seem special, they probably stem from these events whether they are mundane (some other child embarassing you in front of others causing an image breakdown) or traumatic (the death of a close family member or friend, abuse in the form of mental, physical and/or sexual abuse). Even some less desirable qualities (that can be respected as strengths) can find their origins in the "damage."

You see your own independence as both a strength and a weakness. As a strength because others apparently admire that in you and you are accepting enough to hear what these people say. And a weakness because of what others (men) have to put up with. But Virginia, your problem with your strength isn't that you are independent it that what gives your independence is based in what you've been saying all this time: "something's wrong."

You won't ever be able to change that because you froze that in your memory and you've practiced what to do when you encounter similar situations. But, as an adult, you can notice it and, once noticed, look to see what path you might choose, including the conversation of the 5-year old that once told you "something's wrong." You asked about being able to disassociate, this is part of it too, but I call it awareness.

I am not immune to the same forces and I too, have my own set of "something's wrong" reaction and response that give me qualities that others see as strengths. The difference is an awareness of these conversations and their origins. That comes from operating from a certain point of view that is very different from the "standard" human experience.


That is enough for now. One day, I may have to get to your part of the world to see in New Years.

Right now I seem to be caught in a temporal causality loop and it's time to sleep.

Captain, out.

[SillyOldBear]

I appreciated my wife's gift to me. I had an intuitive sense that she might be getting it for me (I have a way about these things), though until I opened it up, I did not know for sure (I had been considering one for myself though I had said nothing about it to her). Already have come the questions about where I am going to put it. Honest answer, I don't know. If I bought one for myself, it would probably be for the office, not home. That appeared to be the "wrong answer." Anyone willing to take bets that it ends up in "her" bedroom since I don't sleep there anymore?

Here's a good chance for you think it through and make a decision. It should be unfair for you to take bets on this, because you should be the one making the decision. Put it where you want it to be and stick with your decision.

[TeaEarlGreyHot]

Here's a good chance for you think it through and make a decision. It should be unfair for you to take bets on this, because you should be the one making the decision. Put it where you want it to be and stick with your decision.

However, if I get grief over my choice, I shall simply box it up, hand it back to her. Putting up with the crap I'd have to deal with is no longer worth it to me. A 'gift' given to me that requires her approval is not a gift at all. I have an advantage in hearing some of the other gift conversationsshe has had previously and in this year in particular.