This morning I woke up and guess what? I didn't want to have sex. Why? Because I already had it 3X this weekend!

I broke one more crucible to pieces and I am feeling like a SUPER-SUCCESS!

My H initiated sex Saturday night. I expected this since he had been gone since Monday and he's asked me to trust him to keep the frequency up.

Sunday morning he was still in a good mood. I wasn't really looking for action since I knew he wasn't leaving town agin until late Tuesday morning. We had a pleasant morning together. Sunday afternoon I was sleepy from our late night romp so I went to our room to try and nap. A little while later H came in and started folding laundry and rummaging around in his drawers. This was unlike him since he's usually very courteous of being quiet if someone is trying to sleep. A few minutes later he jumped on top of me and initiated. I actually was half asleep so it took me a few minutes to rev up but we ended up having a second quite excellent session.

Monday morning H was under a black cloud from the moment he woke up. I sensed it immediately and thought to myself "Good thing we already got a couple sessions in this weekend". But then I thought about an analogy I had been working on before my H arrived home this weekend having to do with my previous post about how sometimes it seems like my H doesn't like me and regards me as a pest.

ANALOGY:
One good night, my H and I dock our Schnarchian boats on Happy Sex Island and have a fantastic time there together. The next morning we start off from the island each in our own little differentiated boats. I'm planning to spend the next day with H, so I'm imagining we'll both sail on to Read Papers Joke Around Island then maybe Go See Movie Island and hopefully end up back at Happy Sex Island that evening or maybe the next morning.

However, my H because he is irritable/dysthymic has found himself stuck on a sand bar and pinching crabs are crawling all over his boat. If I was overly emotionally fused to H my reaction would be to jump out of my boat and start fighting the crabs with him and we would both end up stuck, wet and pinched. Or I might think "I better get the hell out of here or those crabs might get me" and start paddling away as fast as I could in the other direction. These are the kind of reactions I was having before I joined this board, but it didn't feel right to me to react in that way, so I was very uncomfortable and felt like I was "going crazy".

A more typical way I might react has led to a mistake I've been making since I've been feeling more differentiated. I was misunderstanding Schnarch's advice that if you are differentiated you can be in the same room as your spouse and be able to hold onto yourself. I went too far. I was acting as though I "HAD TO" stay in the same space as my spouse. So back to boat analogy.

I would observe my H's boat in distress and stop to offer assistance. I would try to do some things that actually were appropriate and helpful. For instance, I could offer him my extra water bottle since he might be stuck for a while. But because I have ADD often I couldn't offer that sort of assistance because I would have lost my extra bottle or forgotten to refill it etc. So I would just sit there in my boat watching him be attacked by crabs and offer advice on how he might do a better job fighting off the crabs. I would ignore the fact that my advice was more annoying than helpful until my H would get so fed up he would actually start throwing crabs right at me! Then I would, of course, have an emotional reaction.

I realized that I don't have to stay and help my H fight off the crabs even if I'm capable of not being over-emotional. I can choose to change my plan for the day and sail on to Gardening in the Sun Island or Shopping with my Sister Island and leave him to his own devices to fight off the crabs (as long as he has his crab fighting spear/anti-depressant). I don't need to be bored or annoyingly helpful.

END ANALOGY

So Monday when H woke up irritable, I put my plan into action. I told him I could tell he was in a rotten mood. I gave him lots of space and only did appropriately helpful things. For instance, when the crabfighter complained that we were out of bottled water, I went to the store to get some more because it's my job to keep groceries stocked and it was my ADD fault that we ran out. While I was at the store I picked him up some St. John's Wort too, because it seemed to me he might need a little extra fighting tool.

H remained in crabby mood most of day but as the evening progressed and he had a few beers and watched some sports, his mood improved from crabby and sullen to crabby but joking. He asked me to help him find some books to read while he's away. He then asked if I had any erotica lying around. I pulled out a couple volumes and he leafed through a bit. I told him that I had been reading a cheesy romance novel that evening and there were actually a few hot scenes in it. I showed him the "hot"pages. He proceeded to make fun of me for reading such a poorly written piece of fluff. One thing led to another and bad, bad Mojo got what was coming to her for reading such trash.

And that is why I am a super-successful, semi-LD-feeling HD this morning



"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" - Mary Oliver