I haven't been posting lately because my sister has been doing my computer work for me while I concentrate on attending every AAUW sale in a 200 mile radius . My H left town on Tuesday and I sprained my wrist, so we've only had phone sex once this week. Our total encounters for the month of October so far is 6, so I don't mind the slow down. We're both very relaxed communicating about our sex life now. Last night we were laughing about the fact that we were both too exhausted to "lift a hand" so we couldn't have phone sex.
"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" - Mary Oliver
So far this month, I have had sex 7 times. I have also added 1400 books(this is a lot because I hand pick my inventory) to my inventory, done all the housework and cooking, kept up with my workouts, chauffered kids and hosted sleepovers. Now that I am not undersexed and obsessed with fixing the situation, I finding it very easy to do everything else. This kind of goes along with the thought that I often had before the recent great improvement in my sex life which was that it was a good thing that I wasn't working on the cure for cancer because then I would have to divorce my H for the good of humanity.
A kind of freaky thing happened yesterday. I was sorting through some recent acquisitions and found a book of poetry written by an unknown female poet who died in a car accident in 1966. The poetry was published posthumously by someone who identified themselves only by the initials M.M.. I opened the book at random and the poem I encountered was entitled "A Poem Almost About Passion". The last stanza ends
Quote: the somehow maniacal the somehow saintly qualities of passion buried in the stain and taint of beings wrenched together by abstract laws and leaps of logic wired into finely sculptured feather-thin magic figures twisted intertwined as if the tap-root of this desire deeply dug in skin might bind the knotted cipher that puzzles the blood the mystery of your eyes brown the knowledge of my eyes green....
"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" - Mary Oliver
I guess I'm making up for lost time this week with many posts today .
I went back and read some of my earlier posts and I figured something out. Going through the process of "differentiation" and into the "crucible" in your relationship with your spouse is kind of like going to war. You can avoid it forever if you are willing to constantly reinforce your fortresses or surrender territory. Once you decide that war is necessary, when you first go into battle you are terrified. You might lose everything. With each battle you learn combat skills and you gain respect for yourself and your enemy as long as nobody violates the Geneva Convention. At last, the war is over, new lines are drawn and free trade and cultural respect are restored. Will peace reign forever? Doubtful. So what has changed? I have changed. I no longer feel anxiety about going to battle. I hope for a long peace, but if my personal integrity is ever threatened in my relationship, I won't be afraid to leave the farm (comfort cycle) and take up arms (differentiate). I guess I've matured.
I keep coming back to the analogy or relationship of liberty to passion. On some level, my H felt like he had not freely entered into our relationship and that he was not free to leave it. His LD about everything from home repairs to sex was a semi-conscious form of "peaceful" resistance. From my perspective his LD was a way of taking away my liberty by making me his "slave" by making me do all the work in order to maintain the relationship. The only good thing about this situation was that neither of us ever blamed the children for our dilemma. I really shook things up when I basically told my H "Start working or leave.". This threw him into two different crucibles. First, he became completely resentful because his liberty was being even more encroached upon by my tough demands. On the other hand, he became anxious because he realized that I was telling him that he was free to leave the relationship if he didn't want to work on it. He could no longer tell himself that he was "trapped" in the relationship, so his protest was meaningless. My crucible was to realize that my fear and neediness was making me a "slave", not my H.
I guess you have to be free (boundaries and personal integrity intact) in order to be passionate. Otherwise, you're like an artist under a totalitarian regime forced to paint only acceptable themes or a writer whose works communicate nothing because they are so mutilated by the censor. The thing that you fear most is what you have to do to save your relationship. The thing that you fear most is also the thing that will set you free. Think about how terrifying it will be to tell your spouse "I will not tolerate a sexless/passionless marriage". Think how free you will feel once you've said it.
"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" - Mary Oliver
J~ This post really spoke to me. It is exactly where I am at, except for the trapped hogwash that MW was experiencing.
But the earlier part about being ready for battle, every time, and not being afraid--that is precisely what has been being worked out in my home for the last year or so. I think the temptation is there, when things first begin improving, to just accept the changes as they are and not push for anything else--after all, things are SO MUCH better than they were, right?
But to truly achieve a great level of intimacy, you gotta keep pushing. Pushing your partner and yourself.
And I can say from experience that saying I will not tolerate a sexless marriage (and, furthermore, here is what I will do if it continues..) is indeed liberating.
My H wholeheartedly agreed with me...Oh no dear I wouldn't expect you to tolerate a sexless marriage. But then he would turn around and offer up every excuse in the book as to why it wasn't a good time. He had a very hard time integrating his THOUGHTS and his ACTIONS on the matter. He still does at times. The good feelings he had for me during his week of vacation are now gone. They have been replaced with job stress. Since I can't have sex anyway I am just sitting back and observing, in a bemused sorta way.
Anyway, just wanted to tell you that this post, and the one on trading for sex, were brilliant and right on the money.
, remember us and post. We miss ya.