GGB: I read this post, then went back and read mine again. I guess it does sound like I had a good birthday/weekend. Funny, I wrote it while full of resentment, anger, sadness, self-pity. Birthdays just seem to toll yet another year in my SSM for me. Actually, to call it a SSM is charitable. It is a LSM - love starved marriage. The highlight of all interaction with my W this weekend was when, after lunch yesterday, she called me and said, as if she had forgotten to mention it during the lunch, "hey, thanks for lunch. It was delicious."
That was the highlight. That was the only time in the 48+ hours of the weekend where I felt even moderate affection from her. If it had just been a normal weekend, I probably wouldn't be so affected by the lack of affection, but dammit, it was my birthday.
I kept on telling myself, "it's not as bad as it was in 1997." That year, the last birthday spent with my now ex-wife, was the worst in my life. Following my refusal to approach a local football player for an autograph while at a bar, she tried to eject me from the car in a ghetto. Then, she drove home at dangerous speeds, and hit about three orange barrels with the side view mirror on my side of the car, while men were still working on the road. I said to myself, "this is the last birthday I will spend with this psycho." I wasn't sure I was going to make it home alive.
So, when I feel sad, unloved, and generally ignored by my W on my birthday, I comfort myself by saying, essentially, it could be worse, it could by 1997, but it's not.
The problem, of course, is that such a bright-line distinction keeps me and her and our marriage in our "comfort zone." (What a misnomer. It's only comfortable compared to divorce. Otherwise, it's more of a discomfort zone.) If I tell myself that it's not worth leaving until it gets worse than my 1st marriage, then it will continue forever.
And, while I'm b!tching, let me b!tch some more. She was sharing some info with me about an NPR story she'd heard about a woman who wrote a book on parenting. The author was commenting about oral sex and school-aged kids,and how girls participated in this because it wasn't really "sex." W went on to indicate that most women didn't enjoy getting it, and practically no women enjoyed giving it...that it was all about the boy "getting off" and not at all about the girl.
I just looked at her, refusing to engage. But here's what I said to her in my mind: "Just because you feel this way about oral sex, and because you can find someone you think is an "expert" who might tangentially share your views, does not make your views right or normal or better or beyond reproach. I could easily find a large majority of women who would disagree with you regarding receiving oral sex, and most of them would laugh at your comment. Many of them would feel sorry for you that you apparently can't or won't experience the joy of cunnilingus. Many of them would likely believe that you were abused and, hearing your denials, would conclude that you have some issues which you refuse to acknowledge. "I could also find a lot of women who would tell you that they enjoy giving oral sex to their loved one. You dismissing their opinions because they are 'unenlightened' or not in touch with their own feelings would elicit laughter from them, and perhaps some pity and some derision. They would see your open 'disgust' with the act as, again, indicative of either some past abuse or some unacknowledged issues. I could probably find some women who might not enjoy the act that much, yet they still love their husbands enough to do this for them, knowing how much they enjoy it. What a show of love that is! How wonderful that must feel to those men! "Now, given that you refuse to accept or provide oral sex to/from me, this subject is closed. I no longer want to discuss it with you, hear your well-known opinion, or share my thoughts on it with you."
I'm done venting...for now. Yes, as a matter of fact, I do feel better now.
