Today I'm Blogging For Me
One of the main reasons my marriage finally broke down was due to sex. Well, arguing about it actually. My ex-husband was forever complaining about our sex life. We didn't do it enough for him. He would continue to throw "We used to do it 3 times a day when we first got together". Of course we did...don't all new couples? Isn't that called the honeymoon stage where neither of you can get enough of each other? Can't keep your hands off each other? After yet another complaint from him, I recall yelling back "Why don't you go out and just fuck yourself stupid and then come home, because I've had a gutsful of this shit!". At that point, I really didn't care if he was unfaithful to me. I wanted the complains to stop.
My ex husband was a fairly heavy beer drinker. To this day I still can't stand the smell of beer on the breath of a man that I'm in bed with. I can't bring myself to easily kiss him when I smell it. It turns my stomach and brings back memories of unhappy times for me. Obviously you only get to read my side of the story, so I can't talk on his behalf, but this is my blog, and I'll write as I perceived the situation to be at that time. Because of his complaints about the lack of sex, I made a pact with myself to do the deed every second night to keep the peace. It got to the point where I was thinking "Ok, I'm alright tonight, because I did it last night" How fucked up is that?
Then the complaints about the 'quality' of it started. So I'd step that up a notch. Hearing him whistling in the shower in the morning was enough to make me sigh with relief. If he was happy, the rest of the house was at ease. He never took into consideration that we had two small children that I was still constantly getting up to during the night...or that our two little spitfires had drained me of most of my energy during the day. All I wanted to do was sleep. I used to cringe about telling him that my time of the month was due. That would either result in an angry outburst or he'd sulk and barely speak to me for the days sex was 'off limits'. Although the tension would cause it's own amount of stress, it was a welcome excuse to get out of what had become just another chore for me.
One Xmas, we packed the boys up and headed north with 4 other families to stay for a week in a motel on the coast. Beaches close by, nights filled with card games and alcohol, days filled with sun, surf and barbeques. That part of it was lovely. One night, the boys were well and truly asleep, we had the other 4 couples in our motel unit to play cards and drink. I wasn't drinking much at all during those years. I had discovered that alcohol doesn't mix well with having young children, and the following day was too much effort to get through if I'd got trashed the night before.
Anyway, 5am rolls around, people finally leave to take to their own beds. There are beer cans and bottles all over the lounge, my husband was pretty much off his face and he staggered off to bed. I was left to rearrange the furniture and clear up the mess. 30 minutes later I had cleaned up what I could and climbed into bed myself, ready to fall asleep immediately, I was stuffed. Unfortunately, my husband appeared to 'find' his second wind, and wasn't ready for sleep yet. He wanted sex. In fact, he hadn't been to sleep...he had lay awake waiting for me. He had stayed awake listening to me crash around with furniture and rubbish and waitied. You can imagine how fucked off I was when I realised that.
He wanted sex, I didn't. Apart from the fact that I was beat, the motel walls were mighty thin, and a couple we knew well were staying in the unit next door. Their bed was head to head with ours, only a thin wall separated us. After some debate and seeing how pointless it was to argue, I lay there and let him have what he wanted. Afterwards I felt used and dirty, I felt taken advantage of. Yet it was my own doing, I had the choice, and I let it happen. I never forgot it, and it came out during marriage guidance counselling several years later. Although I'd let it happen, I felt raped....and my resentment for him grew.
As the resentment continued to grow, my sex drive diminished even further. It was a vicious cycle really. I didn't want to make love with him, he would sulk, which made me distance myself from him, he would drink more, which in turn would make me want to be close to him even less. Yuk, yuk, yuk. When he complained about the extra weight I was carrying, it would only serve to make me feel less desirable and sink further into myself.
As the boys got older and more independent, I was less tired and became more responsive to him. By the time I was 33 and enjoying the added freedom of not having my children continuously tied to me, I became quite amorous...made the approaches myself even! This was good for him. He was more than happy to have a wife that was making the first move. In fact, as far as sex was concerned, the last 6 months of our marriage was pretty damn good.
I still felt under a lot of pressure to 'perform', but it was less of a hassle for me. I still liked my sleep, I still resented the fact that he did nothing around the home, although I was a working mother, and by that stage, if he actually tried to help out in any way with the children or the housework, I would mentally roll my eyes and think he was just trying to butter me up for sex later one. It was too little, too late for me....any 'kind' gesture he made was sex-related as far as I was concerned.
He was drunk again one night and I was trying to push him out of the car to join his mates at a local bar. I'd picked them up from the pub and they'd decided to move on to the next watering hole. The last thing I wanted to do was take him home and have a slobbering drunk mauling me. I encouraged him to join his friends. He said to me "You know....last night was so incredible...I just want to know why?".
I sat in the driver's seat dumbfounded. I couldn't get it right. I either didn't do it enough, or the quality wasn't good enough, so he complained. Now it seemed even when he was getting it every night and the content was up to scratch, he felt the need to question it. That was it for me. I'd finally come to the end of my tether. I replied "Well...I hope you realise you've just gone and fucked it up". That was the night my marriage ended. In retrospect, it likely ended for me in that motel room a few years prior.
I waited until he was sober that weekend, and then dropped the bombshell. He was shocked, didn't see it coming at all, yet I had been thinking about it for such a long time I felt I'd deceived him. We'd tried on several occasions to put the broken pieces back together, and I was done trying. There is one particular dark time in my relationship with him that I've never mentioned on here...it still upsets me greatly and reduces me to tears to think about it. I may blog about it when I feel ready to....if I ever feel ready to.
There is obviously a lot more to this story, and I feel bad for giving the impression that my ex husband is a bad person. He's not in most respects. For some reason, unknown to myself, I felt the need to write this today. When I think back over the years we spent together, and some of the very tough times we had as a couple, I wonder why the hell I spent 15 years with him. I only need to look at the faces of my children to know why I hung in there so long. I know I waited until they were old enough to hopefully understand that their parents just couldn't live together in the same house any more.
I don't know why I feel the need to purge some of this now, and there's a possibility that I may do more of it. It may not be such entertaining reading for you, but it could help some of the knots in my stomach unravel to get it out of my system, who knows.
My ex husband was a fairly heavy beer drinker. To this day I still can't stand the smell of beer on the breath of a man that I'm in bed with. I can't bring myself to easily kiss him when I smell it. It turns my stomach and brings back memories of unhappy times for me. Obviously you only get to read my side of the story, so I can't talk on his behalf, but this is my blog, and I'll write as I perceived the situation to be at that time. Because of his complaints about the lack of sex, I made a pact with myself to do the deed every second night to keep the peace. It got to the point where I was thinking "Ok, I'm alright tonight, because I did it last night" How fucked up is that?
Then the complaints about the 'quality' of it started. So I'd step that up a notch. Hearing him whistling in the shower in the morning was enough to make me sigh with relief. If he was happy, the rest of the house was at ease. He never took into consideration that we had two small children that I was still constantly getting up to during the night...or that our two little spitfires had drained me of most of my energy during the day. All I wanted to do was sleep. I used to cringe about telling him that my time of the month was due. That would either result in an angry outburst or he'd sulk and barely speak to me for the days sex was 'off limits'. Although the tension would cause it's own amount of stress, it was a welcome excuse to get out of what had become just another chore for me.
One Xmas, we packed the boys up and headed north with 4 other families to stay for a week in a motel on the coast. Beaches close by, nights filled with card games and alcohol, days filled with sun, surf and barbeques. That part of it was lovely. One night, the boys were well and truly asleep, we had the other 4 couples in our motel unit to play cards and drink. I wasn't drinking much at all during those years. I had discovered that alcohol doesn't mix well with having young children, and the following day was too much effort to get through if I'd got trashed the night before.
Anyway, 5am rolls around, people finally leave to take to their own beds. There are beer cans and bottles all over the lounge, my husband was pretty much off his face and he staggered off to bed. I was left to rearrange the furniture and clear up the mess. 30 minutes later I had cleaned up what I could and climbed into bed myself, ready to fall asleep immediately, I was stuffed. Unfortunately, my husband appeared to 'find' his second wind, and wasn't ready for sleep yet. He wanted sex. In fact, he hadn't been to sleep...he had lay awake waiting for me. He had stayed awake listening to me crash around with furniture and rubbish and waitied. You can imagine how fucked off I was when I realised that.
He wanted sex, I didn't. Apart from the fact that I was beat, the motel walls were mighty thin, and a couple we knew well were staying in the unit next door. Their bed was head to head with ours, only a thin wall separated us. After some debate and seeing how pointless it was to argue, I lay there and let him have what he wanted. Afterwards I felt used and dirty, I felt taken advantage of. Yet it was my own doing, I had the choice, and I let it happen. I never forgot it, and it came out during marriage guidance counselling several years later. Although I'd let it happen, I felt raped....and my resentment for him grew.
As the resentment continued to grow, my sex drive diminished even further. It was a vicious cycle really. I didn't want to make love with him, he would sulk, which made me distance myself from him, he would drink more, which in turn would make me want to be close to him even less. Yuk, yuk, yuk. When he complained about the extra weight I was carrying, it would only serve to make me feel less desirable and sink further into myself.
As the boys got older and more independent, I was less tired and became more responsive to him. By the time I was 33 and enjoying the added freedom of not having my children continuously tied to me, I became quite amorous...made the approaches myself even! This was good for him. He was more than happy to have a wife that was making the first move. In fact, as far as sex was concerned, the last 6 months of our marriage was pretty damn good.
I still felt under a lot of pressure to 'perform', but it was less of a hassle for me. I still liked my sleep, I still resented the fact that he did nothing around the home, although I was a working mother, and by that stage, if he actually tried to help out in any way with the children or the housework, I would mentally roll my eyes and think he was just trying to butter me up for sex later one. It was too little, too late for me....any 'kind' gesture he made was sex-related as far as I was concerned.
He was drunk again one night and I was trying to push him out of the car to join his mates at a local bar. I'd picked them up from the pub and they'd decided to move on to the next watering hole. The last thing I wanted to do was take him home and have a slobbering drunk mauling me. I encouraged him to join his friends. He said to me "You know....last night was so incredible...I just want to know why?".
I sat in the driver's seat dumbfounded. I couldn't get it right. I either didn't do it enough, or the quality wasn't good enough, so he complained. Now it seemed even when he was getting it every night and the content was up to scratch, he felt the need to question it. That was it for me. I'd finally come to the end of my tether. I replied "Well...I hope you realise you've just gone and fucked it up". That was the night my marriage ended. In retrospect, it likely ended for me in that motel room a few years prior.
I waited until he was sober that weekend, and then dropped the bombshell. He was shocked, didn't see it coming at all, yet I had been thinking about it for such a long time I felt I'd deceived him. We'd tried on several occasions to put the broken pieces back together, and I was done trying. There is one particular dark time in my relationship with him that I've never mentioned on here...it still upsets me greatly and reduces me to tears to think about it. I may blog about it when I feel ready to....if I ever feel ready to.
There is obviously a lot more to this story, and I feel bad for giving the impression that my ex husband is a bad person. He's not in most respects. For some reason, unknown to myself, I felt the need to write this today. When I think back over the years we spent together, and some of the very tough times we had as a couple, I wonder why the hell I spent 15 years with him. I only need to look at the faces of my children to know why I hung in there so long. I know I waited until they were old enough to hopefully understand that their parents just couldn't live together in the same house any more.
I don't know why I feel the need to purge some of this now, and there's a possibility that I may do more of it. It may not be such entertaining reading for you, but it could help some of the knots in my stomach unravel to get it out of my system, who knows.
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