Secrets, Part Three

Note: this is a continuation of parts one and two.

"After all, the world is full of frustrated adults, frustrated parents. We want more sex. We want more love. We want more attention. We want more intimacy."

Yes, yes, yes, and yes. I wanted all those things from my marriage, but never had. But I did stay because of my kids. And I guess my sense of duty? or commitment? My wife and I became empty nesters this last year, the year we would have celebrated our 25th anniversary had she lived. I don't know if we would have made it to 26. "Me first" was in my head, and now I'll never know what might have happened.


This was my comment I left after reading Emily's post titled Me First, and that essay, along with several other blogger's life changing events, had brought me back to a reality I'd forgotten about when my wife was diagnosed with a brain tumor.

K and I had not had sex in over 7 years. In the early nineties we had dwindled down to 2-3 times a year, and we were both working, and doing all the things required of raising our kids. As K had less and less interest in sex, I tried to introduce different ideas, once by laying out a article about sex from a women's magazine (which she ignored), another time I suggested maybe trying a few toys (that went over like a lead balloon), and I tried a few other romantic ideas, but to no avail. We moved to north Idaho in 1995, and I only recall having sex a couple of times before it ended completely in 1999. Once I filled our bedroom with a dozen or so candles, and put on soft music, and she couldn't miss that hint, and we enjoyed the best sex we'd had in years that night. She still only want the basic missionary sex, but I remember it was the last time we made love. I said afterwards that we should do this more often and she agreed, getting my hopes up, but we never did.

The last time I tried to initiate anything, she basically said ok in that "if we have to" voice, and she just laid there not even trying much. We kissed a bit, and then I started exploring her body like I liked to do, and I worked my way down to her pussy, probing her with my tongue (which I had only done once before as she always wanted me to come first by intercourse), and she said "you shouldn't do that, you know I'm only able to do it once". I decided the hell with that, I've wanted to eat her out for years, and if she comes, fine, we can cuddle and hold each other afterwards (something she did like to do), and then maybe I can come by rubbing on her. So I ended up bringing her to orgasm, and then she said "I told you so" and rolled over in bed, pulled up a sheet and said goodnight.

I was stunned. I couldn't believe she did that.

I laid there in bed, never feeling so rejected as I did then (it still hurts thinking about it today), and after awhile I got angry. I didn't talk to her the entire next day (she couldn't understand why!), and I wasn't interested in having sex with her for a long time after that. I considered finding someone else, and went as far as placing an ad on line, but my damn loyalty to our vows kept coming back to me, and the thought of breaking up our home and what it would do to the kids kept me from following through with any ideas.

Five years later in 2004 we were staying at the Luxor hotel in Las Vegas, and I mentioned it might be fun to have sex at some point during our stay. The only time K offered was one afternoon when we had walked back to the hotel from 6 big blocks away, hot and sweaty, and we only had an hour before going to see Mamma Mia next door at Mandalay Bay. She fell back on our bed and said, "Ok, I'm ready! Let's do it". I believe I actually laughed a little and said forget it.

The last time I tried to rekindle our sex life was later the same year, when I took K to romantic weekend getaway over our anniversary at a resort a few hours north of where we lived. I planned out everything, the resort even had a casino, because K loved to play the slots. We had a great gourmet dinner, and champagne, strawberries and chocolates in the room, one of the softest beds I'd ever slept on, and a beautiful view of the Canadian Rockies. The place reeked of romance and K knew what I was hoping for on this trip, but when I got into bed that night after a quick shower, she told me apologetically that she just had no interest in having sex. So we watched some stupid ass movie instead.

And that was when I first decided something had to change. But it didn't happen overnight.

In September of 2005 our daughter finally moved out of our house, but K had to have a major operation in October, and so I did nothing that year. In January of 2006, we took out a second mortgage on our home, and K wanted to borrow against all the equity in the house, I told her we should only borrow half, in case the market dropped, even though that was unlikely. My real reason was because I wanted to be able to sell it easier if we divorced. Also in January, I booked our 25th anniversary vacation to Hawaii, and I decided that if our relationship did not improve by our anniversary, that I would ask K for a divorce. I started looking at some apartments in the paper, and even thought to ask my friend D if I could move in with him.

But I still didn't want to give up on us. During this time, I started trying to get K to become closer with me again. I made her come snuggle with me on the couch when we'd watch TV and I would sit with her on the same side of the table in restaurants. I was trying to bring us back to our early years, just being together and holding her. I don't know if it was working that much, but I'm glad I tried and I did feel closer to her than I had in a long time.

Sadly though, five months later in May everything became moot point when K had her first seizure.

To be concluded in part four...