Roadblock #3: I’ve Been Half-Divorced in my Head for a While

Friends, I’ve left out a really important part of the story. I haven’t told you how much hurt there is between me and Sweetie. Every loving thing I’ve said about her is true and sincere, but there is a very deep sadness between us that’s getting harder and harder to push aside.

Every so often, we trigger something in each other that is very hard to live with. We only have bad fights a few times a year, but the things we’ve said to each other are a very heavy load to keep carrying. Any couple that’s been together for twelve years might have deep angers and resentments, but in this case I don’t understand how we can get to the point of liking ourselves, individually or together. For a long time she attacked my sexuality whenever we were fighting, so even though she’s almost always supportive now it is hard to accept myself as bisexual. I have a very, very deep wish to be gay for her, to make all of the complications and dissatisfactions (well not ALL of them, I suppose) go away.

Saturday, we thought we got it figured out. We were bickering on the nude beach of all places, exchanging barbs about how I always want her to go in the ocean and she doesn’t want to. It, um, wasn’t really about the ocean. I told her I couldn’t deal with the idea of swimming alone for the rest of my life, couldn’t deal with paddling around by myself with all those happy couples. I didn’t want to hit on them, I wanted to be them.

She pointed out, incorrectly but insightfully, that the wave-frolicking pairs I was envying were all boy/girl combinations. I’m sure this is partly because I was hurting over Mr. Sweetheart, but I know that’s not all.

“I haven’t been your primary partner for a long time.” she said, again wrong but not wrong. What I feel for her is closer to best-friendship than romance to the point where I dearly wish we could skip right past divorce to being pals. But she would have to not be madly in love with me for us to do that.

Having been back and forth about divorce bunches of times, we decided we were finally going to rip the Band-aid off as soon as we got home and start the divorce process. I got up and walked into the ocean, suddenly and completely fine with swimming on my own. It was cold and it took me a while to settle in, pick my feet up, float and even smile. I felt relief. I could finally stop trying to squeeze into this thing that no longer fit me. My long hard quest to somehow what she wants was over. I could stop running and finally turn to face myself.

Of course she swam out to meet me. I started to cry. “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry.”

“For what?”

I started to cry harder and sobbed out “I want a husband.”

There in the water, cool and naked and facing the person who knows me best in the world, it seemed so clear. It seemed like such a simple truth.

It’s impossible to overstate the amount of shame that my failure to be gay and monogamous has brought me over the years. I felt, I still feel, like I let her down so much. I’ve been given a partner who is almost perfect, almost every single thing a person could need, why couldn’t I just TAKE it? Why couldn’t I just be satisfied?

I’m not sure if I can every really love myself within the context of this relationship. It is certainly very hard to accept being bi, let alone the taboo and crazy-feeling wish for a male primary. Every time some dude wrecks our evening in whatever careless way, I overflow with sorries, for taking away her time and happiness, for the fact that I could never manage to just settle down and let myself be loved.

Day to day, she’s understanding and giving, the most supportive a poly girl could hope for, but in the fights the truth always comes out. Like I started to say, for years she’d attack my sexuality during every fight, calling me a slut or a whore and telling me that I’m disgusting for wanting men. She talked so disdainfully and I gave as good as I got. These days she doesn’t tell me to go suck a dick like she used to, but she does go from zero to you’re-a-stupid-selfish-bitch-and-you-never-shut-up-about-boys every so often. I wish there were some in-between there.

She doesn’t say those things because she really hates men or bisexuals or anything like that. She does it because I do get self-involved, yammering and fussing through every crush, and it makes her feel insignificant. I am not loving her the way she deserves to be loved, and I am not loving myself, either.

As we drove home from the beach, stopping for sundaes and listening to Wait Wait, Don’t Tell Me as usual, the enormity of losing each other kept hitting us and what to do next became a lot less clear. Whether I stay with her or not, a husband seems like an impossible dream-where does one get one of those? How does that happen?

The best thing about this, though, is that I’ve allowed myself to stop denying it, to stop wishing and trying and struggling to be the wife I planned to be ten years ago, to be what’s expected of me, to be what she really wants. I grieve for the nice lesbian wife I didn’t turn out to be, but I’m also glad to be (almost) free of her. (Free of the imaginary me, that is.)

Since Saturday, we’ve been intermittently fine and sobby. We fall asleep separately but she still crawls in with me every night, we still hit the snooze a million times and hold each other in the cool morning air. I wish we could hit the snooze on this decision forever.

Ohno, Mr. Sweetheart. A Breakup, I Think

Last Wednesday afternoon was an especially good one. Sweetie had played hookie from work and we went to our special library over by the city pool. We got out about a million books and then, feeling rich and satisfied, went over to the pool for a swim. I usually go by myself to the pool so I was extra-excited to be there with her. There’s been tension between us for the past few weeks and I was happy to feel it wash away in the sun and water—my heart felt truly free.

Part of the reason for this sense of well-being was that Wednesday night is my scheduled phone date with Mr. Sweetheart. Sweetie had already planned to take herself out and about so that we could have privacy and I had a cute nightgown picked out just in case I got asked what I was wearing. Plus! My visit to Mr. Sweetheart’s place was less than a week and a half away—I couldn’t wait for us to plan it!

Except. A post showed up in my facebook feed that said Mr. and Ms. Sweetheart were on a plane on the way across the country to visit friends. I’d known that they had a trip coming up but had no idea that it fell smack in the middle of our date night.

I felt hurt, disoriented, and left out, as if he didn’t really consider me a factor in his plans. I would have been happy to reschedule our call or even postpone it until after the trip if I’d been asked, but I wasn’t. I calmly left a voice mail saying as much, and he texted back when they landed. He was sorry for “not putting two and two together” and said he’d call but it wouldn’t be “full service.” It seemed pathetic to wait around for a call that he’d forgotten about, so I went out with Sweetie to pick out some new sheets and made some optimistic lingerie purchases while I was at it.

He told me to let him know when I was back from running errands, and when I did he called. He was very matter-of-fact about what was going on, saying he’d be better about the calendar but also just sort of breezing past the hurt. Knowing he was sitting next to Ms. Sweetheart made me feel like I had to reign in my emotions, too. He told me happily about the friends they were staying with and the poly meetup they were headed for. I felt ugly and stupid for having to be a complaint in the middle of his festivities, and would have given anything to be someplace other than sitting rejected in my pajamas as they joyously began their stay. I hated the role I was put in.

Businesslike, he asked me what my driving-to-his-house plans were for the following weekend. I felt startled by this since what just happened had not been resolved yet. It seemed crazy to drive that far for somebody who’d forget a date with me, but I pressed on figuring it’d be resolved by then.

Midsentence their friends arrived and that was that. With a businesslike “Okay, I’ll follow that up with you later,” he started ending the call and I was like “Are you kidding me? You’re hanging up on a conversation about how you…”I hatehate HATED being in this harpylike position so I hit “end call” without really thinking, and when I called back, he didn’t pick up.

What upset me the most was that instead of just enjoying Sweetie and my library books, I was now typing sad texts, turning off the phone, and crying my eyes out. It’s a leap that I take complete responsibility for, but I felt not just rejected by the Sweethearts but by the poly community as a whole—being cut off midconversation in the midst of their revelry made me feel like I’d tried to crash a party where I was unwelcome. What started out as a simple miscommunication had turned into what felt like a public humiliation, and (I have to say it!) not the good kind.

Still, I fully expected it to get worked out, that I would turn my phone back on and find some genuine effort to fix it, but there was none. (He’s gotta do SOMETHING,” Sweetie kept saying, as if we live in a movie and he could tool over and hold a boombox over his head.)

I wrote a gracious (if somewhat disingenuous) breakup text this morning because I didn’t know what else to do. I can’t be with someone who treats me like nothing as soon as his friends are around—I already went through it with The Man and once was too much.

But I didn’t WANT to break up. I wanted him to show that he cared, to somehow assure me that I wouldn’t slip through the cracks again. I wanted to hear from him so badly today that I thought I’d explode, but there was nothing, and I spent most of the day crying and feeling like a failure.

The thing is, everybody, this is the second time I’ve been forgotten in the last couple of weeks. When Steampunk Guy and I were making plans for our most recent shenanigans, he sort of drifted off mid-planning, for days. I had to remind him to finish making a date with me. That hurt less because it’s less of a relationshippy situation.

But still, I’m having a hard time not freaking out about being forgettable. The calendar is my sun, moon, and stars and I would never forget ANYBODY, friend, lover, event or otherwise once they’re on there. Why can’t I find this in another person? Why do I consistently choose partners who don’t/can’t see me as part of their lives? Is there anything else out there for me besides having a hot but tiny role?

Mr. Sweetheart, if you get around to reading this, I hated being the negative part in what seemed like such a fun night. I absolutely fucking detest the idea of not having you in my life and I so wish that things had gone differently. But somewhere in me I need to find the belief that I deserve to not be forgotten.

Roadblock #2: Guys Might Be Ashamed of Me

***Friends, I’m having a very sad day for reasons that I’m not ready to write about yet. They’re only peripherally related to the topic of this post, but it’s hard right now to even feel confident enough to write about the things that keep me from being confident. Still, aside from putting the telephone down the garbage disposal, writing is the best thing I can think of to do. ***

About a year ago at a conference, I was sharing in some group or other and mentioned that I’m a sex blogger. An adorable teenage queer person came up to me after the group and asked “So, you write about fat culture?” I was mystified before I got furious—I rarely think of myself as a fat girl and certainly wouldn’t have thought to write about it. My response was cordial but indignant.

Back when I was dating (or whatevering) Bill, I wasn’t familiar with the norms of casual sex and kept trying to get him to go on real dates with me instead of just showing up in my living room weekly. He made every excuse. For a while I bought that he was too broke for dates but I knew he was going out with his friends, so I got it in my head that he didn’t want his friends to see me. When he finally and un-auspiciously announced that we were never going to goth night together (Goth night was kind of a stand-in for a playspace, before I knew about play parties.) I never had the courage to ask why but I took it to heart that he was ashamed of me and didn’t want his friends to see him with me. He’d made very minor (so minor as to have been possibly nonexistent) fat-themed comments, but I felt like what he was telling me in not wanting to date was that I was too fat and ugly for him, even as he was quite grizzled and (yummily) bear-shaped himself.

Maybe because it brought back the Bill feelings, but part of what made me cry on my date (again, or whatever) with Steampunk Guy was when he said (Citing time constraints) he wouldn’t go to the nude beach with me unless Steampunk Girl was there, or maybe the two of them would just run into us at one of the upcoming gatherings. He’s (understandably, maybe) hesitant about playing with me in public, too. There are many possible explanations, but a question bubbled up in the aftermath of that conversation, one that I’m really hesitant to type: “What if he’s embarrassed of me? What if I’m too fat?”

To ask that question in connection with the nude beach, where I always feel so happy and loved and perfectly myself, seems like a terrible sin but I have to confront it—do these guys only want casual sex because they see me as unattractive, or does casual sex just make me feel fat? Or both?

All the way down to my heart, I love my body. My hips and belly are all smushy and my ass is round and of documented spankability. My boobs are round and plush, my nipples are huge and pink and blessedly sensitive. As a series of vacation-day selfies proved to me last week, my pussy is adorable. My arms are long and toned in places and I easily get a golden tan. My eyes are big and blue and my smile is endless and sincere. On a good day, I know I am beautiful.

But I also know that a body like this wouldn’t make every guy proud. There’s absolutely nothing about me that is small or delicate, except for my adorable sneezes. I’m taller than most girls and I do wear size 18 jeans. While I don’t worry about my size on a day-to-day basis, I have resolved to lose the same 40 pounds for the past however many New Yearses. I have an ambivalent relationship with weight loss, complicated by a desire to be loved exactly as I am and a hedonistic resistance to not eating whatever the hell I want to.

A friend of mine recently dropped a whole bunch of pounds, but to me she was the same perfect little adorable angel before and after. I was hanging out with her a few nights ago when I guy came over to say “You look great before but you look so much healthier now.” His saying that to her made me want to a. Give up on men entirely and b. punch him in the face. How in the fucking world would he know whether she was healthier or not and who in the world was he to tell her she was better this way?

A favorite aunt of mine used to tell me that fat is “jerk repellant” but it certainly hasn’t worked out that way for me. I’ve often wondered what makes people treat me with less respect than they do others, what makes guys forget I’m there or treat me as much less valuable that other partners or potential partners. I don’t want to think it comes down to how I look, but sometimes I wonder.

I wonder if, in some guys’ eyes, fat might mean I’m fuckable but not lovable, at least not take-outable. Even as I get in better shape, shrink down, and start wriggling into cute lingerie, size-ism (Or perceived size-ism) makes me hesitant to put myself out there, lest the body that I genuinely love (at any size) be mistreated and/or rejected. Whether it’s true or not it is certainly unhelpful, but hopefully naming the fear will take away some of its power. I want the confidence to know that I am beautiful and worthy and the self respect to just go ahead and reject anyone who doesn’t treat me that way.

Roadblock #1: Mom Was a Harpy, Dad Was Kind of a Rapist

Now that I’ve ended up crying on three separate second dates, I think it’s time to look more in depth at the things that keep me from feeling the base-level confidence that other women carry into their sex lives with men. I want to excavate and exorcize the ideas and images that sometimes hold me back from wholeheartedly and trustingly enjoying men in general and PIV sex in particular. I feel a little apologetic about this line of thought since I’d rather just be writing hotness, but hopefully self-examination will lead to more hotness.

My parents fought loudly and constantly on every topic. One night on a long car ride home, I woke to hear them having a way-too-intense discussion on the subject of the Designated Hitter Rule. They fought every year on the day we went to get the Christmas tree. They fought when my friends were sleeping over. But on no subject were they as loud, articulate and traumatic than as they were on the topic of sex.

Before I even really knew what sex WAS, I knew what it sounded like to be a woman who was deeply and bitterly frustrated by her sex life. I believe that my mom had the same hotpants tendencies that I have, but she hated that desire and never found a way to enjoy it or take ownership of it. In recent ill-fated discussions of my sex life, she’s suggested that I just ignore and wait out my attraction to men, with the bone-chilling advice that once I reach menopause, I just won’t care anymore. This does not make me feel less urgent.

As a kid, I was awoken many nights by her screaming indignantly about his inability to get her off. That this was my introduction to the concept of the orgasm makes it seem miraculous that I ever would’ve gotten so good at them. From the fights it seemed like his desire was lower than hers, too—some of the fights started by her trying to initiate something (“I got ready” she’d say, meaning she’d put in her diaphragm, which usually resided on the side of the family bathtub, a monument to her complete lack of boundaries.) only to be rejected. And then they fought, about how ineffectual he was, about how he didn’t love or want her. Because the fights often turned violent, I developed a hypervigilance and protectiveness toward her, even though she ran me down as constantly as she picked at him. (And, in fairness, he treated me with the same emotional distance and rejection as he did her.)

I was probably ten when I was being forced to have this over-awareness of their sex-life, and one night in particular stands out. I’ve talked about it a little here before but I think I need to go into it a little more deeply.

I awoke to hear them having sex. I guess she pulled away midsex because she said, in the most contemptuous voice possible “See? This is what it feels like when someone stops before you’re finished.” Her voice sounded so deeply spiteful and ugly, but in no way did it excuse what happened next.

There were sounds of struggle and she said “NO! NO! Stop! (his name)!”

I knew something really bad was happening and so I started to cry as loudly as I could. The struggling sounds stopped and she said “See, now you’ve made (my name) cry.”

The fight boiled down but the damage was done and I was somehow creepily part of it.

I asked her about this incident during their divorce proceedings a few years later and she says he never raped her. Given my own complicated relationship with sex and struggle I could see how she might see that as true, but I know that after that night, part of me gave up on the world. It seemed too dark and hopeless, and there seemed to be too much threat and danger, especially in male-female partnerships.

Part of me has trouble not identifying with my mother, with the anger and ugliness of her unmet desires, or rather the ugliness of how she blamed everyone for them including me. It’s hard not to feel guilty for loving my dad, given his general abusiveness and the callous brutishness and selfishness of his response to her bad games. It’s been such a long struggle to mentally separate my own sex experiences from those of my parents. It’s hard to see my own urgency as normal and natural, to see men as the sensitive caring humans they most assuredly are, to see PIV sex as something that isn’t inherently humiliation. Even after all these years and all these adventures, I still have to learn that I am not bad for wanting it.

I am so ashamed of that night, for being part of it, part of them. I’m ashamed for the times I’ve been like her and treated partners in less-than-humane ways, for being like him and acting selfish and callow sometimes.

But it’s way past time to realize that I’m not them. Like her, I was born more desirous and aggressive than a woman is expected to be, but I’ve tried to make myself responsible for my own satisfaction. It’s not really me who feels guilty for wanting to climb all over men, it’s my mother, and I am not my mother. I have the advantage of having been born in a more liberated era, and while I am proud of trying to make the most of the tools and advantages I have, I feel compassion for her sex drive being thwarted and unloved for a great deal of her adult life. It doubles my commitment to loving it in myself.

I’m not sure how I’ve lived all these years with a rapist for a dad, how I’ve spent all these years loving him. In that one moment of desperation, hate, and anger he squashed a beautiful part of me that has been so, so hard to get back—the belief that sex with a man can be loving, or fun, or empowering or even (gasp!) all of the above. It’s hard to trust that if I say what I need, I won’t be punished for it.  It’s hard to believe that I am not as dark and broken and unlovable as that memory. That’s what I’m working on here, and I’m so grateful to have the chance.

Bonus Song of the Week, Just Because...

Song/Resolution of the Week: Ask!

Though it should say, "Ask me and trust me to say no if I don't want to do it and then thank me for taking care of myself."

A Gold Star in Getting-My-Ass-Beaten

It’s time to sing the praises of Friends Who’ll Hit Me With Stuff, and also to get more of them. Yes, I want romance, I want to be adored and rabidly pursued, I want to have a Dom who’s at the party for the sole purpose of yanking my hair around, but until Boyfriend Guy comes along and/or I’m in a playspace with Mr. Sweetheart, it’s helpful to just get on with my life and appreciate a good walloping for its own sake.

Saturday night was everything I’d hoped it would be: I played with Sweetie, hugged friends, I stood around in Wonder Woman posture with my ropes on feeling invincible. But something was missing. My scenes with Sweetie are always wonderful, but they are about feeling quiet, all princessy and soft and snoozy with my ass in the air and my hair draped over the edge of the kneeler. I enjoyed it but when we were finished I needed something louder, meaner, dirtier. I don’t think I’ve ever come out and said this before, but I needed a sadist.

The only guy there who I knew and trusted enough to play with was Old Timey Guy and I wasn’t sure if he would have time to fit me in. As always, I loved watching him play with Punk Rock Girl, and when they were done, he was in social butterfly mode, which I always feel reluctant to interrupt. I didn’t want to pester him but Sweetie was all “Just ask him! Tell him specifically that you need to be flogged.”

He was talking a couple through what looked to be their first flogging scene—his face was all lit up from the joy of being teacherly and he was covered in sweat from his own scene. When I got a chance to ask him, I asked him:

“Can I be the next thing that you do?”

He laughed and gave me some little spanks and then flitted off to do some more stuff.

“You weren’t specific enough.” said Sweetie. (Sweetie’s never met Steampunk Guy, but they seem to be in a conspiracy to make me a braver asker. Begrudgingly I’m grateful.)

After assisting him with giving a new girl a shrink wrap corset (I love that he sees a shrink-wrap gun and thinks “Let’s do this to people!”) I was sad to see that he went over to clear his stuff off the cross he’d been using earlier. At that point I indulged in some fairly unnecessary pouting until he said:

“Just because I don’t have a cross doesn’t mean I can’t flog you. Ohlook! Here’s a chair! straddle it!”

The few other times I’ve played with Old-Timey Guy, Punk Rock Girl was a big part of the pleasure of it—she’d egg him on and help me get into my shackles—so I was sad that she’d gone home early but was still so excited to play.

Sweetie was sitting only a few feet away and I wondered if I should send her to the bar or something so she wouldn’t get jealous or worry, but she seemed excited to watch me be all ridiculous so I kept her near.

Anyway, back to me, in ropes, little purple lace pajama bottoms, and of course my Hello Kitty nipple tape, straddling and red and black banquet chair. He lewdly pressed himself against my back, growling just a little. He ran his hand gently through my hair and as soon as I was all purry-relaxed YANKED UP on the crotch rope with its knots in the right places so that I let out an “Eeek!” and a tumble of laughter. Though we’ve only known each other about a year, it was like hanging out with an old pal. A really nicely filthy old pal.

I put my head down on the back of the chair and he took out a really scary-looking switch—long, skinny, hard with a tiny little tab on the end. I got scared because I usually go for thuddy rather than stingy, and I knew this would sting like a motherfucker. He ran it over my back, across my neck, back and forth on my wet crotch, right where it counts. He yanked me up by my ropes and thwacked, making me wiggly, hot, and screamy. I yowled and he said

“I told you of it hurt too much you had to give me jazz hands!”

“And I didn’t give you jazz hands!”

There’s one toy in his kit that I kind of think of as mine, even though it isn’t. He bought it (and hit me with it) the day I met him and it’s appeared in this story before-a pretty little cane with a blue ceramic star on the end.

“You’re the only one who gets happy when I take this out.”

“Ican’thelpitIjustloveit!”

As before, he tried to leave a star-shaped mark, hitting lightly and counting down to the hard smack, then trying to surprise me on the other cheek. It equally fucking hurt both ways. The cuteness of the star sure doesn’t stop it from stinging the bejeezus out of me, it hurts so badly and I just love yelling about it. I should probably stop trying to say that I’m not a masochist.

He flogged me like I’d asked. It felt good on my back but he wasn’t quite getting the right angle on my bum—I switched to kneeling on the chair with my hands on the back of it. He spanked me so hard that I started to scream-laugh, loving the heck out of the sound of my own voice. There’s such a happy release in those screams, letting them out to be themselves in front of everyone. It’s not exaggerating to say it makes my heart leap.

“That’s what you get!” said Sweetie.

Yes! Yay! It’s what I get.

Next came a paddle. By then a friend of mine had come over near us to get her aftercare, and I apologized for hollering so close to her face, but she seemed perfectly happy and joined in the handful of onlookers cheering us on.

He asked what else I wanted and I asked for the big strap, my very favorite. First he put it around me and pulled me against him, wiggling against my back in such a nice lascivious way. He tried to put it around my neck, which, forget it. Other than getting smacked with the strap, the best was when he wrapped it around my wrists, held my hands in the air in front of me, and tickled my underpins so I’d shriek and squirm and laugh. Don’t know why he’s the only one I like tickles from, probably because he brings out the little bit of little in me.

After the strap came the soft little flogger that he has just because it won’t leave marks on boobs. It was actually kinda fun. I’d tell Steampunk Guy to make note of this, but he only reads the posts that he stars in.

Speaking of Steampunk Guy, I had to mentally high-five him for the amount of fun I was having. He tends to (vexingly) make me ask a whole bunch of times for stuff—I’ve almost learned to stop seeing shame in pursuing what I want, even if I have to ask more than once. This seems like a good step, so thanks pal-who’s-not-reading-this…

Once the scene was done, I pulled Old-Timey Guy into a sweaty hug, thanked him profusely, put my aftercare pajamas on over my ropes, and walked out of there feeling like Wonder Woman. Remember, this was a place I was afraid I could never go back to! There’s just nothing like going home knowing that I’ve gotten myself what I wanted.