Tag: Sex

Lust, Pornography, and Christiananity

HeligKo
Jesus is Watching You (and adult videos)

Well this isn’t so much a personal story as it is a commentary based on personal observation and experience. If you haven’t noticed reading my blog, I don’t use a lot of facts and figures. This is about what I observe in the world. I work in a world of facts and figures and statistics. I don’t want to write about them. Other people cover those things quite well. This is one of those posts that people will wonder about the facts and figures. I say go find them. I don’t have them. I am not sure I believe the ones I have read, because of the nature of the questioning that would have to occur to get the results. As with so many things revolving around sex, we really can’t get to the heart of the matter, because of the many taboos even in conversation that exist.

I am going to start with lust. Lust is one of those words in the Christian world that gets thrown around a lot. It is always used to shame men. I won’t argue this, I have sat in the pews of too many sermons that are on the topic of lust. None of them have ever dealt with it in any way that is not shaming men. Its an easy target. Men want women’s body’s to be theirs to enjoy. Its a part of how we were built. God made us with a desire for women. The unfairness to this is women lust after men too. Its not completely based on body, but it is a part of the equation. Women like the bad boys who set their own rules. I rarely hear women chastised for this lust of theirs. We use this word lust, but what does it mean. http://dictionary.com gives us this definition”

lust? ?[luhst]
noun
1. intense sexual desire or appetite.
2. uncontrolled or illicit sexual desire or appetite; lecherousness.
3. a passionate or overmastering desire or craving (usually followed by for ): a lust for power.
4. ardent enthusiasm; zest; relish: an enviable lust for life.
5. Obsolete .
     a. pleasure or delight.
     b. desire; inclination; wish.

Notice something in that definition. There is nothing about looks. The verse that is referred to uses the word look, but lust is not about looking. Its about desire and appetite or craving. So women lust after men all the time. Women get horny. Women desire men sexually. Its just not based on something they always see. It might be wealth, power, prestige, or beauty. Women are not immune to lust. This is the verse used to go after men.

Matthew 5:28
New International Version (NIV)
“But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”

The context of this verse in Matthew 5 is Jesus calling out the judgmental people who sit back and do all the right things that they too are just as guilty as the ones who committed these acts. He is saying to the overly religious that if you want to judge the adulterer, then you tomust judge yourself, for what man has never looked upon a woman lustfully. He is speaking about the spiritual ramifications of these things. He is saying that for your spiritual well being you are no better off thinking about carnal acts with women who are not your wife than you are if you do the carnal acts. I would say that the core of this message is that no man is deserving of the saving grace of Jesus, and that being said we can do better. To do better we must stop worrying about our neighbor’s failings and start worrying about our own, for no man knows what is on my heart but myself. A verse rarely used for lust, but one that is used to attack homosexuality is this.

Romans 1:26
New International Version (NIV)
“Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones.”

I am not going to say anything about homosexuality. If you are a Christian then you are answerable to God on that issue not me. Verse 27 is the verse that is used for this. I have left it off on purpose. The word lust is clearly used in relationship to sex and women. Not only that, but its used in way that is derogatory towards their actions. I think the point can be made that women have lusts that are not Holy in nature. The Church needs to stop presenting this issue as a male only issue. One of the things that gets thrown at men in sermons is this lust, and as a side note women are told to be dressed provocatively is inadvisable and not very nice, but men you are still supposed to have it under control. The women’s dress is treated as cultural phenomena that women should think about, but has no spiritual consequence. There may be some truth to this assessment when you are talking about little girls, but you will notice that women will dress to show off the parts of their body that they know have men’s attention. For some women this is cleavage, and for others it is their legs, and for others it may be their stomachs. They are knowingly showing off parts of their body for the purpose of gaining male attention. Not just any male attention, but male sexual attention. These women lust for male sexual attention.

Pornography consumption is merely more of the same. Men and women watch pornography to fantasize about sex. They lust for what is being done on screen. There is an addictive nature to it, because of the chemical releases in the brain. I would venture to say that all lust has an addictive nature to it for the same reason. It is in the modern era that you can see porn without shame from society, so it becomes more prevalent. In the past to sit around and stare at women was a juvenile thing. If a woman was to look up at you staring at her while she was at the beach or pool, you would be chastised or she would move. Watching other people have sex is not something most people are invited to do, so again there is no historical corollary that really applies to be able to watch a couple of actors put on sex show in the privacy of your home. It is a kind of supercharged lust. The act of lust tends to kick endorphins into your system, and pornography gives you almost unlimited means to do get that release of endorphins. The closest anyone probably got to this in Jesus’ era was the temple prostitutes or orgies, but these things of course required participation.

I blame the Church for so much of the damaged sexual relations in Christian marriages. The Church has painted a picture of men being predators and uncontrollable lust monsters while women were pure and virginal(even when they weren’t) lustless creatures. Women were warned to watch out for the men. The men only wanted one thing mentality. Here is one of proverbs warnings against adultery.

Proverbs 5:1-6
New International Version (NIV)
Warning Against Adultery

5 My son, pay attention to my wisdom,
    turn your ear to my words of insight,
2 that you may maintain discretion
    and your lips may preserve knowledge.
3 For the lips of the adulterous woman drip honey,
    and her speech is smoother than oil;
4 but in the end she is bitter as gall,
    sharp as a double-edged sword.
5 Her feet go down to death;
    her steps lead straight to the grave.
6 She gives no thought to the way of life;
    her paths wander aimlessly, but she does not know it.

To me this warning is clear. Men watch out. She will entice you. She will make you feel good, and she will drag you down to your death given a chance, and she will be none the wiser about what she is doing. There are plenty of verses that make it clear she is not absolved of her actions, so I won’t read into this that she is somehow innocent. The context of the Bible must be read as a whole. The problem here is the Church gives her a pass for her adultery all too often. It is blamed on the men. It is blamed on her husband’s failings, and on her lover’s charms. She was helpless to do anything about it. This is bunk, and everyone knows it.

Now lets get to my experience. I found that in my marriage, pornography was a problem. Not that I consumed it often or in large quantities, actually quite the contrary. Lust for other women and the temptation to just take a peek were there all the time, unless I was getting regular and quality sex. I only remember a very brief time in my marriage that happened. I think it was driven by some guilt on her part. I noticed right away that these temptations were almost completely absent during this time. As we separated I found that initially these temptations were huge. So was going out to pick up some woman just to have sex with. I gave in these temptations. I do not regret it. It has given me an understanding of things that I would not have had before. The absolutely carnal sex of pornography and casual sex was addictive in nature. I craved the endorphin rush, and the I craved the adrenaline rush of the chase. So what changed. I met Sarah. She was very sexual, but this was hardly casual. This was albeit short lived, a relationship. She was a person, not a body. She met other needs I had, and had needs I met. For me the sex was incredible. I had never had regular, healthy sex in a relationship, since high school. I know many will say sex out of wedlock is not healthy and spiritually speaking they would be correct, but psychologically speaking the definition expands some. Here is the kicker. I desire the healthy(or healthier) sex to the other stuff. I have not been tempted to go seek out the sex of pornography or one night stands after we split up.

Sarah never used sex as power. We had great sex up unto the day before she decided to move on. Sex as power in the relationship is at the core of what the Church teaches women. They are taught that there is no consequence to their actions sexually. They are taught that it is not their fault. Men are to get in line and do things right, and if they do, then their wife will desire them. There is the power play. The wife can say that he isn’t doing this spiritual thing or that spiritual thing right, and that is why they don’t desire their husband or worse strayed to another man. Of course if it were some womanly spiritual discernment that made them not desire their husband, then that same discernment should have told them that the man they were fucking on the side was in it just for the sex. Christian women hold men hostage with sex. I know women in the culture at large do this as well, but it is far worse in the Christian world, because the men will stay with these women because of their faith, and be tormented by their failure as a Christian husband.

I think that if the Church were to spend less time talking about lust and sexual purity, and more time about truly healthy relationships. If the Church taught Biblical truth about love, marriage, and leadership, things would be better. If the Church took the time to worry about spiritual successes rather than failures in its teaching, then men and women would strive to reach those heights. Too often people will look at the failures that are being talked about, and look around and see a sea of people who are doing worse, and decide that the teaching isn’t for them. I think that all too often the Church in focusing on the sins of men and women, they put the ideas into their head to become distracted by. How many people chose to look at pornography out of curiosity. To see what all the fuss was about. Those images are stuck there, and won’t go away. What if the Church stood up and said wives it is your duty to sexually please your husband? What if, instead of telling men to keep their lusts in check, they said husbands it is your duty to direct your sexual desires on your wife often? What if?

Ten-Foured,

JeD

An Angry Day

HeligKo
Fell On Black Days

Today I was angry. Angry about everything. I yelled and cried a lot. I was home sick, and it just came over me. I am angry that my life will not turn out like I planned. It can’t. I have been robbed of that opportunity. There is no hope for me growing old with my wife and looking back at the family we created together. Its not going to happen. Our kids will visit each of us separately to show off the grand kids. If they are lucky, they will have a spouse who truly believes in marriage, but in this world that is unlikely to happen.

So the biggest thing that I was angry about is how my wife discarded our marriage. Not just when she left me, but when she cheated. She made my a cuckold in my marriage. Maybe not completely, but effectively. I had to beg for sex, and it was still withheld more often than not. She disgusts me, because she was never honest with me. She was never in love with me. I was just a man who met her needs at the time. She may have been wrapped up into the marriage to deep to just run when she was done, but she was never invested in me. The marriage didn’t work, because one of us wasn’t present. I was accused of being that someone multiple times, but I can say that other than a brief time towards the end, I was fully present and lonely.

I was angry that as a result of that marriage, I am now single. I will likely remain single. The odds of me meeting the woman that will take on a man that has four kids and won’t have any more is small. I won’t have the time to to look for her. I have the kids. I won’t have the finances for years to do it either. It will be almost five years before I have my debt paid for. It will be over 10 years before my kids are grown. The only thing I would want a woman for at that time is to not be alone. I sure hope by then, I do better at being alone.

I was mad at God or the Church or both. I was mad that because of what I was taught, I felt trapped in a marriage where my wife didn’t care for me. Where she violated the vows multiple times. On the surface, I knew I could walk, but the lessons drilled into me over the years told me I was a better man than that, and could forgive her. The same people told her that it was my fault she cheated, that it was my fault she was unhappy, and that God did not want her to be unhappy. She got the excuses, while I got the responsibilities.

I was mad that sex in marriage sucked in every way. That sex since marriage has not sucked. I want sex. I have to move past feeling that I need sex, but I want it. I can’t ignore that, and won’t ever be in a situation where the woman I am with does not provide sex.

I have to accept that I will likely spend most of the rest of my life alone. I will not have a woman to share life’s experiences with. Girlfriends are likely to be far and few between. I don’t like it, but it is something I will have to come to terms with, and soon.

Ten-Foured,

JeD

Reading Between the Lines

HeligKo
Reading Between The Lines

I tend to over analyze life. I also get stuck because of that. I need to process things, but I also need to get past them. This blog helps me get past them. I put in writing what I am thinking. In a way, it allows me to put certain things to rest. The relationship with Sarah was short, and when you consider that there was a period where we were both out of town that made it almost impossible to see each other just before the end, it was even shorter. I tend to go all in when I am interested in someone, so I over commit my heart. This something that I understand now. I am not going to change it, but I am aware like I never have been before all this mess started with my wife. I won’t allow that to steer me into bad decisions. Its a balance that I am learning. Don’t fundamentally change, but also don’t be stupid.

Early when Sarah and I started to date, she had the epiphany that I wasn’t as far along in the divorce process as she had thought. I hadn’t misled her, but she had made some assumptions that weren’t accurate. From that day forward, she kept saying things along the lines of, “I think we may move at different paces, I don’t know how that is going to work.” She would ask why I hadn’t moved forward with the divorce. At first I thought it was a case of her doubting I was actually finished with my marriage. I am not sure that is what was going on at all. She also would make comments about not being able to move forward while I was still married. I didn’t really know what she was talking about there.

As for the first point of moving at different paces, I think she is somewhat right. She saw a guy that she liked, and wanted the it all when she wanted it. The problem is that guy had stuff that prevented here from setting the time table, and that guy wasn’t jumping through hoops for her. I am no woman’s prince. I have tried before, and all that happens is immense frustration on my part and on hers. I also have a say in things. The mistake I made was I did make it sound like I could and would have the divorce filed and closed during the summer and all that would be left is the waiting period of 60 days. I could have done this, but it didn’t work out that was in my best interest. My wife and I have a house that hasn’t sold, and is going into foreclosure. That house being off the books will make things much easier for us to deal with things.

I think we also had very different ideas of what moving the relationship forward meant. I was interested in the deeper connection of getting to know each other, and investing in each other emotionally and in our time. This was not hindered in anyway by my still being married by separated for more than a year. She seemed to be thinking about the social and cultural ramifications of me still being married. I suspect her family ran he through the ringer for dating a married man on her vacation. I also think that she worried how some would react if they knew that I was still married and we were moving on with a serious relationship. I doubt it would have been a problem, but it is something to worry about I suppose. I think she may have also been worried about our kids being confused if they met either of us and I wasn’t divorced yet. Again, I don’t think this is a large issue. My kids tell everyone we are divorced, even though we are not yet, and they know it. Its just easier to explain.

When I was talking to her about moving to the neighboring state, as much because I might need a hardship drivers license for a while as anything, and my state doesn’t offer one of those. She became really defensive that she was tied to where she lived. Its struck me as an odd reaction at the time. It was just before she ended things. I think I understand it now. For us to move forward in her mind, I needed to be available to move in with her at some time. She had voiced that she wasn’t sure she wanted to be married again, but that didn’t mean she was out on domestic relations that resembled marriage. If this was the case, then she hadn’t read me right to begin with. I was not going to subject my kids to moving in with someone for a long time. I would need to know that it was a fairly permanent affair before I considered it, and I am not sure that I would do so at all. I think my kids need their own place and space. Her house would always have been hers and her kids first. It would be unavoidable for my kids to not sense that.

We had a debate the week before she ended things. It was around the nature of morality being imposed on men, and sometimes women, by the family courts. I had said that child support in some form was a moral obligation that should not be enforced by the state in any way. She kept referring to the courts as being useful tools when you had men who weren’t good and wouldn’t support their families. I said they should be allowed to walk. There was no good coming from forced child support. The good men take care of their kids. The bad ones avoid it. The blunt instrument of the law tends to catch the fairly good ones who can’t meet the state mandated obligations. The jail time costs more than the money owed in most cases, and that it would be more cost effective to allow these women to fall into the welfare system than to throw these men into what amounted to a debtors prison. She also didn’t understand that I was arguing for her as well. Under the new child support guidelines, her ex-husband could file a for a change in the parenting language that show that he is in a shared custody situation and then child support would not be calculated towards that custodial parent, but under the new guidelines the parent who earns less would receive the support from the other. He earning less than her, would probably receive most of the same amount he is paying her now from her.

I think as progressive as she was in her individual views, she wasn’t near as such in her political views. She let her husband pay far less in support than would have been required. She understands that her choice to pursue divorce affects the people she dates. She just isn’t ready to start applying that thinking to her views on the system. She was a good, smart lady. I enjoyed my time with her, and for the first time ever, I really hope that we remain friends after a cooling off period. Who knows? The sexual tension might be too much. She was the best lover I have had. I don’t know if I measured similarly to her, but I do know that she pleased. Time will tell.

Ten-Foured,

JeD

Heart Break/Summer Fling

HeligKo
broken heart

I met the woman just before the kids were out of school. We dated for about three months, and they were some of the most exhilarating in a long time. Her name was Sarah. We went out the first time, and met at a bar in a trendy part of town. We had met online, so it was a little awkward the first time we saw each other, but that quickly passed. We had some appetizers and talked for a while. We then went to a show at a little theater in the area. We had planned this ahead of time. The play was a bit cheesy. We figured it would either be good or so bad it was funny. It had moments of both. During the show she was graceful elegant and beautiful to watch. She stayed in physical contact with me throughout the show. When the show was over, we returned to the bar, and had another drink. After we talked for a while, she leaned in, and said I am going to kiss you now, and did. I walked her back to her car, and we kissed more. We left in our own cars, and went to our own homes.

We both have kids, so we worked around each other’s schedules to sneak in an evening here and there where we would sit outside and talk and kiss more. I put off sex with her for a couple weeks. When we had sex, it was an all night long affair. We were in bed all morning the next day. I have never had sex so long and often in one day in my life. It was an emotional experience in a way that I hadn’t experienced sex before. It raised the bar for what my expectations are from a sexual relationship. I do believe that a big part of this was me throwing off the shackles of religious sexual oppression. As a Christian sex always seemed a little dirty. I haven’t tossed all my beliefs, but I just can’t buy the teaching of the church when it comes to sex anymore. My marriage was miserable, especially regarding sex. During this time together, I told her that my time table for filing for divorce was during the summer. The summer slipped away from me, and not all the pieces were in place for me to divorce as I would like. It was going to take a little longer. Among other things, the house deal had fallen apart yet again.

Over the month and a half we became very close. We met a mutual friend one night for karaoke and that was the night I got arrested for a DUI. My sister picked me up early in the morning, and I slept on her couch for a while. Sarah picked me up at the my sisters house and took me home. She took the day off, and we spent the day in my bed. The words she said to me and the way she made me feel, made the problem not seem so big. The results of that DUI have not been determined. I am sure that I will have some form of diversion that will suck, but won’t be that hard to deal with. The hard part will be my license will likely be suspended for some amount of time. I don’t know how long that will be. With four kids and my STBEW having moved farther away again, I don’t know how I deal with that. Sadly, I will probably have to drive illegally to live my life for maybe as long as a year. I will pay much higher insurance rates, and may never be allowed to enter Canada because of this one night. I don’t understand the law on this. I have a perfect driving record for most of the almost 25 years I have driven. I didn’t cause anyone harm, but I will punished in the most extreme way by an administrative court. There is no public transit in my area, so driving is a requirement for living a full life. The week this happened I had just found out my dad probably had another round of brain tumors, my neighboring duplex unit had burned, and I had found out my sister almost lost her house. I didn’t drink to forget these things, but relaxed too much while I was out. Sarah left before I did. I should have left when she left.

Sarah went on vacation with her extended family. Part of the trip was putting her father’s ashes to rest in the Grand Canyon, a favorite place of her father. Communication was weird during her trip, but that was somewhat to be expected. She was hiking and travelling. She was bothered by it though. We saw each other for a night when she returned. We went to my high school reunion. It was a really fun night. We couldn’t stay together, because she had her kids, but we had some intimate time together.

The next day I left for vacation with my extended family. It was a good time, and during the trip Sarah and I communicated regularly. I was excited to get home to see here, while having a great time with my family. I had the kids the following week, because their mom as on a trip for that week. We talked during that time, and prepared for the following week where we each wouldn’t have kids.

That week was the week after my birthday. We had a good couple of nights. I couldn’t spend the night because her kids would be their in the morning, because it was still summer break and the kids were being watched at her house during that time. We then had a great weekend starting with a night out with a couple she is good friends with. I had to go do some things the next morning with my kids. We got back together for lunch and then went on a hike and then got some dinner. We had another great evening together. After we fell asleep, I woke up and looked over to see her sleeping on the edge of the bed. I was reminded of how my wife would do that when she was mad. I remembered a few comments that Sarah had made over the week, and combined that with the fact she had not been sleeping well since she left for vacation to determine that something was not good.

Sunday we didn’t talk after I left. She got her kids back. I knew she was stressing over my situation with the divorce. I suspect the DUI bothered her more than she said, and her dad. She had told me how her dad had played a role in her marriage and in its demise. Her father died in a car accident, so it was a surprise. I played some soccer for the first time in weeks. I texted her to say good night when I was done. I didn’t hear anything from her next day until late afternoon. She asked if she could come see me before her baby sitter had to go home. I said sure knowing that it was going to be not good. She told me then that she wasn’t sure she could handle the way I make decisions, and that she didn’t want to grow to not like me. We talked for a while about things in general. I didn’t try to change her mind.

A couple days later after stewing about things for a while, I decided to write her a letter. Some might call it a love letter. It didn’t ask for her to come back, or tell her why she was wrong. I simply told her the impact that she has had on my life, and that if over time we could become friends, as hard as that can be, then I would like that. I felt good about the letter. After I sent it, I of course had the thoughts of what did I just tell her. What would it say. Would it make me look weak, or would it convey what I intended. I intended for it to tell her that I had grown to lover her, and would miss her. That she wasn’t just another girl in my life, but one of the memorable ones. I generally go with my heart on these things. I don’t like to leave things unsaid. Good or bad. I appreciate that she didn’t wait until things were bad, and she didn’t like me anymore.

As I have spent the last week thinking about this more. I wonder what was unsaid by her? What was going on in her head? And, how could I have drawn that out of her? I know that I should not have led her to believe that it was a done deal that I would have the divorce filed and nearly completed by the end of the summer. Summer is too unpredictable to make those kind of plans, especially when I am doing the work myself. She kept telling me “I am counting on you,” and “I need you to come through for me.” I took these statements lightly. I think I was missing some meaning behind them. It could be as extreme as she had decided she wanted to marry, or that simply that she felt like I needed to do this for her. She had said multiple times that wasn’t the case, but I may have missed the code words. I think she was emotionally messed up from her father and facing those demons again, and that she wasn’t willing to talk about it. All that added to the stresses of my life right now was too much for her. I may never know, and that always drives me nuts, but such is life.

Right now, I will look for dates again. I am pickier than when I met her. She did raise the bar for me. I am less willing to settle, and feel like that is okay. If she decided to come back in the next couple weeks, I would probably take her. It would require a big talk, and I would have to feel like I have gotten complete answers to some of my questions. She would also have to face me telling her some of the story of my marriage, because without knowing it, I don’t think she can understand why I am so cautious as I proceed with my divorce. She also believes that I am naive in believing that I have emotionally handled the ramifications of divorce, and am not going to be surprised by the finality of it. What she doesn’t understand is that as the man who was told that the divorce was coming, I had to face the loss and changes that were unexpected earlier than the person choosing the course. They have an image of how things will be as they head towards divorce, and its not until the end they realize there is another person making decisions and changing the course of events. They don’t realize that the loss of another’s love hurts, even after you have withdrawn your love from them already. This is why so many women in divorces they asked for become nasty at the end. The reality of their choices smacks them in the face.

Ten-Foured,

JeD

Flipped It, and Some new Epiphanies

HeligKo
Flipped His Lid

A couple of weeks ago I went to a friends birthday party. This is a man I have worked with for most of the last 12 years. There was a break in the middle, but we still hung out from time to time. We enjoy working together, hanging out, and arguing aggressively. I was talking with his wife, and she told me that my wife had called about the party a couple of days earlier. These are friends that we both spent time with. She was complaining that she couldn’t go to the party, because I would be there. She was told it was fine, that there would be enough people there that it wouldn’t matter, and that was true. Then my wife complained further that I was bringing a guest. His wife again, said so what if he is, but I hadn’t told her that. She also asked what did she expect would happen when she left me. The conversation went on, and she told my friends wife that every time she sees me, I have hickies. Now I admit that this happened once early in the split, and I had a mark she accused me of having a hicky one other time, but it wasn’t. She said she didn’t care, but just wanted to know who it was, but again she didn’t care. Of course I didn’t bring anyone, why would I to a party of a friend who always had beautiful women around.

About a week later, I had dinner with these friends. They told me some things I didn’t know from when me and my wife were together. There was a time my wife was going out with some women who were actively destroying their marriages. I knew from a slip up in anger that my mom had confronted her about this. I did not know that my friend’s wife had as well. Well at the time I was carrying her water, and wanted to believe that she was there to keep her friends out of trouble, and besides she often would come home drunk, and we would fuck. Something that rarely happened during that time in our marriage, or anytime for that matter. She also told me that she remembered a conversation one morning they had. She had just finished sending her husband off to work, and had fixed him a special breakfast for no reason and packed his lunch. My wife complained that I never took my lunch, and she suggested that my wife pack my lunch. Her response was, “He can pack his own damn lunch.” My friend’s wife told her that she was destroying our marriage. Her lack of desire to serve me in any way, and continually complain about my actions while doing nothing to encourage me to behave differently was destructive. Now my actions do not encompass things that were destructive to the marriage, they were things like eating out at lunch most days. My friends wife also challenged her that instead of continually harassing me about getting a promotion, that perhaps my wife should go back to work as a skilled nurse, especially since she insisted on having a cleaning lady, the kids were all in school, and she didn’t really cook most of the time. That evening my eyes were opened to two things. First, I had good friends, better than I knew. They stuck up for me and the marriage I so wanted even without my knowing. Second, that my wife was never on a track of happiness in marriage. She didn’t understand that the test of marriage was to love the other person without needing reciprocation, and when their partner does the same, we grow as people and as a couple.

So how did I flip it on her. Well she was declaring by leaving that she believed that she outranked me in the relationship. That she was more desirable than I was, and she was. She was because she was on the market and she was married, and I was not on the market and was married. Once she moved out, she fell in the sex rank category, because she was now a single mom of four kids in her forties and not slim. I moved up, because I was on the market, in good shape, and a single dad of four kids. Strange how these things work, but I can find a woman pretty quick. With or without them knowing any of the details. My self esteem went up quickly, and with that women came to. She thought I would be alone all the time, and she would have the men she wanted. The truth is I have the women I want, when I want them, and short of some sex, the men aren’t there for her. I am excited about my future as I mourn the demise of the dream of being married once and forever to someone to grow old with. The truth is I never had that. She would never have been a woman that would have endured. I know because I have seen it, that its not a fairy tale, but it is a a fairly odd tale for a man and woman to live out their years growing closer and closer as their youth fades. At least in this day and age.

Ten-Foured,

JeD

What Is A Man To Do

HeligKo
London - Red Blue

The quandary is this, I love women. Every time I try to quit them, I make it a couple of weeks, and then I am thinking about them again. I like to touch, smell, and taste them. I like to talk to them. Women and men communicate differently. We all know this. The way a woman communicates with a man can be the best and the worst thing in the world. The flip side of this quandary is that as a man, there is not an equal playing ground anymore. There used to be a balance in relationships, but now women have most of the power. They can choose to do good or evil with it. This is why I don’t see another marriage in my future. Marriage is a very attractive thing to me. It is one of the few things I truly desired in life. Its not just what my wife is doing that has turned me against the idea of marriage, but what I see in the culture around us.

I have encountered in the last 6 months two women who are seeking husbands. One was actively doing it, and become way too clingy, and emotionally manipulative in the process. The final blow was her trying to use another man to make me jealous. I am in no position right now for any kind of real commitment, so this didn’t work. Another has accepted that the occasional encounter for dinner, a party, or just some sex is all I really have to offer right now. I know that she wants more, and she is using the sex to keep me around. I don’t mind, and she knows where I stand on things. She isn’t openly seeking a husband, but definitely wants something more. The other problem I have with these women is they aren’t really looking for someone to be a good husband. They want a Dad at their house when they have their kids. I am already a Dad to four kids. In the right circumstances, I might have it in me to be a father to more kids, but that isn’t on the plate right now.

The next problem I have is the women that are left that aren’t looking for these things are older women. I tend to be attracted to older women. Who am I kidding, I am attracted to attractive women. Age isn’t really a factor. Older women tend to be more predatory from what I have seen. They are better at playing the game, but they are also playing for different reasons. Some just want someone to hang out with, and enjoy some passionate times with them. Others are looking for status. This weekend, I did something I have never done. I went to a bar, and left with one of these women. I became really attracted to her as she told me bits of her story. I love stories. I was physically attracted to her as well. We kissed and talked for a couple of hours. It didn’t go any further. She was of course being elusive about her age. She said enough for me to figure out that she was more than ten years older than me. I was intoxicated by her. Who knows if she will accept my calls, or if anything comes of it. My only regret will be if she doesn’t call me, I won’t get to know her. Putting the cart before the horse can have that effect. She said enough that I want to hear the rest of her story. She had been married for 17 years to a man who died of skin cancer. She made it clear that she had never thought of a life without him, that she planned to be married forever. That man was a quite a bit older than her. I would guess that she is attracted to younger men now, because they won’t die on her. I don’t know if an older woman is in my future. I do know that some of the trappings of that is what hurt my marriage. I don’t want another mother in my life, but a woman like this is closer to my mother’s age than mine.

We live in interesting times. For the next 10 plus years, my focus will be raising my kids into adults. I don’t expect that I will keep many women around as they are pushed aside for my children a few too many times. I expect I will have lots of opportunity to explore the different types of women there are out there. I do need to find a couple I can trust to talk to, because that is something I valued from my wife when she listened. The problem was, I found she hardly ever listened.

So readers, as you can tell my whirlpool of emotions regarding women is going to change all the time. I don’t trust them. I want them. I need them. I can go my own way. Ultimately I think I will find one that will come to terms with all that I am feeling as my emotions level out on the subject. I have realized that society is not on my side, and women as a group are a disaster waiting to happen to most men, but that does not mean that the individual women is out to get me in every case. I will just have to wait until I meet one that we can come to the right terms with. If that never happens, then it will be with no regrets.

Ten-Foured,

JeD

What’s So Bad

HeligKo
73/365 - Snap snap

Sorry for the somewhat chaotic thoughts last night. I was tired and just needed to dump some of my thoughts. One of the points that I was trying to get at is that there is no separation of parties in a divorce with children. We will forever be linked by the children. While the children are minors we talk nearly daily. The conversations haven’t changed much that we have, but now they happen over the phone instead of face to face. My life is not that different now than it was before. I take care of my children. I see them almost every day, because there are four children, and she isn’t able to get them where they need to be and still hang out at the gym without my help. Again no big change here. When the kids are with me, I usually make it work without her help. I don’t want to deal with any complaints about her needing time for this or that. There were plenty of nights that this was true before. The changes in my life are that I seek out some friendships that I wasn’t able to maintain when we were together. She prevented me from having a social life. She still tries, but its harder for her to do this now. I now have sex pretty much whenever I desire it and have time for it. Not that I am going out to find some whorish woman at a bar. I have been surprised by the women who approached me after my separation started. Of course before our separation, I hadn’t had sex in over a year, because I was a married man, and I took vows that said I wouldn’t do that, even though she saw no need to live out that part of marriage with me. I may not be divorced yet, but we are not living as man and wife, and I won’t pretend that after her violating our vows multiple times to the point where she leaves me, I no longer will act like a married man. I am certain that I should have thrown her out long ago. I should have seen this day coming. I honored my vows to the detriment of my marriage. A paradox that remains unsolvable.

Now what was so bad. I went to work, and made good money. I loved my kids, and cared for them whenever I was with them. I loved my wife, even though she treated me with contempt most of our marriage. Aren’t these all things that should have made a marriage work. I was the protector of the family in many cases where I had to make a strong stand for their well being. So where did I go wrong? Why could I not keep my wife? I am not asking why would I want to keep my wife. There were few good reasons beyond the children left. Her contempt was disgusting and selfish. It was escalated to force me to leave her, and when that did not work her contempt grew, and she finally left. Raising the kids is harder now. Having time to myself is more abundant, but I have less control of when now, and so does she. Finances are harder now. Trusting is harder now. I expect that is true for her to. Not that I have broken trusts, but that her own ability to do so must make her distrust others, and expect that they too will handle the her trust in the same way. The thing I lost that hurts the most is the dream of growing old with someone, and sharing the good and bad times. This may sound ridiculous, but you have to understand I never disliked my wife, and she never showed that she disliked me. I would have been happy to be with someone forever, even if there was not one ounce of romance in the relationship. I know this might be strange, but it is true.

So the paradox is, I lost her because I kept her. With her very first breaking of the vows, I should have tossed her. At the time we had our boys as foster children. We had not adopted yet. We had a dog and a small house. We had very little debt, and it would have been easy. I believed the Christian propaganda that holding on to the marriage was valuable. The truth is holding on to a bad deal is not valuable, and it will end eventually. Sure I have my honor. I kept my vows, even when I had the chance to break them without being found out. That honor means nothing to me right now. I should have tossed her. The truth is that is the only way I could have kept her. You see I never made her value the marriage. I never made her understand the significance of her actions. I also failed to protect the pussy, and then was willing to accept it again without making her regret giving away what was mine. I had never been cheated on before. I had no idea how to handle it. I also wasn’t promiscuous, so the whole sexual value system was not in my mind. I was used to women wanting my attention, and not having to work hard for dates, but since sex was not what my end goal was, I really never thought about these things. So what I did is allow her to give up the goods to another man with little consequence. Ultimately this conveyed that she was not valued. It took ten years for that to destroy what we had. I don’t know that she would have tried to keep what we had if I had tossed her. That is precisely why I didn’t, but now I regret that decision. I will count it as wisdom learned to share with my sons and any other man I encounter who needs it.

My final thoughts come to this. Women if you value your marriage, don’t toss him if he cheats once. That is not the price that will make a man value you. As a matter of fact, do not punish him at all. Give him a pass fairly quickly, and show him that you value him with your increased attention. Not desperate, strings attached, please stay kind of attention, but the kind of attention that shows that you value him for his masculinity. That is the thing most men are seeking when they cheat. That is for time one. After that, if you take care of him and he continues to wander, give him the boot.

Ten-Foured,

JeD

Small Town Life

HeligKo
Town Square

We decided to move a few years later. She doesn’t seem to be able to settle for more than 4 years at a time. We bounced around churches in the same way. This has had a profoundly isolating effect on me. I have very few friends, and none of them are from after I got married. That is a terribly sad thing for me to have to admit. I have no new friends over the last 15 years. We moved to a small town just outside the city we live in. Little did I know that this would be the beginning of the end. I liked the idea. A close knit community would be a great place to have some connections that seemed to be missing from my life. We moved into a historic house that had plenty of space, and we found a church. Things were going well. She became president of the PTO, I joined the board for the local soccer club, and we helped start a ministry to high school students. This was what I had always wanted. So long as there was a mission to be accomplished she and I seemed pretty good. She still had issues around sex with me, but for a while it was better, but not for very long.

We developed some friendships quickly. As time went on, those friendships began to whither. Until recently I did not understand why. Her temper, and her attitude destroyed those relationships with other couples behind my back. I have also come to find out that many of those people are still watching out for me, and wanting to be my friend. They just don’t know how. As time has gone on, we have become more and more isolated. Our kids are involved in things back in the city, and our house has proven to be much more expensive than we had thought it would be. We are struggling financially because of the driving, eating out, and the house. She had demanded that she run the finances years ago, and I let her. Now she has thrown up her hands and handed the mess she has created to me. I was far too inattentive to this and now I will pay the price.

Our sexual intimacy dwindled to nothing. The only sex I got was obligatory, and it felt like it. After having sex I was sometimes sick to my stomach, because it was so obvious she didn’t want it, that I felt like I was doing something dirty. Understand this is sex she initiated, because I had given up initiating sex with her, because it always ended with being rejected in some harsh way.

She has always had an issue with the amount of things that I know. I am an avid reader, and am informed on a lot of topics. She got in the habit of calling bull shit on me in public. She generally wasn’t correct, but she obstinate, and set on convincing everyone around that I was just making things up, or that I was wrong, because some fine detail was off by some small margin. She seemed determined to make me small before everyone we encountered. My self esteem is a mess over this still. The process of writing this out is so that I can put this all to bed, and return to being the man that I had been before I sold my soul to marry this woman. I was on the fast track at my job, and it has just stalled. It is the cyclical results of she shot my esteem down with lack of respect, I begin to carry that into my work, and then I don’t get the promotions, which she then uses to remind me that I am really not that successful or smart, which then tears me down farther.

Although my reputation is strong in our little town, I have few friends. Small town life would have been great, but it is also where our marriage eroded, and I became more and more isolated.

Ten-Foured,

JeD

The Early Years

HeligKo
I remember him standing there like a break in the mist, or the shadow under old trees & I wish I had known then it is the place we cannot go that needs our touch most | 01162010

To understand how I ended up where I am, you have to understand that my wife constantly sought ways to make sure that I knew that my place was below her. I being young, stupid, and in love didn’t think much about it. One of the things that stood out early in our relationship, was the education gap, and the wage gap that came with it. I was extremely underpaid for the IT job I had at the time. I started the job as a part time gig, while I worked at becoming a paramedic. I decided somewhere along the way that I wouldn’t be a good human being if I had stayed on that course. The job became full time, and I accepted a salary that seemed OK to a single guy with a cheap apartment and no bills. After we were married for about a year, my wife agitated with the fact that if we had kids she would still have to make the largest share of the family income proposed that I go back to school full time, instead of this part time thing I was doing. It seemed like a good idea, and I readily credited her with giving me the kick in the pants I needed to get this done.

So we moved to a little college town, and bought our first house. She paid my way through school. I appreciated this, but she was always annoyed by it. She was never happy while I was in school. She put on a lot of weight, and become more and more demeaning to me. Sex was still an issue, and I had just decided that wasn’t going to be great, and I would get used to it. The problem was she continually rejected my approaches, but was not happy herself with our sex life. The problem as I see it is she was much more experienced than me, and didn’t respect me because of my age, and my income. None of these are things that I could overcome. They are red flags for any single guy who comes along and reads this. We tried to have a baby, but this wasn’t working. We went through a time of having sex every day, which would have been fantastic, except she made it so clinical that it wasn’t any fun. During this time she also made every sexual encounter about her. I had to make her have the maximum amount of pleasure every single time. Honestly this was just too much work. Sometimes, I just wanted sex, but that wasn’t ever her plan, or I should say was rarely her plan. If we did just have sex, then it was because that is what she decided. The only conflict that we have had in our marriage is that I was a night owl and didn’t go to bed at the same time as her. I wish I had, but I never could do it. One of the main reasons was because I was afraid that things wouldn’t change if I did, and that would mean that I had been rejected. I know now that this is true. She wanted to find a reason that she was rejecting me, but she was definitely rejecting me. A lot of this stems from how her father treated her, and not having a mother, and being sexually abused by multiple men over her life. All things that I had compassion for, but now I would warn any man off a woman with a past like this. Feel compassion, have empathy, but don’t marry these women. They are broken, and most beyond repair, without a true and deep relationship with Christ.

I graduated, and came out making a lot more money than before, and then went ahead and doubled my income from there over the course of a few years. I was now clearly the higher income earner in the house, and if we played our cards right she could be a stay at home mom. We still hadn’t had any success having kids. We started fostering kids for the state. We fostered a little boy that was one of the easiest kids in the world. He was with us a short time, but it was memorable. We then started fostering the two boys that we eventually adopted. This would be another reason I am furious about her desire for divorce. We promised these boys ( and a little girl ) a family, and now she wants to destroy that. They will be affected by this more than other children, because of their past loss. We had moved into a small house back where we grew up. My wife had weight loss surgery, and was starting to lose weight. We had been married now for three years. We went through the stresses of fostering, and she was active in the surgical weight loss community. I was leading our Bible study. All seemed well, except of course the lack of sexual attention that I got. She had stopped kissing me. She complained about my chewing tobacco. I had stopped using it around her, and made sure to have chewed some pretty strong gum before I came home from work. It didn’t matter, because that was just an excuse for ending intimacy in that way. She was never bothered by this when we dated, and I wasn’t near as careful to minimize the effects on her.

We lived like this for about two years before my wife went to a homecoming game at her college, and hooked up with a former fling from college. She had lost weight, and was trying out her new body. She told me about this about a day after she returned. I was pretty destroyed emotionally. I didn’t know what to do. Ultimately, I decided to forgive her, and stayed. If it weren’t for my beautiful and wonderful daughter, I would question that decision today. We went to some counseling, and I wasn’t real hip on it. First it was a counselor that she already was seeing, and I felt like there was way too much going on behind my back. Then there was the part where she made me feel like it was partly my fault that she did this, because I didn’t make her feel good enough about her weight loss. Now understand that I never made her feel bad about her weight gain, or her size before we got married. It was never an issue for me, and still isn’t. If she follows through with the divorce though, I have vowed to never, ever date or marry a woman again who views herself as too big, or has been sexually abused, because there are way to many issues that go along with that, and I don’t want the headaches or heartache.

I forced myself to have sex with her quickly after that, so I could get past the feeling that she had given herself to another man. She ruins the sticking the flag in the top of the mountain again moment, by informing me that it was some of the worst sex that we had ever had. Who says that to someone the first time having sex with them after cheating on them. I have never understood this. At the time, it made me feel like she had enjoyed the other guy more than me, and was reminded of how good sex could be with guys who weren’t me. This was a big blow to my already falling self esteem. I had relied too much on her to fortify how I feel about me, and she not only didn’t feed that beast, but beat it down at every opportunity. She was without a doubt her fathers daughter. He had made her feel bad most of her growing up, and she was doing that to me now.

Needless to say over the course of the next year, she got pregnant. I had questions of whether the child was mine the entire pregnancy. God is good, he produced a child that looks so much like me, that it was impossible to question. We had moved into a new house, and now were fostering a little girl we planned to adopt. The same year our daughter was born, we adopted all three kids from the state. We are now seven years into our marriage at this point, and in our fifth home, and our third home purchase at the time we adopted and had our daughter. That is a lot of moving. I was starting to believe that she couldn’t settle down. She had a similar pattern throughout her single life.

This was the condensed version of the first half of our marriage. There are plenty of happy memories. I loved my wife, and still do. We had vacations and times together that were fantastic. I enjoy talking to no other person more than her, when she bothers to listen. We have had a couple of problems that I am willing to work through. One is the lack of sex, and the tension around sex. The other is that when we talk about tough things, she either bullies me, or shuts down. I respond to these tactics no better. I believe that she has some issues due to her upbringing. I think she as BPD, and needs to learn to manage her emotions with the help of a real psychotherapist. I am still in this marriage, until I have no choice. I am writing these things, so I can get my head clear, and because I like to write.

Ten-Foured,

JeD

The Honeymoon

HeligKo
Honeymoon Graveyard Tragedy

I won’t be covering everything with such short time spans, but these things are important to setting the stage for how blind I was to the coming disasters. We left the day after the wedding on our honeymoon. It was going to be great. We were driving to the Rockies in my 4X4, and were going to enjoy some time in the mountains. We were driving the long stretch of flat highway, and talking. Generally enjoying ourselves as we went along. She decided to make up for the uncomfortable sex the night before with some play while I drove. This was exciting, and new to me. I had never imagined doing some of these things while we drove, and at 80 MPH it was at times a little dangerous. I would do it all again.

I had taken special care to make sure that my SUV was ready for the trip, so when we pulled in to eat it was a surprise to see the green smoke coming out of the tail pipe. Came to find out that I had a cracked head gasket. We spent the night there, while I was treated to the embarrassing public harassment of my wife, and then met by a go sleep in the other bed when we went to the room. She was mad. We should have brought her car. I should have had a better person look at the SUV before we left. Continually saying “I thought you said you had this handled.” We rented a car, and out in the middle of drive by country there are no unlimited mileage rentals.

We made our way to our cabin, dropped off our stuff, and found a place nearby to eat. We came back, and tried our hand at the whole newlywed sex thing. This worked out so well that she screamed at me, “You are doing it wrong.” This of course upset the mood, and we didn’t finish. I had to study for my final exams in Calculus III, so I stayed up and studied that night. We spent the remainder of the trip traveling around the areas seeing things. We had some pretty basic sex once during the entire honeymoon, and it felt remarkably like mercy sex to me.

The return trip was spent getting bitched at about my SUV as we approached where we were supposed to pick it up and tow it back home. There was no more excitement on the trip home. I should have learned on the honeymoon that all was not going to go well, but I was still young, and assumed that these were teething troubles for the marriage, and things would get better. Boy was I in for a surprise.

Ten-Foured

JeD