Same Old Same Old and Complacency

Thank you all, whoever commented on my last V-day post!  I have no idea what prompts a post today except perhaps boredom or maybe just wanting to share a thought or two.  Labor Day Weekend for us U.S. folks.

OH…now I know what prompted me.  On a whim I was reading a few blogs in my blog feeds on a Google.  I don’t read much anymore at all, but caught a few from old friends who have published recently.  Always Aroused Girl is as prolific as she ever was, in more ways than one, although she recently complained of a 5 month sexual dry spell.  Ha!  I could do that on my head!  And have many times over…well…not all on my head.  That might be painful.

Gotta hand it to Xavier who keeps on plugging away with some pretty funny things. You have to laugh sometimes, because crying all the time just gets boring.

And finally, FADKOG, who continues to be regularly entertaining and funny.  These are the only three out f all the folks I once had in my google reader who showed up the past month.  Of course if the address or the feed changed, then I would lose people from that.  Or if you went and made it password protected.

Last entry I wrote spawned a number of comments about how complacency has set in for those in sexless marriages.  I think complacency might be something that many who have struggled with this situation would actually sort of hope to attain.  I mean we have moved past the fighting and the struggling and the bitterness, right?  Right?

Yeah, I am pretty complacent.  But I would not say that the bitterness is something that will ever completely go away.  I spent the best years of my life being absolutely sexless and hating it.  I’m bitter about both the sexless part and the hating it part.  I might have spared myself a lot of heartache if I could have discovered complacency a lot sooner!  But then…this blog would never have existed either.  Frustration and bitterness seems to be a rather powerful artistic muse.  Many of us have spent countless hours banging our frustrations away on the keyboard and publishing thoughts for the amusement of others.  And I have no regrets about that.  All that frustration sort of brought together a community of awesome people.

I know there are tons of people in the same boat as me.  So many, in fact, that I am a bit surprised when I come across someone who has been married for over 10 years with a couple of children who actually have full, satisfying and interesting sex lives.  THEY are the freaks, not me. *I* am one of the normal ones!  I always root for the youngsters getting married, but wait long enough and the old song begins to play again.  One of them loses interest and so the bed becomes a fairly cold and lonely place.  Many fights, quarrels and battles ensue as tension and discord runs high.  A power struggle ensues as each desperately tries to ‘win’.  At some point, the struggle gets so fierce that it tears a couple apart.  They go their separate ways.  And some will remarry and the struggle might start all over again.

But for the rest of us, Complacency sets in.  Complacency becomes a higher state of being that allows us to go through the motions and find joy in other things.  Complacency allows me to enjoy my children instead of resenting them for all the energy they took away from the marriage.  Besides, all that was just a bullshit excuse…it was NEVER their fault.  Arwyn just used them as convenient shields for her selfish lazy-ass behavior.  If it wasn’t them, it would be some allergy, sickness, tiredness, project…whatever the hell latest stress.

Complacency allows us to exist in a passionless space without a lot of fighting, arguing and drama.  As long as I am willing to forgo any illusion of passion, we can get along just fine.  In fact we get along better because I don’t have to listen to her bullshit excuses anymore.  In fact, I sorta quit listening to her complaints in general.  Complacency gives me permission to tune her out and not be bothered by whatever paranoid fear might be driving her at the moment.  I don’t feel like I have to fix anything because I accept that she is unfixable by any intervention that I might possibly conceive.  If she is unwilling to fix herself, it sorta saves me the bother of having to support her self-improvement efforts!  And she returns the favor, totally.  She never supported my efforts to stop smoking in any meaningful way, so my recovery is not dependent upon anything she may or may not do.  Complacency is pretty convenient and useful that way.

The main problem with Complacency is that while it allows you to live, it sorta sucks out any real internal drive to do anything beyond living.  Complacency is a rather passionless state of existence, being neither painless nor painful.  It is just sorta there, and numbs the pain of whatever one might be lacking so there is little incentive to strive for anything better and richer.  In a sense, it is settling for what you have without the better and happier relative of Contentment.  Complacency is sort of the gray boring area between Contentment and Discontent.

You don’t actually have to DO anything if you are Complacent, which is a good thing since it seems to occupy a space of extremely low energy.  To be anything other than complacent would require more energy.  Even happiness and contentment require some energy to protect and maintain them.  Complacency demands very little and gives very little in return.  But it has the virtue of being a very low-risk proposition, in that you pretty much know what you are getting once you reach this ultimate state of mediocrity.

Unlike apathy, complacency engenders more of a loss.  In apathy, nothing ventured nothing gained and who cares.  In Complacency, there is a capacity for caring and feeling, it is just choosing not to invest the energy to do anything about it.  I actually DO have a preference if given a choice but I seem to be in a state where nothing I like is on the menu so eat whatever is served.  What *I* like is not even offered and going somewhere else involves more of a battle than I am willing to fight.  So complacency allows me to swallow the the daily mushy gruel without throwing up.

Cheers to complacency!  I would toast with something stronger than sweet tea but just got over a hangover from last night’s indulgence.  Yes, Complacency allows me to indulge in other vices.  In fact, those vices sort of help attain and maintain this higher level of tolerance and acceptance.

Happy Valentines Day 2011

It has been a LOOooong time since I updated. Kudos to you for checking on me…whenever it is that you do.

Seriously, I have really not had anything happen that I found terribly blog-worthy. Perhaps my standards have gone too high, but more than likely I have settled into the dull futility that so many other guys (and women too) settle into after fighting and struggling for years and years.

But tonight it IS blogworthy because it is V-day. Everyone wants to talk about love and romance. My coworkers got onto me because I had not made a big deal out of it. I had bought a card already that was funny and entertaining and witty that our kids I knew would enjoy. Not too sentimental, but cute and sweet. But one of my coworkers convinced to also buy a card that WAS more sentimental.

My wife teaches at a preschool where they hold a huge V-day party every year. She goes to a church where the love of men and women is preached resoundingly every year, altho it becomes more of an admonition toward men then a message of love for both. But in anycase, the message is out there and the airwaves are saturated.

So she was keenly aware of what day it was and the expectations involves. And she also knew how low mine were, but she did make a pre-emptive move just in case. For when I got home from work, she made sure that I knew that she has had a headache for the past two days. Funny she never mentioned it yesterday, but oh well.

And I gave her the first card, the funny one. “Oh…didn’t get you anything” she said as she took it. Byt she opened it and we all had a good laugh as she opened it and the funny cartoon voices told about o’s and x’s being hugs and kisses and not ox, altho you could hug and kiss an ox if you wanted.

But I knew then that she would never see that second card. It would simply induce more guilt and grief on her. The reason why I waited until late in the evening was that if I gave her the card in the morning she would have run out to get one just to keep up…not because she was feeling any particular sentiments toward me.

This used to be a holiday when I thought I could look forward to some romance and yes…sex. It took about 10 years to absolve that notion from me.

I’ll be drinking some wine and be in-world in my second life tonight, definitely.

Hope you all have abetter vday than me!

Hello There!

Remember me?

Haha, I’m still around and have appreciated those of you who have poked me from time to time to dee if I am still breathing.

/the short answer is that yes, I am still breathing.  I’m not sure what else to write about tho.

I could write about sex, but since I haven’t had any (with another RL person) since October 2009, it would be a very short and depressing read.   I just got tired of trying to make it with someone who had no real desire to make it with me.  Sex adds a lot of enjoyment in life for a lot of people.  That used to be the case for me, but it has been a long time since that was true for me.  Now it is a source of frustration and drama and resentment.

I could write about spiritual issues, but again; a source of a lot of frustration and resentment!  I’m still involved in teaching adult Sunday School, but that is the biggest extent of it.

Work life…I resigned out a few months ago as the situation was totally unmanageable and was literally killing me under the stress.  Am unemployed officially and looking for a position elsewhere.  Thanks to our “being out of debt” program, it has not been as stressful as it could be.  But one big medical bill could change everything.

Maybe I’ll update again real soon and maybe it might be about 6 months or so!  But I was recently reminded of you all and the fun times we had when I went back to iVillage on a whim and discovered my Top 10 LL list was still as popular as ever after 6 or more years.

Shoot….my computer is acting up so who knows how long it might be before I update again?!?

Still into Second Life, which could inspire an update on the other blog, perhaps, but we’ll see.  I do need to update that story, anyway at some point.

Thank you all for checking in on me!  I’ll try to see if I can check in with y’all at some point, too.  But I AM still alive!

October Update: New Series on the New Old Blog Edition

I’ll try to get to comments before posting this, but the most universal reaction was to Arwyn’s testimony, especially about her marrying me because she thought that is what God wanted her to do.

We have not discussed this, but perhaps we need to. But I’m not sure exactly what there is to discuss. While earlier in our relationship Arwyn did claim that she thought we were together because God intended it to be so, I was under the impression that there was also some underlying attraction toward me. But this seems to be a mistaken belief. Or if there was some sort of attraction, it was very tenuous, at best. Whatever attraction there was, it’s pretty safe to say that it was not a physical attraction. Lots of women have been attracted to me for my mind, my morals, or my sense of humor. But my looks? My body? Not too many, although there seemed to be a few who enjoyed me. At least I have those memories and I have no regrets about them. Being wanted just for my body might get old after awhile, but being stuck in a state of body-lessness gets old in a hurry too. I’m glad I have had times when I could share physical enjoyment for the joy of it instead of for some other agenda. For most of the life of this blog, that agenda was basically her doing me because she wanted me off her back or because was feeling guilty. Either way, not a lot of room for enjoyment there.

As for me, I was trying to get what I thought I had coming, or deserved or just trying to satisfy the proverbial itch. Not a ton of room for enjoyment there, either, as I was always left wondering how long it would be until we would have sex again. Counting and keeping score were all symptoms of that mindset. How long could a body play that game until they drove themselves nuts?
So the result is, is that my sex drive has decreased markedly over the past year. I don’t want to have sex with someone who would rather clean the cat litter box than be naked with me. That’s not to say it has disappeared altogether, but it’s a lot easier to scratch my own itch rather than bother with someone who is so reluctant to do it for me. If it’s that much of a chore, I’m not going to bother.

So I found another outlet, and have been blogging it, but not publishing it. I was wondering where and how, and now I know. Sensual Dementia rides again! Warning: it won’t be safe for work. Bad news for a lot of you, but my long suffering fans of kink are about to hit the jackpot.

August/September Update

Where the heck did August go?

I’m glad I set myself up last post, as there were blog-worthy things that happened. I actually did rough one out, but never posted it. Maybe I’ll post it on one of my other blogs, just to hold those places open.

Let’s start with the counseling. I’ve been on the fence about continuing that for quite awhile and was seriously considering ditching it altogether. However, I was willing to go as long as Arwyn was willing, even though we weren’t able to go at the same time very often due to childcare issues. As it turns out, I didn’t have to quit at all. The therapist did! He is actually taking a job somewhere in Alabama, and Lord knows those people need the help over there. So we signed a release that allows him to talk to one of two replacements if we should decide to continue later on. But Arwyn and I agreed on taking a break. Once school started, things got hectic and busy in a hurry and counseling was just one more stressor. I think we did make some good headway, and I think we still might have things to work through but it was time to let this guy go and so it worked out just right.

Arwyn’s birthday was a bit of an event that inspired a blog post . But there was a little drama involved in that she annually chooses to shoot for the moon as far as gifts. She usually asks for something that seems outlandishly expensive. Sometimes I can work on a bit of a compromise, but this time it was just a no go all around. I had already gotten her something that she really needed (but didn’t know she wanted it until she got it) before she put in her request. It just seems a bit tacky to make a birthday into some sort of gambit to get more stuff. Maybe I should employ the same ethic only employ it toward more sexual adventures for my birthday! Otherwise, it went over pretty well, I think. It’s always hard because I feel like I’m not measuring up to expectations. And that’s why I don’t use the pressure tactic because I know what it feels like.

The wedding anniversary was a very low-key thing as it also coincided with the first day of school and there was a ton of business around that. Somewhere during that time, Arwyn also gave a testimony at her church for the 12-step type of recovery service they have there. I went in order to be supportive, even though her church is not my usual gig. And I got quite an earful. Of course a lot of it was stuff we had talked about in counseling but this was all her presenting it from her perspective.

Basically, she said that she did not marry me because she had any deep abiding love for me. Rather she believed that this was something God wanted her to do. So while it’s nice to know that she is willing to follow the Lord and all, I’m the equivalent of being sent to Ninevah, Ethipopia or Calcutta. I have no idea what she expected, but as time went on she became more and more angry and bitter. She also shared that she had lustful feelings toward others. I have no idea who that might be, but that was new and novel knowledge. So it was not surprising that while I was kicking around the idea of divorce or escape, so was she. However, she knew she was in no financial position to leave, so she hunkered down. She credits being part of teh church and the recovery group as being key in her turning herself around.

While she has made some great strides, I wouldn’t call it a regeneration by any stretch. But maybe it’s something that can happen more gradually. We’re all works in progress!

And the sex: well, we did have sex once since I last posted. It had been quite a while and it was late on a Friday night and we began getting amorous. Then she said, “Do you think we could have some time tomorrow night?”

“Sure, if you want to.”

She took some exception to that statement, “Well I would ask if I didn’t!”

But of course whatever is said on Friday with the best of intentions can be very, very easily undone by anything happening on Saturday. For instance when she wakes up and begins complaining about a sore back. Or something else happens and can kill the mood. But to her credit she did come around, albeit after quite a long wait on my part. But I was prepared to have it happen or not happen. Whatever. Anticipation can be wonderful but it can also be awful when expectations are dashed so often. It’s a lot easier to NOT get hopes up and be willing to let it happen or not happen. And once it did happen, it was really great.

But let’s be honest: this is not a sex life. These are nice sexual events. I enjoy them when they happen. I’ve found other things to occupy my time and thoughts. Sex just isn’t such a huge deal anymore. That’s not to say it will never be, but at the moment I’m not begging.

Here’s just one more thought rustling through my mind at the moment:

It has been abundantly clear that Arwyn has not had anywhere near the sexual attraction toward me that I have had for her in the past. I still think she is stunningly attractive. But me? Not so much. Part of my lack of sex drive is the fact that it’s pretty certain no one else is thinking of me in a sexual way. We can all imagine we’re God’s gift to womanhood, but once you get into middle aged that becomes even more of a delusion that can only be sustained with a considerable amount of cash and flash. And so, I’m thinking that I’m pretty lucky that Arwyn wants to have sex with me at all. But I’m not convinced that she really ever wants to, really. I think she can enjoy it once she’s in the moment, but it isn’t something she has ever looked forward to or anticipated. Not with me, anyway. So I look forward to gardening, reading, Farmtown or watching reruns on Hulu. It’s not very exciting blogging material, but that’s where i am right now.

Thank you all for the well-wishes, and a special shout out to those who came back from the past for either nostalgia or simply google-stalking me.  It’s all good….I think.  I’d like to address each and every one of you, but it is that time of the month when I need to update you on my train wreck relationship/life.

FTN wrote something about vacation sex, and while I had more sex on my vacation it was with myself since Arwyn did not go with me to visit my folks in Iowa.  She statyed behind with one of the kids while I took thwe other.  and much fun was had by all.

I will say that the post-vacation sex was pretty awesome, even while being unexpected.  Usually when I’ve been gone in the past for any period of time, she isn’t in any hurry to reconnect sexually.  And while I’m not sure she was that anxious this time, I was and it turned out to be good for both of us.  At least it seemed to be as good for her as it was for me.  There was a certain passionate steam that she built up that was pretty awesome that I haven’t seen in a long time.  Maybe I should get a job as a trucker or something, if being away helps this much!

We’re slated to re-start counseling in a week, and I have no idea where we are going to go with it.  While the latest sex was hot, the overall relationship is not really moving along that much.  I’m not fighting, complaining, whining or struggling so much but that has more to do with a certain amount of acceptance and resignation on my part.  I sometimes feel bad about the sex I wish I was having and am not having, but I’m also thankful for the sex I might not otherwise be having that I am.  Yes, I could have chosen a different woman, but I didn’t and I thank God for the wife he gave me.  I’m too old to be woman-hopping.

I also need to thank God that Arwyn wasn’t as picky in her choice as she probably wishes she had been!  And she did have a number of other suitors pursuing her back in the day.

So I have mellowed out overall which probably explains the dearth of blog posts this past year.  I don’t really see why I would change unless things took a dramatically new direction.

Other issues…

My weight is totally creeping back up again.  I suppose I could go back to blogging my weight again and kill what little readership I have left!

I’m still off the smokes except for the 3 I had back in Iowa.  That was not so good.  For the most part, I don’t think about it, but when I do there is a pretty loud mental chatter that happens to try to entice me back.  Those things are SO seductive and cruel!

Speaking of which, (or not) no new things on the chastity theme.  I still like reading about it and it would be fun to do with my wife if she was game but since she’s not, the cage stays in the bathroom drawer.

Spiritual thoughts:

FTN did mention something about reading NT Wright and I ended up picking up a couple of his books.  Surprised by Hope is pretty good.  I do regularly attend Sunday school at the Methodist church but not so much the worship service.  We’re in the midst of changing pastors at the moment, but since I’ve not been so plugged in I’m not so affected as much as the rest of the congregation.  I also found and began reading True Believer by Eric Hoffer.  It’s all about mass movements and has special relevance to the way things are going today, even though this was written almost 50 years ago.  I don’t subscribe to everything he says, but it is all worth thinking about.

More to the point of the spiritual theme, God is most definitely involved in my life in many ways and on many levels.  I’m not going into great details, but sometimes things get to a point where the constellation of circumstances becomes too complex to be explained by random chance or anything short of some sort of cosmic conspiracy.  Stuff just happens.

So coming up for next month we have more counseling, Arwyn’s birthday and our wedding anniversary!  Any of these might make for more interesting blog fodder.  Stay tuned!

Happy Blogiversary!

Yeah, I thought I would at least make mention of it and noodle out my various thoughts on this blog and blogging in general. I’ve done it before, but it’s good to revisit the topic from time to time, just for introspection and reflection.

Thanks for indulging my narcissism.

It was 2004 when I first heard the word “blog.” Unbeknownst to me, I had actually done some blogging for a year or so after my oldest son was born, but it was before the term was invented. I had a website designed to inform relatives of the progress of my new baby boy in 1999. And there were updates, pictures, narratives and drama galore. It wasn’t until I had been doing it over a year that I discovered that my website was being visited by half the town we were living in. Back then, 12 hits per day was pretty awesome. While I had the little mailbox for comments, no one really left much for comments and I gave up the website after about a year.

In 2004, I began thinking about starting my own place. I had been active on usenet for years, so this was a natural next step. In addition, while I was active on iVillage I was on the brink of being TOSs’ed. It was then that I decided to open my own place in June of that year, just months before “Rathergate” put blogging on the map. My first blog was called Sensual Dementia, and as you can see I was able to recently reclaim that address from the former crackhouse owner. More on that in a second.

When I first started, I basically continued my story from what it is that I had posting in iVillage. Only this time, it was MY space, without draconian iVillage rules. I could say “fuck” whenever I wanted, as often as I wanted. Of course, I rarely wanted to, but it’s always liberating to have that sort of option. My first readers were people from iVillage, very few of whom exist in the blogiverse anymore. Tajalude is probably the last of the readers left on my blogroll from the Sensual Dementia days.

After only a year, I felt the need to yank the blog down and go dark. It was probably a gross over reaction on my part, but I was under a legal investigation and didn’t want to have anything at all to be discovered in case things got out of control. That was scary, and I’m still not getting into specifics, except to say that I was totally cleared. I then decided to re-enter blogging with my current title and motiff. Reality and Redemption was borne out of a lot of fear and pain. I needed a place to work things out. It also offered up a sort of support system that I learned to lean on for moral support, advice and guidance. there were times when I might have careened off the deep end without timely perspective by my often vocal readers who helped shape this blog.

Let’s talk about some them/you in alphabetical order:

1. 2amsomewhere – My overall motif has been to collect other blogs about relationships that are/were trainwrecks. I discovered 2am (or he discovered me) while his was in the midst of totally running off the track. The addition of him to the blogroll was as natural as gravity, as I have a bias toward a guy’s perspective. Generally speaking, it’s always been harder finding guys in the “relationship” genre of blog writing. Plus, we’re both nerds so there was instant connection.
2. Always Aroused Girl – For the longest time, we have totally been kindred spirits. For a long time, we were both two of the most popular sex bloggers who were not actually having sex. We wrote all about sex and about what we needed and weren’t getting and people loved reading about it. My 3rd most popular post of all time was when she became my keyholder for my chastity cage. It was my most popular month of blogging ever, as many of her fans flocked over to see what the deal was. My most popular post of all time? Again, lots of kinship with AAG there, it’s the one where I wrote about sticking something up my butt. It doubles on my 2nd most popular post ever, where she was the first to comment. Her popularity has continued to soar, and she deserves the recognition as she works harder at it than anyone else I know. Plus she’s more interesting to read now that she’s actually having sex regularly.
3. Aphron was a another natural blogger I would read in our little community. He appeared on my radar when he linked to me in one of his earliest posts after I reappeared. Taja probably had him blogrolled before I did, and we borrowed heavily from each other in those days. Back then, I only had two blogs and it felt like plenty. FWIW, I would not trade wives with him, and I’m still amazed that he has stuck with it like he has.
4. I’m skipping a bunch of people, because they are either inactive or I’m not too active in reading them (and they might not be too actively reading me). I’m treatiung people who I’ve shared a fair amount of virtual love with, on whatever level. But I should make a mention of Christian Husband, who did help drive a lot of the religious discussions around our part of the neighborhood. We disagree sharply on so many things, but when it came to sex and relationship and how faith intersects those themes, we found a lot more agreement.
5. Emily started out as a non-blogger who left large and insightful comments on my blog. Her comments were so large and so insightful, I highly encouraged her to get her own blog. It’s not that i resented the realestate she occupied in my comments as much as I knew she had a story that was apart from what i was writing at the time. She finally took my advice, and I was right. Our space/community is a lot richer for her contributions.
6. FADKOG is not a relationship blogger, per se, She’s not exactly a mommy blogger, either. I probably would never have read her at all if it weren’t for our time together in the Real Blogger House. I would link there, but since FTN went underground, it’s sort of pointless. But I did have fun getting her in a chastity belt, even if was for only a few minutes. she’s the only reader, as far as I know who is an avid DRR fan and her comments on my dance videos always make me smile.
7. FTN. As I said, he’s gone underground and I’m tempted to not mention him at all. But since I have spent a lot of space in the past linking to him and his posts, I feel comfortable in saying that he is responsible for fucking up my blog by making all those links dead. So there’s that. But the guy did manage to inspire a lot of posts from my end and ended up being a sort of “community organizer” for a lot of other blogs mentioned here. The sexual conflict, tension, discussion as well as his willingness to dive into how it related to Chriostian belief help drive traffic both ways.
8. Katie Fleck is an odd one to have in my blogroll which is precisely why she’s there. I wanted a SAHM on my blogroll and she is the penultimate SAHM. She is insufferably perfect, smart and cute. That’s why it was a hoot leaving comments in her blog knowing that her family members might follow back here to my sex posts leading to interesting discussions at the holiday dinner table. “Who is that guy and how do you know him?”
9. Cat regularly comments here while I somehow rarely seem to be able to return the favor. But her blog appeals to me on a variety of levels. Aside from the regular relationship drama, there’s the autism connection and the kinkster connection.
10. Xavier/Xi Summit or whoever he is at the moment is a relative newcomer to my blogroll. I think he might have migrated from iVillage, but I’m not sure. What I do know is that he’s the only one on my blogroll who still has a fair amount of “country boy” in him, and it comes through in his writing. He hits on a variety of levels including the religious and nerdy as well as the gardening and relationship themes.
11. Therese – I’ll never forget those earliest exchanges where Therese came ’round in comments, addressing me as “Mr. Jones.” At that time, her marriage had been through the proverbial train crash, and she was doubtlessly looking for kindred spirits with which to commiserate. I followed her back to her own brand new blog, and pretty quickly grew fond of her and her writing. And so did most of you. She somehow keeps things relatively modest while also injecting a healthy helping of hotness.
12. Taja already got a mention above, but I’ll mention her again as the longest-running member of my blogroll across blogging time periods. When she started blogging, her marriage really did look like an Amtrak derailment waiting to happen, but the sexual conflict seems to have taken a backseat to trying-for-baby issues. Some her posts were the absolute hottest, and the HNT’s she posted were also stunning.
13. Tom at The Edge of Vanilla – The initial commonality here would be the chastity theme that dominated a lot of my thinking early in the blog’s life. I still think about it alot and when I’m hankering for some kink, Tom’s place always has something interesting. However there have also been common interests with fitness anfd technology and relationship issues that go deeper than just the plastic cages and padlock. A lot of the material I had read until I discovered his site was so outlandish that it was really refreshing to see someone bring in some realism along with the hot stories.
14. Trueself joined me fairly early on as one of many RSS reads. I had her blog as well as another blog by someone who was some sort of avid Illini fan and took me about 3 months to figure out that this was the same person with two different blogs! Trueself certainly fit my genre of a marriage that was skidding toward disaster, but she also had a very dark and raw flavor that has suited my own mood at various times. There is no sugar coating or spin in the way she tells her story. It is very primal but very well told. And very, very prolific. I absolutely can not keep up as she uses her writing to decompress and purge her deepest darkest thoughts. And she has a lot of them!
15. Desmond – Another commenter-turned-blogger-turnedcommenter-turned-blogger-turned… well , you can get up to speed in his own words. At some point I quit trying to keep my blogroll current and simply put him in my RSS reader. I’m still unsure why he gravitated toward our corner of blogspace. Okay, he was looking for sex talk (I had lots of that) but he also like the fact that a few of us were bringing our Christian beliefs into our struggles and writings. Not many sex bloggers were doing that in 2005, but there were apparently a lot of people who were looking for some Christian sex talk. Even as a commenter, Desmond was more of a provider of content than a consumer; he definitely added a lot of depth to the discussions, no matter which direction they took. He’s simply got a lot more life experiences to share.

Okay, I know that I’ve missed some people and overlooked others. I’m going through a sort of sex/relationship blogging contraction at the moment. One thing that I learned about being a relationship blogger is the it is sometimes easy to eastablish relationships of a sort but it is much, much harder maintaining them. The first few years I had gobs to say and devoted tons of time saying it. Now I don’t have as much to say, I have less time to say it and too many blogs to say it on!

But thanks for those who have stuck with me over the years and the bumps and grinds. Of course the second I say I’m going on hiatus, is the second I decide I have more to say! But I’ll just keep at it at whatever speed I can for the moment.

Cheers!

What does “working on it” look like?

We are rapidly approaching the end of therapy, at least for the summer.  Last night, Arwyn and I had a rather  intense exchange about where we are at.  We’ve had these before, of course, and sometimes they get somewhere for awhile and then fizzle out.  Sort of like Farmwife’s garden analogy where the weeds keep coming back if the place isn’t tended regularly.  And the garden of our marriage is pretty lush with noxious weeds.

One of the questions that came out of a recent 1:1 therapy session was this: What would it look like if Arwyn made our relationship a priority?  If she was to really commit to working on it, what would it look like?  I had no idea, so last night I asked her.

A bit of background: for the past few years she’s been working part-time at a church preschool as a teacher.  She’s good at it and everyone tells her so.  She’s just gifted in this area.  She works 3 hours/day for 3 days a week, plus whatever time she puts into planning for it and putting stuff together.  She’s quite thorough and a bit of a perfectionist sometimes.  The preschool follows the school calendar, so sh gets all the breaks the kids get and summer off.  It doesn’t pay a lot, though.  This past spring many of our counseling sessions revolved around the idea of Arwyn considering quitting her job in order to concentrate on our family and especially our marriage.  While I was willing to support her in whatever decision, I had a few misgivings about the idea as in she’d get bored being at home alone and would simply find other things to fill her time.  The financial hit, while small, would involve us sacrificing some of the comforts we’ve started to enjoy since getting out of debt.  In the end, she decided she would stay with her job.

So I brought this up last night, and pointed out that she’s been off for nearly a month and I hadn’t seen any real work on  our relationship or marriage.  I brought up a few things I had tried.  So I asked what she had done.  Every time we have a joint couple’s session, the therapists asks us what we think the other has done to help strengthen our relationship.  And more often than not, I find myself grasping for anything.  ANYTHING.  I’ve come up with her doing laundry, taking care of the kids, sometimes cooking for me and having sex a time or two.  And the domestic chores truly look lame to me.  I mean they are important, but these are not reasons to get married and poor reasons to stay married.  She has a much easier time answering that, because I do step in help with domestic things and occasionally buy little things for her or make things for her or whatever.

But without getting real confrontational, I asked her to help me out.  I could be just really obstinate and blind and missing all the things she is doing for our relationship.  So what has she done?  She had to think awhile and she did come up with one thing.  Back when she bought Fire Proof and The Love Dare.  That was one thing and I definitely used that as an example in one of our counseling sessions back in February.  But she had to really dial back a long way.  She admitted that she hasn’t done much since then and hadn’t picked up the love dare book since she bought it.

We then had an exchange about how hard I can be to please, sometimes.  I didn’t really see this, but I’m more than game to hear here out.  She wanted to me to name stuff she could do to make me feel appreciated and valued as she said she had no idea. I should have just given her (another) copy of my top 20 list.  And perhaps I still will.

Throughout the discussion, she did occasionally venture into “I’m sorry but you seem to want me to be someone who I’m not.”  I’ve heard of other guys getting caught with that one, but I really wasn’t accepting it.  I asked her, “Well, are you happy with who you are?  Are you satisfied with the way things are?”  She said no.  So basically, I’d like to see her be whoever she’s going to be and would be happy to help her get there, but staying the same is not a happy option for either of us.

There was lots of other content here, but sex was not a major part of it, as that just pushes her too far.  And she was on the edge of leaving the room crying as it was.  She does feel a lot of guilt from that so I didn’t feel like pushing it at the moment.  What did come out was that my interest has waned over time.  A lot of the hope has drained away for anything resembling a lovely, regular and fulfilling sex life. I’d still like it, but I don’t see Arwyn ever turning into someone who could want or enjoy that.  I’m just looking for something more basic that says she values our relationship beyond the money and lifestyle I provide.  Then perhaps we can build on that.

Media Free Night

In a comment to my last post, MP suggested that we have a computer-free night.  And frankly, that is a wonderful suggestion, except our therapist suggested it first.

And so it was, that we designated Thursday nights as our official media-free night.  That means no TV, no computer or any of that.  Once the kids were in bed, it was just us.  And the first week, it was very, very nice.  There was talking, affection and sex.  It was a nice experience that I was keen to repeat.  But when I came home form work a week later, Arwyn was on the computer.  I figured she would finish whatever she was doing and once the kids were in bed, we would have our media-free night.  But this did not happen as she stated she had a lot of work to complete in preparation for her teaching class the next day for her preschool job.  The next week there was some sort of special event at school for one of the kids that derailed everything and exhausted us both and that was the end of that.  Arwyn just was never able to commit to it just like every other time we have tried to do some sort of date night, special night, couples prayer time or any routine that involves us connecting without the kids.  We do manage to spend a fair amount of time during the week to talk about the kids and schedules and logistics.  But apart from being parents, there isn’t much else going on with and for each other.

My feeling is that Arwyn wants me to just be lying about doing nothing but waiting on her.  And she really could have that but it would take more work commitment than she’s willing to put into it.  So the real story is that she doesn’t want me for herself and doesn’t want me to have a life of my own.

Occupied

In my last entry, a couple of folks insinuated that I might be more into my laptop than my wife.  Hmm.  I have to think on that one.

I mean, my laptop is pretty reliable.  So far, turns on whenever I push the proper button.  In Windows, it takes awhile to warm up, but once it does, it runs pretty well.  In Linux, it turns on faster and responds quicker.

Note to whoever invents a digital robot spouse: needs to make sure that she is able to dual boot between OS platforms.

When Arwyn is so uninterested in me and resists whatever  overtures I make toward her (and not just sexual) then I’m going to find other things to occupy my time. And oddly enough, she spends as much time on the computer as I do.  In fact, I probably spend more time offline than she does because I do have other interests once the kids are in bed.  I had been watching Lost and a couple of other shows on Hulu.  I have also been reading a few books.  I also listen to a lot of podcasts and audio books.  These I do while she’s either sleeping or on the computer.

I love the internet because it is such a rich repository of knowledge.  When the tornado touched down here last year and I needed to fix the roof, I found video on Youtube on how to do it.  When I wanted to make pesto, I found the recipe and a video on Youtube on how to do it.  I’ve been trying to listen to a number of free audio books from Librivox.  Mark Twain stories go over well. Try Extracts from Adam’s Diary; hilarious!  Fannie Hill took a fair amount of time and was interesting in that different readers read different chapters.  But it is such a literary classic, everyone should read it or listen to it.  Pilgrims Progress does not go as easily and neither does Orthodoxy. But I have discovered that this is a good way to access good public domain literature while driving or doing something else where reading isn’t possible.  And I don’t know if I would go for literature any other way.

I also listen to a number of podcasts.  One of my favorite musical ones is Mark Gunn’s Irish and Celtic Music Podcasts.  It’s definitely worth checking out, even if you’re not Irish.

A while back, someone had mentioned that they were reading N.T. Wright.  I had to look him up.  Although I had heard of him, I hadn’t read him so decided I might get a book or two.  While waiting for my books, I was looking for podcasts and stumbled upon one he did with Anne Rice.

Anne Rice?  The woman who wrote about Vampires?

Yep.  That was the one.  I had no idea she had become a Christian and had been writing Christian novels/fiction.  So I got and just finished Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt. The non-Kindle version.  This is a curious book, but it is exceedingly well-written.  I recommend reading Rice’s testimony in the back of the book before reading the rest of it as it will help add a lot of the context.  Rice was raised a Catholic and returned to that flavor of faith when she was converted.  So there are more than a few influences of that in the novel.  However, there are enough things contained therein to offend pretty much anyone looking to be offended.  But if you remember that this is a work of fiction that contains a lot of research and scholarship, it should go down better which is why I recommend reading her ex[laination of how she came to write it.  You can also catch her podcast with NT Wright.

Wright writes a lot like CS Lewis, with that same sort of scholarly, English style of writing supported by the dry wit of someone who knows his material but also knows people.  I ordered two books.  I found that I sort of stalled out while reading For All God’s Worth and after 2 chapters picked up Rice’s book and read that one to completion.  But now I find I’m more easily able to handle it.  I’m also looking forward to reading Surprised by Hope.

So you see, I do have some other interests going on , in addition to considering a career change keeping and up with the boys who are each involved in different sports and activities.  And teaching Sunday School.

So I keep pretty busy with other things that function as diversions from the lack of intimacy in my marriage.  We’ve also had a hiatus from counseling for the past few weeks and I haven’t exactly missed it.

Okay, that’s enough content for the moment.  I’ll see if I can pick up the pace just a tad this summer, in between all my other stuff. Yeah, you may have noticed that blogging didn’t even make the above list of things occupying my time.

D.