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.

20 Ways to Marriage Improvement and a Better Sex Life

My postings become ever so scarce, mostly because there has been no real movement. Well, not much. And none in the right direction.

Arwyn has effectively learned how to game the whole counseling business and keep the topics in safe territory. As an avoider, sometimes this suits me emotionally but not so much in reality. And the larger question of just how committed Arwyn is to any meaningful degree of intimacy remains to be seen. She does like to talk about selected topics, and sometimes I’m perfectly keen to engage her in these conversations about what to do for a vacation or fixing the house or about the kids. But there has been no real physical affection the last few weeks to speak of. The thing is that she seems perfectly fine with that.

We did go out of town for a few days (with the kids) and that was a trip that had fun moments but was bereft of any affection. And the few times I tried to just reach out to her were met by simple indifference or moving away. Last night, I had finally just had it. We went to bed at 9:30 (way early for me and about right for her) and I did want to just cuddle and snuggle. And yes, I would have liked some sexual intimacy with that, but I was simply starving for some real reciprocal physical touching. She was having none of it. She was in her typical inverted position and I actually inverted so we were both in the same direction although not in the same plane when it comes to covers of blankets. She complained that her back was hurting and mine has been bugging me for the past week as well. Part of my problem is the lack of physical comfort, which I need to find a way to deal or cope with. But she gradually got more irritated with me being so close to her and my breathing. I finally suggested that maybe we needed to get new beds…one for each of us. she asked me what I was talking about and I suggested that that is the way we were practically sleeping anyway. She took some offense and pointed out several times in the last two weeks when I was tired or not feeling well. As if she was keen to have sex on those days or had any intentions or inclination toward any physical affection then.

I relented and got back in my own position in the bed under the proper plane of covers. She said she was just too tired and I said that was fine. “However, you need to understand that just because I’m not pawing you all the time that does NOT mean I am okay with involuntary celibacy.”

“That’s fine.” she responded.

“That’s the problem; you’re too fine with it.”

And that is where it ended.

shit. I feel like I have bloodied myself over and over against the same brick wall. What I said last joint counseling session is more true than ever and is also a reason for my lack of blogging. I feel spent. I’m tired and tapped out. I simply don’t have the energy to keep rolling that big boulder up the hill just to have it roll right back down again.

Sure we had fun with the kids last week. But I could have probably had more fun with the kids without Arwyn’s whining and fussiness and paranoia. I could have been with my sister, a nanny or Arwyn’s mother. Yeah, these are good times just being with someone I care about. But we are essentially strangers to each other and that seems to be the way Arwyn prefers it. THAT is a very bitter pill to swallow.

Let’s see if I can list the interventions attempted in order to improve our marriage or deal with the lack of intimacy in no particular order. I wouldn’t put a lot of stock in these if I were you, considering they haven’t done much for me so far.

1. Dr. Phil’s Relationship Rescue: she bought this one for herself but never did it. But I did and did all the stuff without the benefit of the workbook. She never touched it. When I got to the part where I had to interact with her, she said she wanted to wait until she had a chance to go through it herself. And that’s where that ended.
2. Praying together: I bought several books on this and Arwyn looked them. But this lasted less than 2 weeks because Arwyn couldn’t decide on a good time to do it.
3. Date night: tried this several times with several permutations with the latest being a “media free night.” Some okay talking and even some decent sex happened on occasion but it was never a consistent thing. something else always pre-empted our night.
4. Real dates: A local church used to offer respites once a month that we did at times. But they were for 4 hours and took place at odd times like 10-2 or 2-6 0r 9-1 and sometimes 5-9. The ticking clock really got in the way of feeling relaxed. But our youngest was conceived during one of those respite times. But neither of us were really into the inconsistency of this program.
5. A raft of self-help and relationship books as well as a ton of research into various peer-reviewed journals. Many of these were good, but I was the only one reading them. It gave me dandy insights that I could share…
6. iVillage Clashing Libidos/Mismatched Libidos or whatever it might be called now. It can be a really nice support group and it can also be a snake pit. iVillage had some really screwy terms of service as far as what was considered appropriate or not and I was forever testing limits. I probably called some stupid people stupid and got fire for it more than once. Which led to…
7. Blogging. Here we are! My own space so I can write my own stuff and interact with whoever I want, whenever I want. Or not. All without censorship. I made some nice virtual friends and for awhile this was the place to be for relationship issues. Some of this has helped keep me moving things along through it being a sort of accountability/support group. Maybe my lack of energy is caused by less blogging on it as much as it is a result of it. Reading other folks has been a source of good ideas and inspiration at times.
8. Chastity play. That was a major theme of this blog and the archives still bring in bus loads of kinksters. At times, it did seem to help in various ways, but when Arwyn’s interest in that venture waned, it was less and less fun to do by myself. In fact, I began to resent her more for her total lack of interest and involvement in this kink. I know it isn’t her fault if she’s not into that sort of thing, but it looks like non-interest in ME. And I’m still looking for refutation of that particular view.
9. 2-minute intimacy. That was my own pet campaign, where I tried to just get two minutes of hugging/holding each day. It was a bit nightmarish, because I discovered that 30 seconds was the best I could get consistently. I’m sure I came off as being overly needy during this, but it was based in small part on one of Dr. Phil’s exercises (which may have come from Schnarch) which involves hugging until relaxed.
10. Schnarch. This is not a program, per se, but his material has provided me with a good deal of insight. I would say that I did benefit a great deal from it, and have benefited from occasionally revisiting it. Basically, it is more about altering my own attitude more than Arwyn’s behavior. However, it also allows for some integrity in the midst of conflict, which is why I felt I had to let Arwyn know that I was not okay with the way things are at the moment.
11. Individual prayer, supplication, Bible study and generally wrestling with God over this issue. Otherwise, I would have flown this coop long ago. This has been a spiritual journey more than anything else.
12. Counseling. Mustn’t forget this! Afterall, this was a major thing that my blog readers spent years clamoring for. Oddly, most of the folks clamoring for it have never done it themselves. Or not so oddly. And about now is where readers/commenters will tell me I haven’t found the right counselor.
13. Compromise. Yes, this is what marriage is all about, right? So when Arwyn was too tired, not interested or whatever the reason not into sex, I could ask for a handjob and she would do it more often than not. BUT it was decidedly NOT remotely what I wanted or needed. It became an emotionally sterile procedure designed to medicate me and get me off her back. At least it made me more aware that intimacy was what I wanted and needed.
14. Money and gifts. The getting of gifts happens to be a love language of hers, so sometimes this actually works. I can seemingly buy some genuine affection for about $200, or so it seems. Cash does seem to be an aphrodisiac of a sort, which seems to be true the world over. Money can’t buy love, but it can buy something that looks an awful lot more like it than what a lot lot of people get from those who claim to love them.
15. Extra chores, extra help around the house, extra appreciation, extra extra, extra! All these extras gave Arwyn a lot more time in order to invest in other interests. I was not one of them. I know, I should be able to do them just because with no expectation of anything in return. But the extras depleted me and added extra stress and another avenue of criticism when they weren’t done right. I’m not talking about washing the car once a week. This is floor, toilet and shower scrubbing, vacuuming type stuff. Plus the cooking and groceries that I always do.
16. Give myself a make-over. Losing gobs of weight, stopped smoking and did more stuff with the kids. These were all major points of contention for Arwyn as far as how she viewed me. Or so she said. But honestly, these were just more conditions and obstacles. I think the “no deep kissing because you smell/taste like smoke” was the most telling. She just does not go that way, period. The above things were good, in and of themselves and make me a better person/father all ’round. But there was always a part of me that was hoping that these things would help win her over.
17. Talking, confronting, arguing fighting. Off and on over the years, we get into it over the sex and intimacy issue. for her, intimacy = talking. For me…not so much. I’m willing to do my version and hers at the same time or switch off but sex is just important for me to feel like I’m a man married to a woman and not just a roommate or girlfriend. so we have blow ups and blow outs about it. Things might improve for a week but it slides back again.
18. Avoiding. This is something that I’ve tried more often than not, and is definitely Arwyn’s tactic/intervention of choice. Basically the idea is to outlast the other person or outlast the problem. Either way, I get screwed and not in a good way.
19. Solo sex. Hey, if I can’t be intimate with my wife, perhaps I can deepen intimacy with myself. Chastity play extended into this arena as well as the aneros and the fleshlight. Sure, I learned a thing or two about kinkiness and subspace and what trips my trigger, but that’s not exactly the sort of intimacy I was looking for. It certainly is not the sort of relationship that entered into my mind on my wedding day. “Wow, I’m married! Now I can stick stuff up my butt!” Right.
20. Affair. The closest I ever got was that deal with Cleopatra a few years ago. We spoke on the phone once and it wasn’t even phone sex or cybersex, it was more like exchanging frustrations and flirtations. About the same time I got flirtatious with a co-worker or her flirting with me more like. Heaven knows I enjoyed that attention, but both women had way more issues than I wanted to deal with as if I didn’t have enough of my own! It never even got to much of an emotional level but I won’t lie. I was seriously flirting with the idea of having an affair.
21. ENQ – I did this twice. The first time, Arwyn said she would do it, but did not. The second time she did it when the therapist assigned it. Hat tip to Joanna who brought that up.
22. Toys. These would be toys to enhance HER pleasure, specifically some cock rings to help me maintain a firmer erection plus some added textures to hit her buttons. Initially she seemed somewhat positive about it, if not a bit reserved. But when it came right down to it, it was a disaster. She refused to even try them.
    

#20 is not exactly “marriage improvement” so probably shouldn’t be on the list at all, but it was something I thought of at the time as a way to cope with the constant rejection. And that’s really what keeps bringing me down. Intimacy issues and hang-ups would be a lot easier to deal with if they didn’t come bundled with so much rejection. I can not touch my wife, hold my wife, caress my wife or kiss my wife in the manner that I would like to without getting told that I can’t.

Well, there you go. I’m probably missing some things from the above list, but you get the idea. This has been a very long process. Ordeal. Journey. Whatever. It has been long spanning no less than 10 ten years and going back to the beginning. To be sure I made mistakes and have tried to own up to them to Arwyn. I have asked for forgiveness but I’m not sure I ever got it from her, but you can not compel a person to forgive you or to love you. And that’s where I am; not too sure the woman I love loves me.

I’ll be back in a few weeks! Enjoy this retro video tribute…

I’ll be on VACATION for a few weeks, touring MN, WI and IA for a 3,000 mile whirlwind tour!

So in the spirit of vacations:

Remember that one? The Go-gos were the hottest all-girl band around. But the real queen of 1980’s music had an early #1 with this one:

I remember how weird we all thought she was and how odd her clothes were. But at least by this time someone had clued her in about shaving and sleeveless.

But in the 1980’s, I was not a huge fan of the above sounds. They were okay, only because they were hot chicks. But I was not a fan of pop music. No, in the early 1980’s, I was into a different sound. In fact, this tune probably better describes what I’m in for on this marathon road trip to middle earth. Man, I was SO into these guys!

Later!

D.

Completely Different: On Nerds

I’ve had too much time on my hands; time that I could have been blogging and musing and providing content to the community of wonderful bloggers that I have gotten to know over the past few years. But my story isn’t really moving. In fact, medical issues have kind of put it on hold. Nothing too awfully major, but those of you who travel on this road know that no issue is too small to be exploited if you’re really looking for an excuse.

So I’ve spent a gob of time on the net, but precious little of it reading and writing. Don’t be mistaken: I am a huge, huge fan of web 2.0. But I think we’re at least at web 2.5. Instead of read/write, it is more watch/produce. Producing content and interacting with the content is still the defining characteristic, but YouTube provides richness beyond anything else going right now. Blogging still has its place, but it is being taken over by more and more V-logging. I’ve been watch all sorts of vlogs the past couple of weeks, and have discovered that whole otherworld of the new 21^st century celebrity that is available to anyone who is creative and daring enough.

I have traveled around YouTube before, courtesy of many of your links, but never really got into the community aspect of it. And there’s every bit of a community there as there is here with bloggers. In fact, the visual/auditory modalities can add a lot to the community experience. If you’re daring enough.

For the past 4 months or so, Caitlin Hill has been a guilty indulgence. I ran across her video on Vegemite and totally liked it.  I liked how spastic and outrageous she was, and watched more of her videos.  I also liked the Australian accent, although it is a bit weird, because while an Aussie will often drop the ‘r’ in  words like “weird” or “bird”, which is rather British-like they will tack it on to words like “know” and “No” and “so”.  But all that aside, I was charmed.  As I dug deeper into the Youtube community, I discovered a pretty vibrant thing going on there.  Most notably, a movement that is making being a nerd or geek a cool thing to be.  Suddenly, being a nerd is a cool thing.

Wow.  Where the hell was this pro-geek culture when *I* was in high school or college?

Us old school nerds have totally missed it.  The question is this: will these neo-nerds accept us old school nerds, or are we still too geeky for this hip, new, trendy culture?  While being a nerd (which is seen more favorably than geek on the east coast but reversed on the west) today still involves non-athletic creativity, the community has become much bigger and tighter thanks to Youtube vloggers.  They have managed to harness technology in a way that has made it possible for nerds to be every bit as vain and narcissistic as those jock/cheerleader-types we seemed to envy and dislike back in the day.

Enter, the Nerdfighters.

Just looking at the name, you might suspect that these are a bunch of nerd-haters but one quickly realizes that the nerdfighters are themselves nerds.  I still think the name implies nerd-on-nerd violence, but those folks who invented it use it a bit differently.  They basically decided that it was nerds fighting against “world suck.”  Many of you may know this already.  Many of you may even be a part of the nerdfighting thing.  The nerds have definitely taken over YouTube.  Many neo-nerd communities seem to revolve around Harry Potter.  While Harry Potter looked like a bit of nerd, he was entirely too talented at quidditch to be taken seriously as a nerd.  At least from where I sit, it takes more than wearing glasses to make one a nerd.

Blogging and vlogging would naturally seem to attract more nerdish people because it involves socializing online rather than in real life.  That doesn’t mean we don’t socialize in real life, but the fact that we have this existence apart from real life is something a non-nerd has a hard time understanding.  I’ve tried to explain it, but I’d be better off just teaching these people about Linux.  Fact is, they aren’t all that interested.

I’m glad that there is a place where nerds can rule, even if it is sort of a virtual place.  But it’s interesting to note that within that place, there are still groups and cliques, just like there was in high school.   And if you’re a girl vlogger, looks still matter.  Same with male vloggers too,  I imagine although guys have to have a bit more talent to really make it compared to a lady whose willing to show some flesh in her thumbnail.  I don’t blame the women for doing it, since it is the guys who drive that kind of traffic.

Anyway, this is not a very coherent post.  I was just thinking about my own days of being a young nerd.  I didn’t have a date to any school dance or prom or anything.  And it wasn’t because I didn’t want to or didn’t try.  It was that writing, music and acting were extremely low on the social food chain.  Even nerdy girls didn’t want to date me.  But then even that concept is being challenged now, according to this Newsweek article.

We’re all vulnerable to narcissism, and perhaps those of us who were marginalized as youngsters are even more prone to it.  A lot of us were invisible and then those few times we weren’t invisible we wished we were.

Some of these neo-nerds look entirely too cool to be real nerds.  I mean they seem to be missing out on a lot of what it means to be a social misfit by actually fitting in!  On one hand, I’m sort of glad that being a nerd-geek is not the bad thing it once was.  I especially like that there is an outlet that is so accessible to those of us with social, emotional and behavioral issues.  We can sort of see a person by what they produce in intellectual and creative content beyond whatever they look like or their performance in an athletic arena or beyond the fatness of their wallet.  There’s a sort of egalitarianism in it.  On the other hand, I see the labels “nerd” and “geek” being co-opted and marketed by a lot of folks who might not have any business being called nerds.

I know there’s some old school geek lords around here who are well versed in nerdcraft.  What makes a person nerdy?  Is it now cool to be more nerdy?  Is there a hierarchy among geeks?  Would you prefer to be called a geek or a nerd?

DFTBA!

D.

Doing Mt. Everest

High time for an update, I would say. And that for a couple of reasons. First, I need to keep the story moving and second I need to pave the way for an upcoming blogging blitz. I need to finish a couple of books and I need to blog them, just to make sure I can internalize them. So stand by for that, as it should be fun.

Maybe.

I also plan on visiting you all more and clean up my blogroll. Like my garden, there are a lot of dead spots that need to be culled out and filled up with some new blogs that I’ve been reading.

And now for the update…

When last I blogged, we were having some problems getting it together for date night. In fact, the one Wednesday she managed to come through has been the one and only time that we’ve managed to get together for date night. During the last joint session, I brought up the fact that sex hadn’t happened since the last session (Over two weeks, since he had been sick) and Arwyn said it was hard to get into it because I seemed a bit lackadaisical about it the way I behaved. I didn’t seem overly enthused. So I put it this way:

Basically, getting enthused and ramped up for date night is an unmitigated disaster for me. Something will invariably come up and date night gets canceled. All that energy put into anticipation and enthusiasm becomes dashed to pieces in disappointment. Emotionally, the toll is too high to pay when it happens time after time after time. Basically, 90% of the time, date night does not happen. I can cope with some disappointment sometimes, but not at the high rate that it happens when it comes to planning sex. So it is easier not anticipating and taking a more laid back approach so I’m not shattered by disappointment. Devoting a lot of energy in the build-up and excitement translates into anger, bitterness and resentment when it does not happen. Okay, so she experiences pressure. But she needs to decide. Enthusiasm = pressure, so which does she want? It’s a tricky, tricky thing.

The therapist offered this compromise: if date night falls through on Friday night, then we’ll get together on Saturday night as a fall-back. Okay, I can try that. Arwyn also went for it. So here comes Friday and…

It falls through. I’m feeling under the weather but am willing to hold to the commitment, but she is too tired. So, here comes Saturday. Nothing. Sunday, she finally says that we can get together on Tuesday night. Okay, fine. But I’m not holding my breathe here. In the meantime, She has a solo session with the therapist that evening and I have no idea what happened, but she did stick with her promise. We did have an interesting experience, which I’ll share in a moment, but there’s still more water to travel under this bridge, just to clear away all the refuse.

So we had sex on Tuesday, and I’m wondering what Friday will bring, since we seem to have had sex already this week. So Friday comes and I’m in the bedroom reading or watching TV. She comes in and gets ready for bed so I get ready for bed, too. Yes, I’m tired but we start kissing and generally making out which amps up my energy level considerably. Then, here it comes; “I’m tired and going to sleep.”

Crap.

Oh well. That’s been the way it has gone. I had a fitful night of sleeping and waking but made it through. The next morning, she woke up and as I was leaving the house for an early appointment, she said “Can we have some husband and wife time tonight?”

“Okay.”

“Okay?Just okay?”

“Yeah, okay if you want.”

There was that lack of enthusiasm thing again, but I’m better off not getting psyched when disappointment looms large around every opportunity. There seems to be a dark cloud inside of every silver lining!

Okay, so we’re still struggling here. But as several of you have pointed out, this is still progress. It’s dirty, gritty, messy and difficult all the way, but progress is progress. It’s like fucking Mount Everest. You can freeze to death, lose a limb or plummet to your death. But you keep aiming for the summit, even when you are totally out of your mind. Perhaps especially when you are out of your mind.  And then there’s the trip back.

So let’s talk about the sex, sans the bitterness for a minute. The sex has been getting better, even with the freezing, snow-blowing storms all around. Our sex-script for the past 10 years or so goes like this:

She takes off most of her clothes except for panties.

She lies on the bed face down.

I give her a back rub, getting more and more turned on.

I finally start taking off her panties.

She rolls over and if I still have underwear on, she takes them off.

She gets on top.

She grinds around, and sometimes gets into it and sometime just seems to want me to hurry up and get it over with.

I get it over with.

My orgasm kicks her desire up and she decides to want more, but I’m spent.

She gets frustrated as I enter the refractory period.

Not much post-play. Usually she washes up/showers and I fall asleep.

Sometimes I get to be on top, which has happened more and more since we started trying to work on the sex life again.

A couple weeks ago, we changed it up in a major way.

There was no backrubbing but she and I got our clothes off straight away. I prefer more participatory and naked foreplay anyway, so this was refreshing. She came across the bed, and I met her and we just sort of came together sitting up and embraced. I’m sitting with my legs out and she’s on her knees as we embrace and kiss. She’s getting a bit more excited and so am I and she tries to grind into me, but she can’t get anywhere while she’s kneeling. So she finally wraps her legs around my waist, which does feel fabulous.

I’ve looked for this position on the internet, since the internet is a grand repository of all things sexual. But oddly enough I have yet to find this exact position. The closest is using a chair, but we’re both flat on the bed. According to another site, it does mention this variation but it is listed as an advanced position!

During our initial foray with this, we did not finish in this position. In fact, I don’t think there was any penetration before we moved on to the good ole missionary. But it was pretty hot.

So last Saturday, it was as easy as gravity trying this again. This time, Arwyn was very keen to really give this position a go. Getting inside of her proved to be a bit of a challenge, so we had to go into a sort of spider position in order for me to maneuver myself into her. And that itself was totally hot, hot, hot. That’s because it involved me waving my schwartz around and getting it into her using my hands. My hands have never gotten that close. But there I was and there she was. I had to do some work to get in there at that angle, but it was worth it. I got inside, she leaned forward, and I held on for dear life. She was definitely turned on and went for it.

I did not know this position was advanced at the time, but I can see why it is. A chair would definitely make it totally easier I think, especially with having some back support. Moving was really hard, but I really did go for it as she was getting into it more and more. My back was getting sore and my legs felt like they were cramping up. She was moving and grinding and holding on tight and seriously getting into it, and I am basically holding on for dear life. I was getting worn out! She finally quieted a bit and I needed a change in position. But no change was going to get my mojo back, as I really was all spent, energy-wise. And I did seriously try, and she even used her hands to try to bring me back to life. It felt really good, but the whole moment had passed. I did tell her that it was totally hot, though. Not getting off was not a huge deal to me as the novel experience was enough to fuel some major fantasies for quite some time.

I’m thinking a chair would really help, especially if we could both get our feet on the floor. She even mused about me getting my back against the headboard, but that won’t work as she has to have some place for her feet.

If I’m not mistaken, there might be one or two of you more experienced with the sitting position. What say you? I’m curious as to both male and female points of view with this. Having one more position in the repertoire definitely helps relieve the boredom factor. But the fatigue factor is a big one, at least for me the way we did it.

So there you have it. There’s some frustrating topography but there’s also some good experiences, too. It’s mostly a matter of us getting it together, and we are working on it. Our therapist is taking this week off and I’m up for a solo visit next time around. Her and the boys will be going to Florida that week, so we’ll be working on getting her ready this week. We’ll be busy but I’m looking forward to having some blog time that week

D.

Counseling #2 – Nothing Much New

All I can say is that there were no new revelations or breakthroughs during our second counseling session.  I think it was Emily who suggested that real work didn’t happen until session #3.  In my case, it may be session #4.

This session was spent with the counselor getting more background on our parents.  I can’t think of much that was revealed that I haven’t talked about before.  Her Dad’s alcoholism was a major theme, as well as the tendency of him to favor her two younger brothers over her.  For instance, she’d ask for a game or something for Christmas and it would appear under the tree…for her brother!  She spent quite a bit of time going over the strains of that relationship, and then when my name came up she dealt with comparing my frugality juxtaposed with her father’s monetary generosity.  Thing was, her dad was so fraught with guilt, he felt the need to compensate in the form of money and stuff.  So while I was trying to pinch pennies when we were starting out with very little money and lots of debt, she rebelled and went out and bought stuff anyway.  This just made things worse, money-wise.  So in a certain sense when comparing me to her father, I was coming up short in the money/provider department.

That was a bit difficult to hear, but I couldn’t apologize for that.  But I could acknowledge that I enabled it by avoiding talking to her about her spending.  I saw a lot of stuff coming into the house and didn’t question it much, figuring her dad was bankrolling her.  That was a mistaken assumption as she was using her credit cards and pretty much maxed them out.  We finally, finally have those crooks from Visa paid off.  They have steadily been shortening the grace period, raising the interest rate, increasing the amount of time on the penalty rate from 6 to 12 months and raising the late fees .  Playing with credit cards is like playing with poisonous snakes.  Sooner or later you will get bit.

I talked a bit about growing up on the farm and how that took priority over everything in the family.  It was an oppressive enough atmosphere that looked a lot like a sweatshop type of thing to us kids that we all live as far as Iowa as possible with my brother on the West coast, my sister on the East coast and me in the deep south.  But I think climate had quite a lot to do with it, too, seeing as you Midwestern folks are suffering this winter.  I have not forgotten frigid mornings fighting snow and ice or sweltering humid summers. 

I sat in the counseling session and found myself wondering why we both needed to be there and why we needed a babysitter.  Reflective listening is comforting in a way, but it was not getting us anywhere.  Little new ground and certainly nothing approaching resolution.  I’m willing to give it a half dozen more sessions but at some point there needs to be some progress made considering the time and money invested.  Arwyn and I have made progress on our own individually but not much together as a couple.  The next session, Arwyn will be going on her own followed by me going on my own the following week.  Maybe those sessions will shake something loose and I’m willing to stick with going a few rounds with that.  The fees are reasonable at $75 per session, but not if we’re not getting anywhere.  I might as well spend the money on lottery tickets.

One thing of note, is that starting in January (well before counseling appeared on the radar) I did confront Arwyn about her odd sleeping posture, i.e. sleeping with her head at the foot of the bed and wrapped in a totally separate blanket.  She has since reoriented her self back to having her head at the head of the bed, but she is still wrapped in her own blanket.  Cold weather would seem to be opportune snuggling weather since her chief complaint about sleeping close to me is that I’m too hot but that hasn’t happened.  So maybe there is some progress in there somewhere, but it has been glacial at best.  Warm weather WILL be back soon enough and then the hot complaint will kick in.

So you Yankees just hang tough and stay warm! 

D.

LOST

That’s what I’ve been watching the past week ever since I discovered all of the seasons are now available online. I’ve watched a few episodes before but never really got hooked. I’m kind of glad I didn’t because now I can just watch as many consecutive episodes as I want without having to wait! It’s a lot like watching the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy (extended version) when you didn’t see the original movies. This being made even more true by the presence of Dominic Monaghan a former hobbit of said trilogy. I’m almost through season 2!

But it also reflects where we are the past few days. Thanks for all of the comments and encouragement, and I expected a lot of positive feedback given the fact that most of you have been beating me over head with a counseling club the past couple of years. Arwyn is willing to go, this is true and good. But we’re still not really going anywhere. I looked at some old journals and found that this business of being marooned dates back to at least 1999! Which happens to coincide with the birth of our first child.

Desmond asked for some special needs child backstory. No, this has not been a theme of this blog although it has been a major theme for Arwyn’s emotional storyline. I actually do have a blog out there that deals with autism and disabilities (she knows about that one but doesn’t read it) but my personal story as a parent still is not a major theme there. It’s sort of a secondary story. It has been a big part of our lives and I think we’ve been dealing with it. But I put the marriage on a higher priority level than any disability. This is easier said than done for any mother I’ve ever met. The children usually are elevated into a position of supreme importance and most other things become marginalized including the mothers themselves. In the process, I had to learn to be less selfish which has been a constant and painful exercise.

The divorce rate for parents of children with special needs is about 80%. For autism it is around 90% according to statics Arwyn has read. The question of “why” has not been sufficiently addressed in the professional literature of either autism or marital therapy fields. It’s not hard to imagine how increased medical costs can strain a marriage financially. Or the stress of raising a child with physical and behavioral issues. However autism lends itself to stresses as far as cause and treatment unlike any other disorder or disability. There are no physical markers. There are no blood tests. There are behavioral rating scales and tests of physical, emotional and adaptive development. Even though everyone agrees this is neurological no one knows exactly the the cause and there is no cure. So it is like there is this mystery thing at work and Arwyn set off to solve it. Mostly without me, even though my education and background are more in-depth in this area. She set off to find the cure. This involved trying a lot of stupid crap. Special diets. Special nutrients. Special therapies. All of it is pseudoscience and all of it is expensive as hell. Our financial hell was mostly fueled by this sort of crap financed by my limited salary as a special education teacher.

As I started to say last post, my response to Arwyn’s deepening obsession with pseudo science was anger and withdrawal. Supportive? Why on earth would I support something that is so obviously fraudulant? It is a long con that always opens with “Just try it! Wouldn’t you do anything for your child if there was only just a chance? Why won’t you just try it? How can you put a dollar amount on the health of your child?”

All cons make use of pride, guilt and fear. With autism, the guilt is already there and so is the fear. All the con artist has to do is fan the flame a bit and then pride takes over when a family who is doing the diet, therapy or other expensive intervention is seen as being more hopeful, more intelligent, more diligent and a better parent than the ones who are not throwing money down the toilet. I might even get a comment or two here from purveyors of crap if I give this an “autism” tag. It’s like the spanking discussion; it’s hard to have a rational conversation about interventions when so much is based on irrational feelings.

Parents of older kids know what we’re just starting to learn: we have to accept our kids as they are. Autism is not the end of the world. It doesn’t have to be the end of marriage. But it frequently is.

If you talk to women, they will point the fingers at the father. He is in denial and can not handle it so he abandons his wife and child. I do see that sometimes, but that is making it seem more simple than it really is. The man might not be abandoning his child as much as his wife. Is it because he wants no responsibility? Not likely since most guys are willing to put forth a minimum of effort if they get married in the first place. But I have seen firsthand the change the mother goes through once she becomes mother. The whole concept of “wife” get thrown out the window in favor of this new role. The guy who is now “father” doesn’t anticipate the role of “husband” coming to an end but that pretty much becomes the reality. Most couples do experience a cascading effect where marital satisfaction declines after a child is born. It involves a fundamental shift in roles and responsibilities and if a marriage is already weak, having a child makes it even weaker. If the child has special needs, multiply that effect by a factor of 4.

Arwyn did admit that she was consumed by the autism world until fairly recently. She can still get caught up in things but she has mellowed on it a bit. Her and I would still have intimacy issues regardless of our child’s disability, so I have not made that a major theme here. We are exceptional and extraordinary because of what we’ve been through. But we haven’t gotten any closer as much as we’ve gotten less hostile which is progress of its own. But we can do so much better if the marriage could just show up on the radar screen for both of us once in a while. The counseling at least helps put it there for an hour or so a week.

D.

Counseling #1

We didn’t talk much about it, except I did ask her if she still wanted to go and she said she was fine with it. And that was that.

We drove to the church in silence. The closer we got, you could feel the tension ramping up. We walked into the counseling center and filled out a variety of miscellaneous papers. While insurance would not cover these visits, the cost was within our range. While this guy has a Master’s degree, he is still working under the supervision of someone who is licensed and working towards his own license. It occurred to me that by the time the church took their cut and he spent time going through the paperwork and such, he was not getting paid very much for his time, relatively speaking. Pair this with the odd hours and it adds up to a tough career. It beats farming, though.

So we walked in and he went over his credentials, approach, privacy policy and other things and then asked us why we were there.

So I had to do some talking not unlike what I do here with you folks. He’s a skilled empathetic listener, often restating what I said to make sure he was hearing it correctly. I’m not a big fan of empathetic communication skills for marriage counseling but I do have a better appreciation for it now that I’ve seen it done with some skill.

We talked about our own marital history and some of the stressors we’ve had to endure. Like having a child with special needs, which our particular disability category gives us about a 90% chance of being divorced. Or put another way, 10% of making it all the way. When we went over the stressors it did give me an appreciation as to how we’ve managed to persevere. We know a few other couples with special needs children and most of them have marriages that are falling to pieces. But 90% of the time a divorce is in the cards under the emotional, financial and general stress generated by this sort of trial. You don’t have to look too far in our little community to find casualties of the struggle to raise kids with extra needs.

We briefly went through so family history but not a whole lot of time. He had a little family tree where he took notes on our parents and on us and the kids. Given our moving around and how spread out our families are, I can see some utility in trying to keep track of everyone. I could see more utility in family systems therapy for younger parents who had extended family close by and where there was deeper enmeshment or even estrangement. But we’re just connected by distance.

Not a lot of real deep disclosures were made in this initial session. We did talk about the where we were in the sexual arena which is to say we’re having sex about every other year. And this is supposedly his specialty so it will be interesting to see how he deals with this. Our initial goals are to get out of our marital rut and to move into an area of greater intimacy. Or, if sex wasn’t going to happen, I would have to deal with that. He said dealing with not having sex would be a last resort, as it would be preferable to move into greater intimacy.

Arwyn appeared to be fairly relaxed in the session. She voiced her own anxieties and frustrations in being a mother to a demanding son and wife to an equally demanding husband and the seeming never-ending crises that we endured as parents. We were both pretty needy at that time with very little in the way of family and social support. Thing was, especially early on, as Arwyn’s anxiety was always high it sent my own anxiety into the stratosphere. Not knowing how to deal with that, I did what pretty much every guy does when confronted with domestic stress; I dove deeper into work and spent more time away from home. Home was too stressful a place where things were out of control, contrasted to work where I could exert control and get positive feedback and respect. I’m not saying it was right. It was classic avoidance and denial. I have no idea what else I could have or would have done. Better to live on a corner of a roof than to live with a contentious wife. But I was not helping her be less contentious by avoiding while still being demanding.

Anyway, since we had her mother watching the boys we did go out to eat and it was a fairly nice and relaxing time. We’re in a place where I think we can move on because we’re not embroiled in contempt and hostility. The counselor said he thought he could help us and we are setting up for next week. We’ll then maybe do some individual stuff for a couple of sessions which will help from having to scramble for childcare every week. Arwyn seems to be pretty open about the process so that will help move things along. It’s too early to place a whole lot of confidence it this guy or the process but we’ll see.

D.