An Update Amidst The Drought

After not blogging for so long, it’s kind of difficult to get back into it, especially for one like this, that has a sort of narrative theme. It would seem that I have some catching up to do.

After the last encounter, Arwyn made good on the date night the next week despite the fact that she was tired, and truth be known, so was I. So afterward, we were lolling around in bed and she asked if we could move our date nights to Friday nights. That reflected my thoughts exactly, so it was easily agreed upon. This meant waiting an extra few days for the next date night, but I was okay with that. I’ve had to wait a lot longer than 10 days before, it’s not a huge deal.

This did come up during our joint therapy appointment, and the therapist was very keen on the idea of scheduled date nights. We also discussed the fact that I was entering into my busiest and most difficult time of the year, much akin to 2Amsomewhere’s Death March where I work crazily long hours and fall under a considerable amount of stress. The therapist brought up the idea that it was during such times of stress where physical intimacy might be even more important to keep the connection alive. That thought resonated with me. With Arwyn? Not so much.

Thursday came, and Arwyn had a doctor’s appointment to get her hands looked at, as they were bothering her from carpel tunnel syndrome. A shot of cortisone in each wrist and a few hours later, she was in such bad pain she could not move either hand without being in serious pain. The boys and I had to feed her, which was good for a laugh and did lift her spirits quite a bit. The fact that date night would be a wash was a foregone conclusion, and I knew she couldn’t help it, so no big deal. But she really made no special effort to offer a rain check, either. And she felt well enough to do some extensive shopping on Saturday, blowing a small fortune, but not enough to push my cart, if you know what I mean, and I think you do. Still, she complained of minor pain so I didn’t make a huge deal about it.

But as time wore on, it became more of a huge deal, but I had no time to talk about it because I have been so busy trudging through the trenches. Another week goes by and Friday night comes. This time we were out late at the kids’ baseball game and both tired. She at least apologized for that and then went to do other stuff so I could watch Battlestar Galactica. Thank goodness for decent TV! And then today she was complaining of all the stuff she had to do, and there was a very, very noticeable lack of enthusiasm and urgency in getting the kids to bed. I helped move them along but she was so not involved. I guess the whole Mother’s day clause has kicked in already. I plan on either cooking something good for her or going out to eat. Going out to eat on Mother’s day involves a huge hassle factor as everyone…and their mother…are eating out.

So I figure if I’m not having sex for several weeks it’s worth blogging about!

Our therapist was sick last week so that appointment was canceled. If I wasn’t going to bring it up last week, it will certainly be a topic for this next week. No we haven’t hashed it out, and that has been costly but I’ve been extraordinarily busy. In all fairness, she’s feeling a considerable amount of her own stress, too and I have not been very available in any sense of the word to support her very much. There hasn’t been much intimacy at all and I feel I need to deal with my stresses on my own as she’s not willing or able to be available.

Perhaps a gardening update will be more optimistic:

I’ve had fresh lettuce and asparagus for the past month, and it has been mighty nice. The radishes didn’t amount to much. While parts of Georgia has enjoyed some regular rain, my part has not. I emptied my rain barrel last weekend in anticipation of it being refilled the next day. That rain never happened. We did get a brief shower of a couple tenths on Wedensday, but the anticipated rain of today totally blew by or around us. We’re going to be dry again this year and I’m going to need another rain barrel or two or three.

My garlic is ready to dig up and I think the elephant garlic should be ready. I’ve never planted the elephant variety before, but it must be ready as it is shooting up flower stalks. They look a bit weird so I might let a couple of them bloom just to see what their flower looks like. The tops aren’t dying back like the other variety, so I’m not sure when theyare supposed to be ready short of pulling them up.

Pole beans are coming along as well as some sugar snap peas. The beets didn’t make it and I’m not sure if the bush beans will. Casualties of our fickle weather. Tomatoes look good as they always get the most of whatever water I have. Blueberries look real good, as they should since they had the year off last year. Peaches don’t look good at all, but the almond tree is loaded. Those can double as peaches in a real pinch, and they’ll probably have to this year again. One apple tree totally did not make it, another looks sick and the third looks like it might be okay but we have never done overly well with apples here. And the plums have never produced anything. I think I’ll be using the prolific branches to build supports for my other stuff. If they happen to get whatever blight is going after my apple trees, I would feel bad about cutting them down.

The blackberries look good, as they always seem to do well, even during last year’s drought. They aren’t the stars that the blueberries are, but they certainly are dependable. Keeping the weeds down while giving them space to run a bit is the biggest challenge. and the garlic chives do what garlic chives do best; grow like crazy! I need to find more uses for them.

D.

Counseling: The Repulsive Factor

I had my 2^nd individual counseling session the other day, and were finally able to get into some issues.  I’m not sure there are many solutions in the making, but we’ll see.  We didn’t hit every little thing, but one can only do so much in an hour.

The counselor was keen to delve into my ENQ a bit, specifically a portion where I said that I feel Arwyn is repulsed by me.  I’m not sure if he was challenging me on that or just looking for more information, but more information he got, which is extensively documented here in this blog.  Whenever I touch her in a sexual way, she visibly stiffens and if she is not batting my hands away outright, she is backing away and avoiding my touch.  The other part to this is that she is not actively seeking my touch.  On example of this that I brought up was last weekend we went to eat out at a restaurant as a family.  This is one of those with the great big huge buffet and a big huge line to match.  As we winded our way through the line, and just wanted to have my hands on her back or shoulder or just generally be affectionate.  Sexual?  It’s not we’re going to drop our pants right there in the line while placing our order! (I’d like the blow job special, please).  No, this was just generally being affectionate.  But each time I reached out to touch her, she was moving off.  Of course, when we talked about this later she was unconscious of it and was moving along with the line, which is what I figured she would say.  But this illustrates how different things turn after dating is over and why affection generally takes a nose dive after marriage.  When we were dating, in an instance like this, she would lean into me and we would move through the line together maintaining close contact.  That notion does not even enter her mind nowadays.

Sexual touch…well we’ve been over that over and over again.  Porcupines and spiny sea urchins have an easier time with physical intimacy.  If there were sharp objects in the bedroom, I’m be lucky to have all my limbs, Lorena Bobbit notwithstanding. 

We (the counselor and I) also talked about this business of Arwyn insisting that sex be narrowly defined by penis-vagina intercourse and that touching is pretty limited and absolutely no oral is allowed.  This causes a sort of cascading effect on my erection.  I’m hesitant going into a sexual encounter, trying not to step on any boundaries, she climbs on top and about all I can do is just lay there.  Then she wonders why I’m not holding an erection which leads to her not having an orgasm or her being less than satisfied which in turn increases my own anxiety and we are in a downward spiral.  Then there are complaints where she feels sore afterwards, which doesn’t exactly help with desire.  This dude is going to be tested in his skills on a lot of fronts.

He ended up giving me some handouts and talking about the active listening communication.   The mechanical, scripted nature of that exercise would seem to be a step backwards for Arwyn and I since we have made some meaningful strides in communicating and talking.  He suggested that if I had trouble verbalizing my thoughts, writing them beforehand might be useful and then I could just read them.  That sounded very do-able.  He also gave me a list of emotion words in order to help me better express how I’m feeling.

Do you all think I need help expressing my emotions and my feelings?  Is my vocabulary limited in this area?  I dunno.  You all have been reading me long enough and have seen enough to be able to kjnow whether I need some vocabulary lessons in expressing myself.  I think the emotional baggage is what has kept me from adequately following through with Arwyn in the past rather than a lack of descriptive vocabulary.  He seems to like pointing out the stereotypes of how men seem less able to express themselves with words and how women generally have an easier time with that.  I agree with that, generally.  But I don’t know if providing a word list is the answer here.  It’s more a matter of being emotionally free enough to indulge in a more graphic emotional discussion.  I didn’t get into it in the session, but previous forays into the descriptive emotional jungle have often been met with adverse reactions and results.

He also suggested that we buy a book and both read it.  The Celebration of Sex by Doug Rosenau.  So perhaps Arwyn will finally read one of these books, since it is the therapist’s idea and not mine.  I don’t think she’s completely finished her ENQ so we’ll see where she’s at on following through.  I order the thing and went for the speedy shipping.  I also ordered C.S. Lewis’ The Problem of Pain.  I figured I might need something else to read after finishing the other book and waiting for Arwyn to either read it or skim over it.  That sounds snarky, but I’m still very cautious about her follow-through. 

Rosenau has some association with my therapist’s training and education so maybe this will help us arrive at some common and productive ground.  The reviews seem generally good so I’m looking forward to it.

Arwyn and I did have a post-counseling discussion which I touched on briefly above.  She wasn’t aware of what I was seeing as her aversive reactions and did ask if I still felt like she wasn’t being very affectionate.  I told her that I thought she was really trying, but wondered how much of it was her just trying and how much of it is her truly desiring.  Funny thing about desire and affection; if it isn’t given freely, it isn’t all it could be.

There was no sex as she had a headache and had a wash clothe on her head as we talked.  So the once-a-week thing that she talked about last week; not so much.  Last night we both went to bed at the same time around 9:30, but she stated it was her intention to go to sleep.  We kissed and cuddled for a couple of minutes before she rolled over and fell to sleep while I watched the public access channel on the TV.  I’m thinking we are going to need to try to schedule a Sex Night, even as disastrous as that was a few years ago. I might get deeper into that discussion later, but you got the main gist here so that if I decide to move on you won’t be left behind or catching up won’t be such an arduous exercise.

D.

Talk Night

Yesterday, Arwyn had her next individual session. She had done some work on the ENQ and shared it with the therapist, but didn’t quite finish it completely so brought it home to do more work on it. We had designated last night as a sort of “talk night” where we would talk. Much of this was thwarted by the appearance of an HBO special on autism, which we watched. It was interesting, but really dug into our time as it was two hours long!

When it was finally over, she was ready to talk. Her opener was to suggest that she review her ENQ with me. I was a bit ambivalent about that, since I didn’t have my own copy on hand and thought it might be something we did together in therapy. But she was somewhat insistent and got her paper and read her comments that she had written. I listened as she read the entire thing before making any comments.

1. Affection: she described her need for affection as being moderate and that she liked and need nonsexual affection on a regular basis. I can’t remember how often she said she needed that, but it seemed higher than what she was offering.
2. Sexual fulfillment: She described her need for this as being moderate and that she would like sexual fulfillment once per week. This was kind of a stunner, because she has not been giving any indications of that at all. When I mentioned that, she emphasized fulfillment and that without that, she more less figured “What’s the use?” I told her that while it was possible to have sex without fulfillment, it was not possible to have sexual fulfillment without actually having sex.

3. Conversation: she mentioned that she had a high need for conversation. No surprises there, but again she hasn’t been offering as much as she seemed to be wanting. We do have differing conversation styles, which do sort of interfere with god conversation as I have in the past been known to be a bit argumentative. She did mention that I had gotten better about that in the past few months.

4. Recreational companionship: she said she had a high need for recreational companionship, and wanted us to do more things as a family. No surprise there, as I’m prone to wanting to veg out when I’m not working. However, this is another area that we’ve making some improvement in past months.

5. Honesty and openness: she said she had a moderate for honesty and openness, but admitted that she hasn’t always been so good about this herself, specifically mentioning her handling of our credit card crisis. Again, we could point to improvements in this area in past months.

6. Attractive spouse: She described her need for an attractive spouse to be moderate. She described her past partner/dates as being tall, thin, and neat. I later described them as being somewhat metrosexual sounding, which she didn’t appreciate too much. But my weight loss has helped my score in that area. But I’ve still got quite a lot of the farm boy in me, and I work outside and get dirty and do so without making a big deal about it and am not particularly fazed by it as much as she would like. Oh well. She did specifically mention my farm background being a factor against her suburban semi-sterile lifestyle as being a factor in this, so I got the impression that she was willing to make allowances here.

7. Financial support: she said she was satisfied with this, although she did say that was not always the case, which led to the credit card crisis. But she does feel her needs are being met.

8. Domestic support: I thought I was going to get it here, but she did not harp on that very much. She mentioned that we did sort of have an agreement about this early in our marriage that she would clean if I cooked and was okay with that arrangement. She talked a bit about the clutter that gets out of control at times on her own end. Her own mother was somewhat compulsive about keeping a clean house, and she tried for awhile to hold that standard but decided she was driving herself crazy trying to do that and I agreed that it was not worth all the stress that standard caused.

9. Family commitment: she had a high need for family commitment (no surprise) and admitted that things had gotten better here, but she did want more in this area. The fact that I was with the boys while she did her church meetings and step studies did score points here.

10. Admiration: she had a high need for affirming words, and this was probably a big weakness for me where I need to work harder. I can be overly critical and stingy with affirming words, so this is an area that I definitely have room to grow. While there have been some improvements, I know I need to do better.

After a discussion of the ENQ, we talked a bit more and then got into some hugging and kissing. It was getting late, thanks to the whole HBO special, but she seemed game. We really needed to get over this next hurdle, and so we worked on it. She shut the bedroom door and we both got naked. She kneeled up in bed, waiting for me to lay down so she could get on top of me but I was not having that. I wanted it to be different than the standard script. So I sat up and she got up in my lap, facing me and we just hugged and kissed like that for awhile. Not a lot of genital contact there, but that was not the idea here. T was intimacy and connection, and we seemed to have that. It was just two naked bodies connecting and it was very nice. She did comment after awhile that her knees were getting sore so I laid down and she got on top. There was some grinding around and she mentioned that all the antihistamines were probably making her dry, which has been another chronic problem. But I don’t see her going for any real solutions to that, such as lube of any sort, but we’ll see.

She was grinding around on me and I was getting over heated and holding an erection was challenging. Much of it as just psychological pressure (and a hideous lack of practice) but it was also that this position was a bit too submissive to maintain for the whole time. I told her this, so she let me mount her from the missionary position, and this did work a lot better for me as I was able to get inside of her, with a bit of work.

Love-making/sex has always been a pretty silent/solitary/serious type of thing for us, but we did talk a lot more this time, the two of us. I really did like that, as it did change the dynamic and made the experience a more intimate one for us. I don’t think she had an orgasm, but she did say it felt pretty good because she could better feel me inside of her. She thought it might be because she had tightened up since we hadn’t had sex for so long. I didn’t comment a lot on that, but was thinking that we never did have sex all that much to stretch her out. She tried squeezing and asked if I felt she was tighter and I said that I honestly really had no memory of that, but it did feel good.

No money shot in this scene. Sorry!

Afterwards, we did cuddle and talk a bit more, but it was getting late. She went to the bathroom and took a quick shower and I slept the best I had in months. If we could get more practice, I can see there being a lot less pressure and tension and maybe more fun. As it was, it was a good experience, which is more than I can say for other encounters I’ve had with her and she would likely say the same.

Of course, it will take more practice. I went through this whole script last year, too, where we thought we were starting a whole new beginning. We do have some advantages this time around that we didn’t last time, but it is going to still require a lot of focused effort. Maybe this is where the counseling effort can kick in, as it at least looks like we are getting some where with it. It might be akin to Dumbo’s magic feather.

Thanks to all who commented on the last post. I especially appreciate the women who stepped up, having had similar-type experiences. Yeah, Hazel, I did think a lot of you. That’s why you always made my blogroll, because I figured your views were the closest to my wife’s! To be honest, I nearly disabled comments there, because I knew I was blowing off a lot of steam, which is what I do here. I’m going to talk about all sorts of vile things, like separation and divorce because writing allows me to process my thoughts and experiences. It’s a far cry from actually doing it, tho. How long did I contemplate counseling before actually doing it? There’s no rush to do anything, here, but I’m also not going to skulk around, and hide. I want to square off on the issues, not retreat. Not talking honestly about it in my own online forum would be silly and just an exercise in self-avoidance. And I’m tired of being an avoider.

D.

Another Year; 1:1 Counseling

It was my day to do the 1:1 session with the counselor.  For the past couple of weeks, the ENQ kept popping into my mind, so I decided that I needed to talk about it.  In fact, right be fore I left, I took my completed questionnaire with me.  I’m very glad that I did.

This session, like al the others, involved getting the counselor up to speed on things.  This time it was about some things I’ve tried (like Relationship Rescue, praying togeth and a few other things, but notably NOT the cage) as well as how our daily routine generally runs and why it’s hard to find time to talk.  The one hour whizzed by faster than about any other I’ve ever been through.  Next thing, he was saying “Well, we’ve only got a few minutes left of our time…”

 

Wha…??

So I took out the ENQ.  He said he was familiar with it, but with a little more questioning I discovered he had never laid eyes on one before.  He was keen to have it, so I gave it to him.  I can always do another one.  There was some discussion about how that was one more attempt by me to move things along and how Arwyn did not follow through.  He was keen for her to do one and I said that I would speak to her about it and he said that he would also put in a word, if she wouldn’t listen to me.  He said that he does have couples do a similar questionnaire but his wasn’t as in-depth as the one I had by Harley.  I got the distinct impression that I was going to have to keep goosing this guy to get things moving.  We talked about whether we should have a joint session next time or do another seperate round.  I opted for another separate round, in order that Arwyn could get a chance to do her own ENQ and that we might actually have something significant to discuss when we came together.  I voiced some concern about where we were headed and whether or not we were actually going anywhere.  I can’t remember his exact response, but he agreed that we could benefit from another separate round of counseling.  Maybe he was making more headway with her than me.

I’m thinking that perhaps next time I might go ahead and bring up the cage/chastity play as, if nothing else, it might make these sessions feel more interesting.  He’s the only Christian therapist around, and I’m thinking that he might benefit from broadening his horizons a little bit.  He might discover a new favorite kink   I do like him, despite the feeling that we’re sort of dragging/drifting along.  He’s very skilled at active listening which may endear him more to Arwyn.  I’m just wondering aloud here if I might have had better luck with a female therapist since they are often better at confronting women than the men are.  Or maybe they might be better at confronting, in general.

Heck if I know.

In other news, our roof is fixed just in time for more weather.  Arwyn also had a few minor medical tests/procedures done and I’m glad everything went okay.  I never know how exactly to react to these health things, as she has always had several different things going on at any given time.  I try to act concerned because I am, and I’m equally relieved she was able to be treated so easily.  But empathy and emotionalism isn’t my strong suit  I know she doesn’t like it if I don’t act sufficiently concerned and I don’t think I made the grade this time around because we were so busy with other things (counseling being just one of them).  Oh well.

Happy anniversary; another year of involuntary celibacy.

D.

 

Blown Away

Just a short update on stuff around here.  For those of you that were hoping for something more profound in my podcast on my other blog, stay tuned.  I’m putting something a bit more significant together that better extends my own thoughts and feelings, but it might not be posted for a bit because life is busy.

Speaking of RL, we did have one of those tornadoes decide  to touch down in our backyard.  Maybe 60 seconds of terror and it was all over.  I felt it before I heard it, as the walls started shaking.  The power blinked but it was otherwise okay and by the time I tuned in to the TV, it was over for us.  We had some minor roof damage, but that will be fixed today thanks to a neighbor who has some roofing experience.  Our neighborhood seems to be the only one that was hit around the county, as most folks were grousing more about the hail.  We got that, too, but not quite as scary as a twister.  Everyone was shook up but okay.  The kids slept through the whole thing, lucky for them.  There were a few trees down and a carport and a porch was lost, but the houses all held up pretty well.  Georgia gets as many tornadoes as anyone else, but we tend to get them spread around the year as opposed the northern folks who get them in April and May.  Having lived in Ames, which is part of Tornado Alley, I’m no stranger to these things but it has been awhile since I’ve been that close to one.  It’s a lot scarier at night when you can not see when it’s coming.

Other news…

Last week, after Arwyn’s counseling session she was keen to talk, so we did for a bit.   I don’t feel like we really got anywhere, tho.  Her stance mirrors what a lot of you have said in that all this is going to take time and that the sex will just have to follow along behind trust, and closeness and other intimacy.  My stance is that one of the problems is that sex follows behind everything and therefore gets left behind every time.  It could help build trust, intimacy and closeness but she’s not on board with that.  This week is my week with the therapist and I’ve got a head of steam built up about it that maybe we can work on.  She did say that he did bring up the “sex stuff” so at least he’s not ignoring it altogether.  If his specialty was in any other area, avoiding would be a major issue.

Okay, time to get to work on the video!

D.

Connecting?

The counselor called in sick this week, so there’s no update there with that.  This has put us in a bit of a holding pattern, or so it seems. 

He did bring up one thing last session that we have not followed up on at all.  He said it might be a good idea to reconnect with some sort of “date night” type of activity without the kids.  It’s a good idea on the surface of it, but we’re having a hard time with it.  First off, there is an issue with childcare.  Arwyn is quite fussy about who can or can’t watch the kids so we don’t get out very often as a couple which is pretty typical of parents of children on the autism spectrum.  We haven’t had an overnight trip without them since they were born, unless you count when the second one was born.  The childcare issue makes for a pretty convenient excuse, but it’s not the only one.  In fact it might not be the main one.  Our kids are not bad kids at all.  In fact, they are better behaved than most kids that I know because Arwyn and I are nothing if not vigilant.  Other kids may be free to terrorize neighborhoods, restaurants, grocery stores, churches and the like, but not our kids.  They do have spastic periods of running around and acting like crazy kids and they have both had meltdowns.  But we’re always there and they do not do it while we are out as a family or we won’t be out.  They have firm boundaries and limits and when we had a babysitter last week (a friend of Arwyn’s from church) she commented on how well behaved they were and they really liked having her over.

No, it is not just about childcare.  It’s about US, and the fact that there isn’t a lot of US there.  Apart from the kids, we just don’t have a lot going on as a couple.  So the few times that we do end up going out sans kids, we always, always, always end up talking about them.  Even if they are not there, they are there.  So why pay someone to watch them when they might as well be there? 

Sometimes we can have conversations that do not include the kids.  Sometimes the conversations are about us, when WE were kids.  That’s one reason the last session was so boring, because Arwyn and I had been there many times before.  Yeah, I know the therapist hasn’t so I get why he needed to hear it. 

We talk about work, the neighbors, and lots of logistical things like we need to get our roof fixed and the lawn reseeded and what we want to eat for dinner all week.  But we are in need of experiences or interests that are ours and unique to us.  She doesn’t like movies or books very much.  I’m not much into Discovery Health or American Idol.  She’s not into LOST or Battlestar Galactica.  I’m not into Spider Solitaire or autism bulletin boards and she’s not into blogging or Age of Empires.  She’s not into politics much at all.  We do have some pretty good discussions on religion and spiritual things.  We can’t really talk about sex, which is a big part of the reason I blog about it.

With sex off the table for the moment, we are in need of quality time together.  We just aren’t quite sure how to do it.  So what are y’all doing to stay connected apart from kids and logistics?

D.

355

“A woman is a lot like an old car.  How many times on a cold morning, when you really needed it, she wouldn’t turn over?” - Rodney Dangerfield

I said I was going to vent, but then I didn’t have anything real specific to vent about.  But if I dig deep enough or hold out long enough, something is bound to turn up.  It always does.

Thinking on the discussion of my last post, it will be interesting to see if/when we ever get into moving in a more concrete direction and towards some tangible solutions.  Arwyn has been going along with this, which is more than I can say about any of the other things that I have tried.  That’s something, right there.  It will be interesting to see if she is the one to cut and run when or if we get into deeper waters.  She’s gotten better at introspection thanks somewhat to her 12-step group.  However, when it comes to actually doing something, she is a lot less committed and resilient.  That’s where I start to have problems with therapy based more on talk than actual behavior.  People seem to believe that they can talk themselves in to or out of anything regardless of what they actually do.  Verbal behavior is a starting point, but if that’s all there is, we might as well live apart and talk on the phone.

When I said Arwyn had turned her sleeping posture where her head is at my head, it’s worth pointing out that this is not a consistent thing.  Some nights, her head is at the other end of the bed but this seems to be happening less and less.  However, she is still wrapped in a totally separate blanket, so there isn’t even any shared body heat during the cold nights.  She’d rather wear extra layers of clothing.

This morning, I did try snuggling up a bit before the alarm went off.  I would classify this as trying to initiate something.  What I’m initiating, I’m not sure.  Physical intimacy of some sort, certainly.  I snuggled into her back and put my arm around her and when my hand landed on her breast, she didn’t jerk away.  But neither did I get any encouragement.  Of any sort.  In fact, Arwyn was inching over…in the opposite direction away from me until she finally spoke up and complained that I was pushing her off the bed.

It was a bit chilly because Arwyn had the fan on, but it became obvious that there was no warmth to be had there.  So I curled up completely under the blankets (which I suppose you could call my blankets) and determined that I needed to warm and comfort myself.  And then the alrm went off.  She felt around for my face to give me a good morning kiss and discovered I was totally underneath them, pulled them back,giggled and kissed me before padding off to the shower. 

We are coming up to a certain anniversary celibation I entitled last year 442.  That was the number of days we had gone without any sort of sexual encounter.  At this point we are at day 355.  If we get to 442 again, I don’t think it would be unfair to say that we might be beyond the skills of this particular Christian sex therapist.  We already have a baseline and it is pretty low.  It’s not as if we’re setting a high standard and asking to go to 2x a day here.  It just has to be better than the previous year.  How hard can that be?  Is that asking to much?

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.