These issues stack in my brain in weird ways. They combine and intertwine such that my memories are sometimes amalgamations of conversations and impressions and I know that’s not great. But trying to sort it out is the only thing I know to do.

Ok, marital problems.

I don’t think Noah spends a lot of time getting really upset but we’ve had a few conversations over the years that struck me as particularly intense and I’ve latched on to them in memory in ways that bother Noah a lot.

I feel like Noah values me (or at least he valued when he married me) for the fact that my consent is kinda not important. My cunt is just available whether I like it or not. We’ve talked about how monogamy is not celibacy a lot. We’ve talked about how it isn’t ok for me to deny Noah sex for any reason, including medical reasons, on a long term basis. He will give me a grace period of a year and then things are Just Going To Change. That has become a sword of Damocles over my head. My cunt has to be available or I am not worthy of being a wife.

I feel like Noah has some fairly set ideas of what bdsm is and they don’t always overlap with mine. Last night we had a fierce conversation where I asked him what the orgasm control and the denial of personal right to determine masturbation and the degrading sex and the name calling and the hurting me is if it is not bdsm. Because if we have been in an M/s contract for going on a year and you still feel like it is appropriate to yell at me that we will never get around to doing bdsm because I don’t want him enough…. what the fuck do you think bdsm IS?!?! Noah does hurt me sometimes. Not in extreme ways because I haven’t been up for it, but our sex is not pain-free. I submit to a lot of stuff. I bathe him. I’ve followed various other rules for a long time. If absolutely everything I do is devalued and “doesn’t count” towards us having a bdsm relationship… then fine. I guess you are right after all and we will never be doing bdsm. Even though I met a quota for years about having sex ten times a month whether I wanted to or not… nothing counts.

When we first got married I was still very much in a period where I was not comfortable with most casual touch. For the first three or so years we were married if Noah wanted to cuddle… we’d sit on opposite sides of the couch and he could touch my feet. That was what I could bear. It is very hard for me that Noah has repeatedly over the years stated emphatically that sex is what makes him feel loved and the other things don’t count. So I’ve worked very hard on my panic disorder and I’ve learned to cuddle him because he wants it… but it doesn’t count towards making him feel loved. Even though it was incredibly hard for me to learn to do and it literally took years of effort.

Noah used to complain a lot that I didn’t share his interests. So I can discuss most of the comic series he reads and I’ve watched his favorite movies and I listen to him read the books he wants me to know about. I would say that he has only started really trying to do the return favor since the road trip and that’s still… I think I put more effort into sharing his interests but I’m not sure I’m evaluating fairly. And none of this time or effort counts as showing love for him.

Noah talks a lot (fairly and reasonably) about how hard it is for him to be emotionally level for me and that’s a huge gift he gives to me. I agree that it is a huge gift. I do understand that it is a lot of effort for him. It’s visible effort… I know how he struggles with being upbeat and cheerful for my sake so I can sponge off of his good humor. But the thing is… I have put in equally as much work if not more. He may have started off this marriage not being as good natured as he currently behaves… but I started out a basket case who cut myself and isolated myself constantly in between crying jags and screaming at people. I haven’t injured myself in… I don’t know how long. It’s been a long time. That was a multi-decade habitual response to dysregulation. I have replaced it with fucking typing. I used to need full days of hiding alone in my house in order to go manage a two hour munch. Now I am “on” and I have to be cheerful and helpful and loving and physically affectionate…12-14 hours a day every single fucking day and I don’t get breaks. I don’t get an hour off a day to hide in a room and work on my feelings. I have to just fucking show up and act nice and put my shit to the side ALL DAY EVERY DAY.

I don’t feel I get a lot of credit for this. When I am minimizing things that will serve to dysregulate me (like heavy SM scenes) I feel like the response is that I am being mean and taking a toy away from Noah. When I feel like I am trying to be able to show up and do my primary job every day without fucking up.

Would it be more fun for me to have more babysitting and do more dysregulating things with my body? Yes. But my parenting would go downhill faster than an Olympic skier. We have collectively decided that for a few decades here it is more important that I show up for my kids than that I have fun. But I feel like I get punished for sticking to that. Punished isn’t the right word. I feel like I am resented for it. And I was getting to the point where I had more space to be able to do that without being a fucking asshole…

But now I’m pregnant and the whole fucking thing is starting over. I won’t have that much bodily privacy for another five fucking years.

And I feel like that means I am doing something terrible to my husband and I feel incredibly resentful of that. Yes, I want this kid really really badly. But I want this kid fully seeing how shitty it makes my life to have another fucking baby. Babies make my life shitty. I am not the kind of mother who says, “My life barely changes”. EVERYTHING CHANGES when I have a baby. I give up independence and autonomy and I am a fucking life support device. I don’t have bodily privacy. I don’t have space for myself. I am subsumed into the me-not-me who is currently in that state of need. There is no fair here.

I know it isn’t fair to have your sex life derailed from where you want it to be. I know it isn’t fair that when your body is still doing the normal same old same old you don’t get what you want and need under those circumstances. I know that sucks.

But I fucking started this journey with chronic pain and then I exacerbate it in every way. I start out emotionally dysregulated and I stick a fucking rocket launcher on the back of that when I’m pregnant. I can’t fucking sleep well. I can’t eat well. I feel like fucking shit just about every moment of the day.

But I’m so meeeeeeaaaaaaaaan if I don’t want to have sex.

Clearly I don’t love Noah if I’m not having sex.

I kind of want to jump off a bridge.

So I can stop grocery shopping and doing laundry and cleaning and home schooling the kids and putting a death grip on my behavior so that I’m not mean to people around me and I can stop dealing with how hard it is for me to accept casual touch and I’m going to start fucking masturbating three fucking times a day and I’m never asking for permission again and…..

I’m really frustrated.

I feel really sad that I’m a failure as a wife because my cunt is defective and that is all that I am judged by.

I feel desperate and sad and hopeless. I feel like I will never be able to make Noah feel loved so why in the fuck am I beating my head against that rock?

Because I love him so much and I’ve still never had anyone in my life be as nice to me as he is. Even though he is kind of an asshole sometimes. Perspective is a big thing.

Noah does a lot for me. Noah is incredibly helpful and kind to me most of the time.

But I have a hard time with how many of my friends are all #TeamNoah and Krissy should stop being such a bitch to that poor sainted man.

I’m not saying I should be pitied or that Noah should be denigrated to hell and back. I’m not saying that at all. I’m saying that I don’t ever write the Full Story because I can’t. I write my current thoughts and feelings and impressions and that’s fucking limited. I don’t have enough god damn time in the day to write the Full Story.

This. Is. My. Alone. Time.

I have learned how to be regular for this marriage. I have learned how to show up every day and deliver on my promises even when I don’t want to. I take care of my family whether I want to or not. (Noah does too… I’m not saying that I’ve done more than him.) I’m saying that I did not grow up seeing people show up through the hard stuff. I’m making this up out of whole cloth and I’m doing it because of how much I love Noah and how much I want this to work.

When it was very clear that I had to stop fucking around or my marriage was basically over… I stopped on a dime.

I feel like I get all the credit for fucking up and being wrong and no credit for how far I’ve come or how much I do.