Category Archives: cheating

cheating dirty whore

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So today’s can’t sleep for crying moment is brought to you by getting spanked by forum moderators. Obviously I am deeply unhealthy and should seek therapy.

Oh fuck everyone on this planet who tells me I should pursue therapy.

WHY DO PEOPLE HAVE THIS MAGICAL BELIEF THAT THERAPY FIXES ALL OF YOUR GOD DAMN PROBLEMS?!

I spent years telling Noah I needed things to change. Way post cheating he admitted out loud that he was never actually open to that. So I was trying. I was verbally negotiating. I was trying to talk about what was going on for me and it failed. And I had my god damn therapist telling me constantly how Noah is the best husband ever and marriage is about compromise and you really need to meet his sexual needs since he does so much for you.

I owe him bleeding and pain until I die, apparently.

So in my fucked upedness I communicated how much I was flailing. By cheating. I went and spanked someone. I went and did something that there is no room for in my marriage. I went and did something that was a desire of mine that I’m supposed to just ignore for the rest of my life.

Then I came home and said I couldn’t follow any rules and I started stepping out. Which is like cheating only I told him I was unilaterally changing the rules and just doing.

Is it an ok way to handle conflict?

I could have left. I could have left my best friend and the only home I’ve ever had. That would have been my other option.

I could have declared that I can’t be a permanent whore who does not need considered by choosing to follow my mother’s path into destitution and homelessness and starvation. If I were a stronger person maybe I would have.

And now for the rest of my life I am worthless because instead I did something despicable. Leaving would have been “honorable”. Staying and hurting him back was wrong.

Because Noah was selfish about sex. I should have tossed everything overboard.

I guess.

But the problem is that even if Noah was an asshole about sex (and he was… for years…) I don’t know how to get past the fact that he is still the shining star in my life who has been kinder and more generous to me than anyone else alive.

He wasn’t raping me. He just… was selfish.

And I should have just left.

But if I had left I wouldn’t have come back. And I don’t know what would have happened to my kids because I would never have been ok or trusted anyone again in my life.

I could have done that instead.

I’m not saying that what I did was justifiable or right. I am saying I didn’t really have a better choice. I only had bad choices.

And that means I am bad. Forever.

Sex and fucking up

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I had a great chat yesterday. It made me think about a lot of how I’ve screwed up this year.

Sex is complicated. We have sex for so many reasons. For connection, intimacy, orgasms, bonding, feeling-not-alone-in-this-minute.

The thing is, that’s complicated. Why didn’t I pick Noah for every time I wanted sex this year? Because that’s complicated. Sometimes sex with a particular person is loaded with implications across your whole life you can’t handle and you want the ease of sex with someone else. Sometimes I wanted to feel like I still had the ability to connect with new people.

New people have been very instrumental to my survival. I get that it isn’t something that is a big deal to everyone. I know that lots of people have been safer in the known communities of their lives. I have survived by over and over again throwing myself backwards into the arms of strangers and just praying they would catch me. At this point it is no longer a survival mechanism but it is an ingrained habit. That’s complicated.

I don’t think I chased sex as self harm this round but I have certainly done so in the past. Sometimes the choice is, “Do I hurt myself in a known and predictable way because I don’t like myself very much or do I take the risk that this person will be nicer to me than I am able to be to myself or maybe they will hurt me more than I would hurt myself. Roll the dice.”

That’s a choice I’ve made many times in my life. If you haven’t had to deal with the cognitive load of poverty plus severe traumatization… you probably won’t understand. It will seem baffling to you that someone would make such a choice.

I’m glad you’ve never been there. That’s awesome for you.

I’ve been there a lot. I’m not there lately, but I have zero judgment for someone else finding themself in that position. It happens.

There have absolutely been nights when I’ve picked up a stranger and fucked them instead of hurting myself because I didn’t think I could stop until I put me in a hospital.

Was that a bad choice? I really don’t think so. I think I made the best choice I could given all the circumstances of my life in that moment.

It is hard to keep the larger picture in mind when you are judging one particular choice. Choices that were completely reasonable for me at different points in my life shouldn’t be judged the exact same way at this point in my life. I’m in different circumstances. I have different options.

To put it bluntly: I can have an emergency “weekend trip to relax” at this stage of my life. If I feel like I’m going to freak out and do something drastic… I can make it a very safe kind of drastic. Because I’m rich.

But that was literally not available to me before marriage.

Money. Money. Money.

If you have enough money, time, support, fill in the blank to have better options… who the fuck are you to judge someone doing the best they can!?

Get off your high horse.

But I’m really not in the same position as I once was.

How in the hell is any of my behavior this year justifiable? Hunh, hunh?

I’m not sure I can “justify” my behavior. I think I can explain it. I don’t think my explanations are “good enough” from many points of view and there’s not much I can do about that.

I learned things I needed to learn. I was able to find words for problems I wasn’t able to find words for until I processed all the way through some extreme emotions. I was able to change boundaries that were a big problem for me.

Could I have found a way to do it without freaking out and breaking a lot of rules?

Maybe. I tried. I failed.

I succeeded when I blew the boat up.

Things are going a lot better in a variety of ways. Was it worth the cost? Yes. To me. Was it to Noah? He’s still deciding. He’s still raw. That’s fair.

Sometimes we don’t do things to people and they hurt anyway. I didn’t go out and fuck people to hurt Noah. That’s not why it happened. We are all autonomous beings running our own stories and our behavior is not always about our partners. We have our own narrative running. It isn’t about you.

Even if we love you. Even if there could be negative consequences for you. We can’t make every single choice only about you. That’s not a way to be a person.

Would it be nice if our choices didn’t hurt you? Yes.

Yes.

I played a very careful line this year. I didn’t actually do stuff that was that risky to my life. I mostly went out and spent extra time with my friends. People who have been good to me for a long time. I had a tremendous amount of fun. It will help keep me warm for years to come. Was it worth the price I paid?

Probably. Does that mean I can do it like that again? No. I really can’t. It would break Noah.

What does that mean? Our relationship functions based on a lot of trust and mutual worship. If I kill that then I’m kinda destroying both of our reason to live. Whether or not I’m doing something at Noah… I need to pay attention to the impact. My life is completely intwined with him.

If I rock the boat he feels every wave. There is not a lot of separation there.

I’m not sure we will ever get to the point of being “polyamorous” even if we are allowed to discuss it in ten years. But it is ok to have sex with our friends sometimes if we do it together. Is that my ideal? I don’t know. I don’t think my ideal is more fair so I guess it will have to be ok.

There is no fair.

I get why we are both so possessive. I see the holes in both of us that we use one another to fill.

Sex with friends is different than the anonymous sex I also like. They scratch different itches. Sex with friends is safer and more predictable (not in a bad way). Anonymous sex allows me to feel like I am touching the core of connection between strangers. It is both intimate and distant in a way that feels like a spiritual practice to me. The trust and risk are intense rushes.

But my life is wrapped around Noah. So whether or not I’m doing something at him… he will feel it.

Noah doesn’t feel so awesome about my having sex with other people. He wants me to keep my worship at home. When we are having sex with other people together, that’s ok. That’s not scary or hard. Well, sometimes it is logistically hard or a position is hard or… but it’s not threatening in the same way. We are having an adventure together. No one is left to sit with their imagination and fear.

Noah really doesn’t want me to go off alone any more than I want him to. Seems fair. Annoying, but closer to fair than most things ever get.

Why annoying? Because I am selfish selfish selfish selfish selfish. A lot of the reason I have sex is for the orgasm and changing partners increases that like a motherfucker. Sigh.

No life is perfect.

(For the record: Noah has been working hard on this and has had a pretty fucking outstanding success recently. There’s an A for effort and result.)

I know he’s trying. I can see it. I don’t think it would be possible to look at Noah and not see that he is trying as hard as he possibly can for me.

I’m so annoying and hard.

He works far harder than anyone can ask for; that kind of effort is a freely given gift. I know how lucky I am. My physical and mental health issues have not been easy. But Noah considers my companionship worth the cost.

How in the hell did I end up here?

I auditioned hundreds of people and Noah won the part.

I think we are much better and more interesting together than we ever were apart.

I’m looking forward to pregnancy. I get so exhausted that our pace of life will utterly collapse. Yeah, yeah, pregnancy isn’t a disability yeah yeah pregnant women should carry on as if nothing was happening…

I can’t. Gestating is fucking hard in my body. Remodeling and resettling the house has to be complete by January. Next year I’m going to work on academics with my big kids, sit around, sleep, exercise, eat and go grocery shopping.

I’m probably not going to get much else done, to be honest. And that’ll continue for at least 3-6 months after the baby is born.

I’m toast. Breeding is hard.

I’ve completed the cycle and come out the far side more than once so I’m very aware of what it looks like for me.

I’m really excited about the possibility of a pregnancy where I am in much better physical shape to start with (hello marathon and half marathons, you have halo effect I still feel) and I have my IBS mostly under control and I can breathe through my nose. This will be a different experience. I’m also older. This will also be a medicalized experience (hiya bleed out problems) which is kinda terrifying for me.

All the feelings. And my back is giving me trouble. I need to finish this damn remodel. But bending over really kinda sucks.

I’ll get through it. Put a corset on and get your work done, woman.

It’s kinda funny how we all adapt to the tasks life puts in front of us. This art shit weighs on my soul. I really am more calm in my home because of the art work. It is so easy to ground in my house. When you are here you are really in a particular, individual place. That’s a big deal for me. In other peoples homes, in most of the homes I’ve ever lived in… they all kinda blend together. Sure the knick knacks and furniture are sorta different… but the white walls meet the white ceilings and I want to crawl under a table and cry.

No, it’s not rational.

I do not want a fancy “nice” bathroom that looks like it could be in a hotel somewhere. And I’m willing to pay a ridiculous amount of money for the experience I want to have. Every doctor I have wants me to take baths as often as I can. I spend time in my bathroom. I recycle the water too. To deal with my hippy guilt. (The internet tells me that epsom salts, baking soda, vinegar, and sugar are all fine for plants on a small scale so my bath water is fine  for my plants. Woo hoo.)

We’ve had a broken toilet for a long time. We’ve been using the grey water to flush the toilet. I’m thrilled that with the increased bath capacity of water I will also be able to use the water for more plants. I’ve always used some of it sometimes… but never for plants if someone has used shampoo or soap.

Why am I so tolerant of my friends having quirks or needing accommodation for their mental health needs? Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha.

Uhm, err, just because I’m a nice person?

*cough*

Because I fucking obsess over what to do with my bath water. I got no stones to throw on people needing to do their thing.

Oh man. I’m going to go through a pregnancy in a bathtub big enough to roll over in. Oh the glory.

Spoiled rotten motherfucker.

I really like my house.

Did I mention I’m having candle holders permanently installed on the walls of the bathroom? And there are skylights above it?

The walls are going to be glittering scenes of autumn and winter. I’m working on them.

My house is a very particular place. I like it so much.

I need to clean it. But that’s a problem for a different day. It won’t be really cleaned until the remodel is done. Too much dust and dirt is being generated every day. Not worth a deep clean. I’ll probably splurge on professionals in January at the start of the pregnancy.

Then I’ll spend a year basking in my family. In 2016 I was supposed to learn how to love myself. I don’t know that I managed, exactly. But I’ll spend 2017 hanging out and letting my family love me. That’s… almost the same thing?

Today will be a Zen sorta day. Noah has a dentist appointment. I’m watching a neighbor’s child in the morning and walking them to school. It’s kinda funny. Then I get to come home and get the kids onto chores and academics while I work. I will have to find a way to do work that is right next to them so we can talk while they do their stuff. They always have questions, which is very appropriate.

Tonight we are going to trick or treat with friends we haven’t seen much in the year since we’ve been back from the road trip. We’ve been really bad friends this year. I’ve dropped everyone and everything on the floor for this remodel. And I do it when I’m doing the breeding thing too.

Uhm, I’m sorry. I will crawl out of a hole again in the future. I hope you still like me then.

But yes. Touching base with old friends. Longevity is a big deal for me. A dear woman I know is deeply associated with a phrase: “Friends come into your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime.”

I’m really curious which threads are deep enough in the weave that I will know them for most of my life. I am made up of the people who know me. The people who carry my story with them when they go. I am made up of the people who sometimes ruefully think, “What would Krissy do?”

I am a creation in your mind as much as I am anything at all. And the fact that you think about me. That fact is enough to mean that even when I fuck up, I am maybe not beyond forgiveness.

Stay stay stay

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So many feelings.

I’m up I’m down. I’m finding layers of peace. I’m still dysregulated and sensitive and whiny.

On the ride home yesterday I hit… an important piece, I think, around suicide and pain. I can kill myself if I am in so much physical pain that I will no longer have good days. I hold that right to be sacred. If I hit stage 4 cancer, I’m probably going to pick the day I go instead of letting fate decide.

But problems in my marriage aren’t like cancer. It is not inevitable that things will decline further until death. It’s not the same and I can’t act like it is. I spent a lot of time yesterday frantically wanting to end my life. Because I hurt. Because that is the well trod pathway my brain takes when it is in pain.

I can’t commit suicide over a problem in my marriage or a problem in my sex life. I am too big for that now. Maybe that would have been understandable at some point in my life. It isn’t now. I am too big.

I don’t mean I weigh a lot. That’s too literal. I mean metaphorically.

If I am in too much pain and I have to run away I have places to go. I have homes in the bay area that would take me in with no explanation needed. I could go to Oregon or Washington or Minnesota or Georgia and I’d find berth. No questions asked. Ok, they’d ask questions. But they’d ask questions after I got there because they care about me, not because they would gate keep based on whether or not my answers are good enough.

I am good enough.

That means that when I’m having problems… dying doesn’t need to be the answer. If I have to get away… I have options. I don’t need to die.

I’m rereading the speech I wrote when I performed a wedding. I am not being good at advocating for myself in my marriage. Not really. My second thought? Shit I rambled on too long about history and irrelevant shit. Good grief.

Hey, they asked their favorite teacher to officiate. They got a lecture.

Marriage is what you make of it. What kind of marriage do you want to have? One where you both hurt each other often as a lifestyle choice?

Not really.

It was really mean to come home from being gone for half a year and immediately leap into that much dating. Noah missed me and was faithful and that’s how I rewarded him. That sucks. There have also been a number of ways in which we haven’t managed to communicate well and I’m not always lying if we have different definitions. We are talking past each other but that isn’t the same as lying. And I’ve done a piss poor job of communicating the boundaries Noah wishes I had to people as I’ve gone off on adventures. That’s a huge problem. I know I need to fix that.

It is hard to talk about bdsm. It is hard to figure out how common sexual euphemisms like “first base” translate. If I have literally played like that with folks when I was in the quad when I was in high school… yeah I consider that first base. There were no genitals involved. No one was overtly sexy at all. Sometimes humans are just hella rough with other humans. That’s… ok.

I really did grow up brutalizing people for fun. The weird ass part is how many of those people still know me and have a good opinion of me.

No, kneeling on someones chest and laughing at them as they gasp for breath isn’t second base in my head.

I don’t know how this works for other people.

Punching for a few minutes on the thighs and the shoulders… doesn’t feel like sexuality. I mean yes? But no. But sorta. But not?

I did think I was being good and acting within the boundaries.

If I try that hard and I run into a place where you have a different definition that needs to be a conversation about definitions not an accusation of lying. I didn’t lie. I told you where I would set my boundaries, but apparently I didn’t define that well enough for you. That isn’t a lie. It is a failure to communicate. I came home and told you right away. There was no lying.

There also needs to be some room for “I expect I will do ____” and “Well I actually did _____.”

Between the two of us we need to figure that out because we’ve run afoul of it in both directions. That isn’t the same thing as lying either. Not when you did it and not when I did it and I’m being accused of lying up one side and down the other.

I have not ever said, “Oh I followed the rules” and then later you found out through dubious channels that I wasn’t doing so. That hasn’t happened. I said that I wanted to break rules and you found out in dubious ways. I think that’s different.

I’m the one telling you about every fuck up.

I’m not presenting them straightforwardly and simply. I am reacting with hostility when you challenge me on a variety of things.

I need to stop that.

I think I have had to get this angry to assert that I will not ever grit my teeth through sex again. Whatever I owed anyone on that score I have paid my debt many times over.

And I can’t even talk about what that means unless I talk about it in context of overall volition and other partners because I can’t just push back against Noah. I owe him too much. I don’t feel I have the right.

But I have managed to learn that I don’t owe Deity or Cupid or my submissive or or or or. I go when I want to and I don’t when I don’t. (Ok sometimes I don’t get to go when I want to but that’s different.)

This is so complicated and I need to go.

My fuck ups.

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This is a list Noah agrees with.

I cheated. Then I said I wasn’t sorry. Both were separate levels of hurtful.

I negotiated gloves for all genital contact and then broke that rule like 24 hours later.

I said maybe one person, maybe once a month. Yeah. That lasted less than a week. So many dates. So many people.

I have not been malicious. But I have been ridiculously selfish.

I’m glad he’s going to write me a list of what he feels he is doing wrong. I need to see that. He isn’t into the public exhibition of shame and that’s ok. I’ll see it.

Boundaries on and off screen

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I am somewhat hyperaware that someday my kids may grow up and read this. It could happen. That means I actually… edit… maybe more than you might think of my life here. I’m nervous about how I present Noah. I talk about him in terrible ways sometimes. I also very carefully avoid saying a lot of terrible things about him.

I do not want sides taken. I do not want back and forth bickering in public. I do not want my children seeing the depths to which we sink when we are being fucking petty. Why not? It’s complicated.

We haven’t fought like this since we closed our relationship. Fighting like this is why we closed our relationship. Because we didn’t think we could stay married through fighting like this.

But that was when we had babies and it just wasn’t ok at all for me to have emotional variance because of my relationship with Noah. I had to be regulated because I was teaching emotional regulation just about 24/7.

That was kind of a difficult thing for someone who is as dysregulated as I have been all my life. I look at my children and feel that I succeeded. Clearly they got the lessons they needed developmentally when they were needed. I did it. I stayed calm. I taught them how to handle conflict and big feelings without flipping out.

I did it.

Which means I can have more things in my life that cause my feelings to fluctuate. Which is fucking tricky.

Nonmonogamy is going to be hard. There are a lot more insecurities here than either of us are really having fun talking about.

What does safety mean? What does connection mean? What are we working towards? What do we want? What is the purpose of sex in our relationship? What do we do for one another versus for ourselves?

I sure wish that these conversations could come with a little more sleep for me. Out of the past three nights I’m now only down about one night of sleep. That’s improving…

But we talk all night long because we can’t talk in front of the kids.

I am not sure either of us are being fair. Yeah, I’m being an asshole. I’m not in denial. I’m not trying to say that I’m being fine and he’s the asshole. I’m really not saying that.

I cheated and broke his heart. He thought he was going to get to be my one and only forever and ever amen.

He’s allowed to be absolutely furious about that.

I know.

I’m trying very very hard to not get into done-me-wrongs. I will talk about what I know I have done wrong. I don’t need to get into done-me-wrongs.

It won’t help. I hiss those often enough in person. It’s not like I’ve forgotten the list. I just don’t need to write it down.

How do you fight in civilized fashion when you are a compulsive over-sharer? Like this. You say what you did wrong and talk about being angry without placing blame. I’m not saying that Noah is to blame for my feelings. He isn’t. I mean… a couple of his particular phrase choices were infuriating… but whatever. I’m being a right bitch in this fight.

How do you build towards a vision of self that may not be what your partner wants? How big do you want your partner to be? How small so you can feel bigger? I don’t know.

Who is pulling whom around on a chain.

I don’t want to leave. That’s part of the reason I have no particular reason to bad mouth Noah up one side and down the other. I don’t want to leave. Even though I’m angry about some stuff right now… that’s life. I flipped the canoe of our life over. There are going to be some feelings we have to deal with. I’m ok with that. I’m not enjoying this process but I see it as necessary.

I’m not afraid of conflict.

I’m afraid of not getting my needs met.

I’m afraid of not being who I want to be because I am afraid that someone else doesn’t want me to be.

I’m afraid of making myself small and unthreatening and never doing anything with my life again because I have decided I don’t deserve to ask for what I really want.

What does necessary even mean?

I’m sure I don’t know.

Am I fucking everything up permanently? Well. I guess we will find out. There is the non-zero possibility.

It is hard when I feel like I’m absolutely the bad guy here. I’m the one insisting on change because the status quo wasn’t working. I feel like a fucking asshole for not making it work. For not deciding that it was just good enough because that was all I agreed to this life.

I did not promise sexual fidelity in my marriage vows. Yeah. I slammed the door four years ago when we were having screaming fights about lying and … shit don’t rehash it. It wasn’t well done.

I feel like everything bad must be all my fault. I feel like I am a monster. A selfish, disgusting monster.

Day 38. Still no bleeding. PMDD means that right before I start bleeding I tend to have intense spikes of depression and anxiety. My suicidal urges go through the roof. This is a well documented phenomena.

I need to be something other than a cum dumpster who can’t cum. This just… isn’t working any more.

I wish I didn’t feel so fucking bad about that.

Sometimes people ask why I write such whiny melodramatic stuff. Aren’t I embarrassed? I’m documenting what living with an acute stress disorder is like. The kind that results from brain damage. If you think I should be embarrassed that says more about you than it does about me. No, it’s not fucking smooth. Yeah I’m a lot of fucking drama. Lots of ups and downs.

That’s what brain damage does. Pieces of it are absolutely my fault in an ongoing way I really don’t deny that. But I’m also trying to deal with my problems. That means I’m going to flail and do things that don’t work sometimes and I will document those fuck ups so I don’t forget and have to make the same mistake over and over.

I’m not writing for you.

I’m writing for me.

Cheating, feelings, and sleep deprivation.

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Recently I suggested that I shouldn’t post much when sleep deprived. In the past 50 or so hours I’ve gotten about 9 hours of sleep.

Noah isn’t in a much better state. Getting so very sleep deprived let Noah finally get to the point where he could blow up at me about stuff he probably should have blown up at me about months ago.

Feelings are ok. You are allowed to be mad at me. I cheated. And then, not only did I cheat I was a callous fucking asshole who has said over and over, “I’m not sorry.”

You are allowed to be angry about that. You don’t have to soothe me. You don’t have to tell me it’s ok. You are allowed to just be angry.

I think that Noah has put himself into a position over the years where he doesn’t feel he is allowed to be mad at me and that’s not good. I am an asshole. I hurt him. He has every right in the world to get angry with me and express that anger.

But I shouldn’t write much more about it now. Sleep deprivation guidelines and all.

So I’m still alive. I’m going to have a few crying days because yeah that happens sometimes. It’s ok. We need to fight about this. I was awful. Him glossing it over because he doesn’t want me to get upset is not going to work.

Relationships are complicated and take work. I’m ok with that. I’m in this. I want to stay in this. I want to do this work.

The hard stuff

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There is a lot of stuff about Noah I won’t write. It’s complicated why. He says that he feels like he shouldn’t write it if I have chosen not to write it and I think that’s silly.

There are ways I don’t write about Noah because doing so would make him a supporting character in my story who was failing to live up to expectations. That’s not who or what he is though. He is a main character who is choosing to live with me. I don’t know how to write his story as it deserves to be written.

Part of the reason I don’t write more about him is because I would misattribute his actions all the time and I don’t want to do that.

I would paraphrase and misremember and go in a whole different direction and create a character for me to be at odds with.

I don’t want to do that. I do not want to take away Noah’s right to define himself and I think if I did substantially more writing about him… I would kinda do that to him. That would be wrong.

I asked him if he feels he knows everything about me. He shook his head emphatically–no. I asked him if he feels I know everything about him. He said  not quite everything… but basically.

I have to believe he is wrong. That is very important. I have to believe I don’t know everything.

Because whatever it is I know so far… he’s going to change. People do. He will make new stories and if I file him away as a supportive character and I already know his backstory so whatever…

No. That’s just not going to work.

Our conversations hurt right now. In that way that growth and change hurt. I’m trying to see which words from this conversation are going to stick in my head. I’m not going to write down the one I’m trying to not remember.

Boundaries have shifted all over the place. That means things feel very unpredictable and that’s scary. Yes. That’s true.

I have two very busy weekends in a row. Which was rather rude of me to schedule. But I really and truly cannot express how deep this hunger goes.

Let’s see how I feel after that. I’ll probably have a better idea of what I need. I know that this is not sustainable.

But I’m going to explode.

I am very not sure I am going to be able to talk any one person into hitting me the way I want to be hit right now. These are all newish play experiences. They don’t know me as a bottom so they don’t really trust what they can do. I have to respect that tops have their own limits. (I’m not sure I could deliver a first time scene to someone at the intensity level I want so I’m not mad at anyone. It’s fucking hard to trust someone like that. Topping is risky in a way bottoming isn’t.) So I’m kinda hanging my hopes on a culmination of pain. Please oh please let me get hurt enough.

I saw a doctor yesterday for std checking. She was adorable. I love Planned Parenthood doctors. She was very curious about the bruises on my breasts (of course starting with worried) and I said, “Don’t worry. I had to ask nicely to get that bruise.” She looked startled. “Wait, what?”

“I’m a masochist. I had to ask one of my slutty friends very very very very nicely to get that bruise.”

She laughed. “I can’t believe you call them your slutty friends.”

“Well, at some point it is truth in advertising.”

She laughed more.

She’s thrilled I come in often for checks when I’m active. Come on back. She agreed that sterilization sounds wise but they don’t do that. I’m looking into options near me.

It would be somewhat hilarious to do a gofundme “Do you want to ensure that Krissy never gets pregnant again so that she can be alive long enough to fuck *you*?”

I’m kidding. I’ll pay for it. But it’s funny in my head.

I feel really mean. I feel like I should just go back to monogamy and decide that it is good enough.

But I can’t. I hit a wall. This isn’t enough and it is making me crazy. It’s not enough. I feel like a selfish fucking asshole.

Noah is not enough.

I’m feeling almost giddy at all the possibilities that are available to me right now. All of the things I love to do that Noah… doesn’t even know I’ve done. That isn’t part of who he sees me as.

He sees me as someone to be available for the things he likes.

But I have so many other likes.

Noah is relatively simple and I am fucktastically complex. That’s hard. Well he wanted a crazy girl for excitement.

I made a tiny bit of progress on tile yesterday. I’ll do more today.

Oh! Tile is here. I should email the folks who said they could help. Not 100% of it arrived, but most of it. Enough that I could finish the tree if they were taken of the backing.

Right now I’m working on spring. It’s perty. Grass and flowers.

I’m sorry Noah. I wish I could be just the supportive character of your dreams. I really can’t. I am so many things. Just you wait and see. I don’t want to leave. I mean… I want to go play. But I want to come back. I want you to see these parts of me. I want you to know me. I want you to want me. I like how you want me. I like how you snuggle me to sleep night after night, year after year.

It isn’t that being with you is bad. It is that you don’t hunger to hurt me. I’m not actually angry about that. I have been seriously partnered with people who had that hunger. Notice how I’m here? I don’t want to live with that. I don’t want to live with someone who wants to hurt me that much on a regular basis. Not really.

But I do want to beard the lion in his den. Why?

Because losing is so fucking hot.

Fuzzy boundaries, longing, and self control.

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Oh golly. This has been quite a month. Changing rules and boundaries and more oh my. I feel like it has been coming for a while. Noah feels like it has been coming for a while. My shrink says, “It’s about damn time!”

I feel like this last four year monogamy stretch was really healthy, useful, and appropriate. I’m not good at narrowing my focus. I like to always be broadening my horizons. Meeting new people. Fucking new people. But if I want the future I want to have, I have to put the time in now.

I know that.

Over the past four years Noah and I have certainly maintained a better-than-average sex life (based on national poll numbers) but it was…. not the kind of sex life we are capable of having. It’s been good but ok. My libido was not ever fully turned on. Fully turning on my libido has consequences. I don’t narrow the focus very well.

I’m not that good at keeping to strict boundaries.

A few years ago during one of our “soft open” periods I asked for permission to have sex with a friend. I really shouldn’t have for a lot of reasons. It was complicated. I feel like (in retrospect) the main reason I really wanted to have sex with him that night was because I felt like I shouldn’t but I knew he had been in love with me for years. This got so achingly complicated. Turns out I had this one night with him right before I had my first miscarriage. I will never know 100% for sure if I lost Noah’s baby or my friend’s and that… that weighs on my heart. Especially because what I know of my friend’s other history. So complicated. He was the guy other than Noah who was on the “If I hit X age without finding a co-partner to marry and have kids with you can knock me up as a known donor friend.” Then Noah asked me to marry him and that list kinda blew up.

“Not supposed to” is a huge aphrodisiac for me. It’s part of why what I did in Portland was as hot as it was. I wasn’t really supposed to. And I did it anyway. And I almost fucking came even though there was nothing resembling genital contact. Just SM. It was so hot. Partially because I’m not supposed to.

Sometimes I am genuinely surprised that Noah and I manage to keep up a hot legal sex life. I’m surprised that isn’t a problem for me.

I’m struggling right now because I have a huge number of friends I haven’t had sex with yet. For reasons. Lots of reasons. As many reasons as there people on the list. And I’m kinda feeling like I just want to line them all up.

Why?

Because they were so nice and supportive and wonderful for so long without sex, surely it is time. I’m allowed to again. I really should, right?

Oh. My.

It’s not an “I don’t want to but I should.” It’s more “I was not allowed to so they became taboo and now the boundary is fuzzier and it’s still not clear I should but it is less clear that I shouldn’t so oh my goodness I waaaaaaaaaaaant to.”

You, and you, and you, and you. Let’s not forget you.

Like I have the time for that.

I think part of what is making this fuzzier and more confusing and hard is that these people have been so wonderful for so long without sex that I really love them and feel like they have my back and I like rewarding that kind of thing. Primarily with sex.

Because I’m a one trick pony?

Hey, I don’t have time to come clean your room as a thank you for being my friend any more. Besides, sex is just better.

If people love me I want to make them feel good. I really like doing so with sex. I’m grateful for all the 100% vanilla relationships in my life. I think I’m respecting those boundaries.

I’m only feeling consuming lust towards the folks who are poly and who have expressed desire for me in the past.

That’s like having healthy boundaries, right?

I feel like I want to go back to all those chapters where there are unfinished stories. What could happen now? I’m so different. What would it be like now?

But I have no desire to walk away from what I have now. I have no desire to have lots of time away from my kids. So this gets complicated. As much as I’d kind of like to spend the rest of my life on my back… (or front or side or knees or….)

I really don’t. I had that on option. I turned it down. I wanted to be a breeder. I wanted to homeschool. It is going so well. I feel like I am really and truly living in a healthy manner in front of my children.

I have such mixed feelings about these off-screen activities.

My friend asked me why I feel more bad about sex with other people than sex with Noah because my ‘thing’ is I don’t want my kids around sex.

It’s different. It just is. Noah and I only have sex behind locked doors. We are really quiet. I think it *is* healthy that my kids see that their parents are wildly attracted to one another. They see us make out frequently. They see physical affection as being a huge part of a partnership.

But I don’t know how to teach that with a dilute focus.

Only I kind of do, because I am. But I need them to not know how dilute my focus is. I need for them to see fully realized compartmentalization where I am with them when I am with them. I am with their dad when I am with their dad.

They have no idea what I’m like off-stage. That is good.

But it’s not like I’m in the closet. Someday they will know.

I don’t know what this will mean. Nor do I know how it is going to go with all of these wildfires I’d like to set.

Matches. I like playing with matches.

I want to use people. But I don’t want to use people in a way that leaves them feeling bad or unwanted or rejected or hurt. I want to use people gloriously, joyously and have them feel like they are walking on sunshine back to the rest of their life.

Is that ok?

But I like the telling part…

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I went to a party last night. The kind of party where you aren’t supposed to talk about what you do. But how much do I respect those boundaries? Only by the skin of my teeth. Which has no skin. So I totally don’t get that expression.

It was hot. I had a lot of fun. It was interesting to manage my feelings and expectations. Noah had more uhm contacts than me (this was intentional) and we both left feeling like we had a really positive experience.

I do have explicit permission to write about one of my partners. He has given me blanket permission to write about him. But that’s complicated. You see, a lot of folks I know… also know him. I’m having big feelings. They come in waves and layers and they impact many different aspects of my life.

Who am I? What do I want? Am I good or am I a monster? Can’t I be both? Is it ok?

I’m not sure I want to stop being a monster. What I want to do is go bite him right on top of the bruise he has from me biting him last night. That’s what I want to do.

He said that for that night it was a 9 but in the future I can treat it like a 7 because he really wants to let me do what I want to do.

So. Hot. Explosively. Hot.

Well I had my first fuck since Muse. Not with my friend I am hurting. Why not?

Why not?

Why not?

Why do I need that to be a boundary? I’m still thinking about it. It’s complicated. It has to do with a sense of obligation, about boundaries, about my own limits around energetic output, and of course it’s about the fact that when I’m being super slutty… I wanna bottom.

Even though it is explosively orgasmic to fuck your throat, it is hard for me to turn around and say, “Ok now I want you to fuck me like this and like that and do it this way and harder and…”

When I’m fucking I want to drop like a rock.

That was part of the trouble with breaking the rule in Portland. I wanted to break so many rules. I wanted to cheat. Because he likes flipping people.

That’s where I get in trouble. My friend, who lets me hurt him so exquisitely, has absolutely no drive or desire or impulse to flip me. Not an ounce. None. I’ve looked in that well. I’ve dug out the bottom praying for brackish sips of toppy energy.

I love you so much. I want to drop when I fuck.

I feel bad for wanting that and I don’t want to feel bad for that.

I can do enough feedback to tell a stranger how to avoid land mines and encourage them to hit the tempo I want. That’s easy. I can’t tell a submissive how to fake being forceful enough to fuck me. I know folks who can. My hat is off to you. Sounds fucking hot. I can’t do it.

That was the thing with my Owner. He liked to submit to me. But when he was done he wanted to flip the table hard and have me go down.

I like that.

If I don’t feel a strong challenge, if I don’t feel like someone kind of wants to crawl inside me to eat my neck from the inside… meh. I’ll go find someone else to fuck. Don’t worry. There are more out there. Dick is the most plentiful thing on earth. As Feminista Jones recently pointed out, dick is more plentiful than drinking water.

And if what I want is someone who will fuck me like an animal then go away and not talk to me anymore?

I’m in a god damn buyers market.

This is part of why negotiating boundaries with Noah is so hard. I’m so touchy. I’m so sensitive. I need so much attention and energy and maintenance. We aren’t going to be polyamorous any year soon if ever. I have no desire to share that big of a piece of him.

But how does it work to fuck your friends? How does it work to keep people at a distance? I don’t know.

My kids are my secondaries. That sounds creepy. I don’t think we have an emotionally incestuous relationship. I think we have a lot of boundaries around what it means to be support for one another. I don’t think I am overly enmeshed or overly dependent on them. But I am really seriously teaching them how to take care of themselves. And I’m doing that by figuring it out (kinda) in front of them.

I believe with all my heart and soul that much of this journey needs to be off-screen for them. Sure, I write about it publicly and some day they may discover just how skanky their mom was/is…

I can live with that.

I believe I am allowing them to grow up in a world where sexuality is normal, healthy, private, and personal. People do it in a lot of different ways for a lot of reasons and there is no one way that is right or wrong. We have friends of quite diverse family arrangements. And I’m matter of fact and shame free about all of it. I explain why things I tried failed because of defects in my personality. It isn’t that those ways of existing are wrong.

I just can’t do them.

I don’t know why sex can be biting someone and slapping him and fucking his throat with my strap on and that’s enough. We didn’t even kiss.

But sometimes that is a complete sexual experience that needs to be respected within the boundaries that apply to it. Sex isn’t what you think it is. Sex is a lot of things.

I kissed his body. I kissed his neck. I licked him. Do you know the most contact I had with his cock? When he was wearing pants I kneeled on his crotch and jerked him off with my knees. I was still fully dressed.

Sex can be a lot of things.

Sex can be a lot of things it can’t be with Noah. That’s feeling interesting to me right now. And then the pick up sex.

Gosh. Feeeeeeeeeeeeelings. Where do these all fit in my heart, in my loins, in my life?

I asked permission for the pick up sex. Absolutely no cheating happened. This was all highly negotiated and safe and what not. Lots of condoms and covered oral sex. Ok we didn’t use gloves for fingering.

I swear to goodness driving across the country with my kids was more dangerous than fucking this dude.

Why didn’t I hunt for a woman?

Complicated.

Because there are more feelings involved. Squishy feelings. Feelings I have a harder time keeping at arms length. Because I want to fall in love with you. Because I miss women so much. Because I would want to… not have the boundaries I’m supposed to have. Because I do want to come over and bring my kids and all of us can cuddle because surely that’s not a problem, right?

A long time ago I went home with a couple after a wild drug fueled orgy. I shit you not. In the morning the three of us were lying in bed naked doing more drugs. In walked their eight year old kid.

No one blinked. This was just normal.

I left very soon after. I didn’t really keep dating them. I couldn’t do that.

My kids know I smoke pot. My kids know I have had sex. My kids see my casually naked because I genuinely see nudity as not a big deal.

My kids don’t walk in on me smoking pot with my lovers in the nude. Nope, nope, nope.

Do I think I’m better than them? No. Not really. Because you can go down a list of this for that wrong for right and… I’m not. I’m not better than anyone. I don’t have stones to throw. But I have decisions to make about where my boundaries need to be.

Isn’t judging kind of a necessary thing in life? It doesn’t have to mean someone else is in the wrong. But you have to judge anyway. You have to judge if something is right for you.

I asked very careful permission before I engaged in any sm play because this was not a bdsm party. I asked the host, I found a semi-private room. I asked the other people playing in the room for permission before I got started. When other people wanted to join us in the room I asked them if they were comfortable before things got going.

I want it to be ok for me to be in my place in the weird ass world and I want it to be ok that sometimes other people need to be protected from my baser urges. My baser urges are pretty wicked and I know that. Whoa.

I kept it light. I knew I was at a vanilla party. I’m told I only got up to a 3/4 for the hitting. The biting I got more fierce because that doesn’t scare people who are watching. Uhm, not as much?

No punching. No kicking. No serious choking.

I kept it kinda sensual mean.

aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh. I’m going to beat off like a fiend for weeks thinking about this. I need to go to a real bdsm party with him so I can fuck him up. I feel like I’m fiending like a junkie. I like this feeling.

This used to be my life. Ok, I didn’t top that much. Enough. I topped as often as other people could talk me into it. Because people who really crave being hit can tell what I have hiding beneath my smile.

How am I going to keep boundaries around this?

I’ve already loved you for way more than ten years. I’ve known you for more than fifteen years. If this changes, what will that mean? How much of me is going to go to a relationship that has been… super low key for a long time?

That’s the rub. That’s where the negotiating comes in.

Last night I was teasing him and I was teasing me. I know what we both really want and I couldn’t give it to him there. It wouldn’t have been appropriate.

See: I can be taught.

He told me, “Many years ago I decided that even if I didn’t know what you wanted from me, I want to give you everything I have.”

Danger. Danger. Danger. Soooooooooooooooooo much temptation there. That could be so much fun. So much intoxication. So much excitement.

Crap.

It’s magical. It’s appealing.

I have at least ten more years before I will consider seriously dating. Realistically I’m not sure our marriage would survive a serious outside relationship for one of us. We are enmeshed mother fuckers.

But I don’t mind when he goes and does x with someone else.

Cause it isn’t cheating. I walked into the room. I saw what was happening. I saw who it was happening with. I grinned. I walked out.

I like watching other people but I honestly don’t like watching Noah have sex with a stranger. I like watching him fuck my friends because then I can tell them both what to do and be a bossy shithead. That’s kinda inappropriate when he’s banging someone I don’t know. Boundaries, bitch.

And the very best part is when we got home he wasn’t ready to get a hard on so he put on  a strap on and fucked me till he was ready to get hard again. Because I wasn’t done yet and if you aren’t hard that’s fine, we have equipment for that. I’m not done yet. And then we woke up and had frantic sex again in the middle of the early morning.

Because we feel cocky, snotty, insatiable, and completely and totally lucky that we get to come home and fuck each other.

I think it is hilarious that my shrink is shocked by how much sex we have considering how long we have been married. “Krissy, you know that people just don’t do that, right?” Meh. I know people who do. Maybe you don’ t know the right people.

It’s all about where you stand.

Noah likes to make fun of me. If I can find people who are more extreme at something I will loudly and prolifically say that I’m not that good at ________. Doesn’t matter what the topic is.

If there are fifty people alive who are better than me, clearly I’m not that good.

Uhhhh, right?

Depends on your scale. I’ve never ever tried to be a specialist. I’m a generalist. So what the fuck does that mean?

I don’t know yet.

Let’s find out.

Withholding information

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I’m kinda the opposite of good at discretion sometimes. But some things require me to not go into detail. Not because of my own privacy, but because other people are involved.

This was quite a weekend.

I can’t tell you about it. Even though I have allllll the feelz. So many positives and negatives and intensity and STUFF I WANNA PROCESS. But other people have different boundaries than me. Fuck being respectful and other such bullshit.

My cunt hurts quite a bit.

I broke a rule. Noah says it isn’t all the way to cheating, but I feel like I need to document that it happened even if I’m not going to say what I did. Because in the future I’ll be all, “Well I didn’t admit to that one thing that one time” and this is my way of saying, “Yup. I did that.”

I accept responsibility for my actions.

I’m not sure I’d take it back if I could.

Time to clean my house.

Not coping-methods

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I’m reading this book on meditation. (Specifically because it is published by one of the publishing houses I think is most likely to be interested in my book.)

It is hard living with contradictory selves. I honestly and truly believe that people don’t want to be in my life unless they want something from me. And yet I think that the vast majority of people who love me want nothing more than to chat with me for a few hours a year. That doesn’t seem like much to “want” from me.

But it creates a suspicious feeling. I’m really having a screwy day. I’m most of the way through a whiskey sour (1 oz whiskey, 4 oz sours) so I’m feeling it.

My stomach doesn’t hurt like it did when I came home from therapy. Between the medication and the alcohol I don’t feel so much like I should die. I just feel tired, drained, and kind of sad.

I feel like my therapist believes that I experience suicidality because I “like” it. I happen to think it would be more convenient if I believed that I am exceedingly able to handle most things that come up. I think I would like it if I didn’t always feel like I am hurting people so much just by existing.

I don’t know how to gentle down enough to deserve to live.

It was interesting, actually, on Friday I went to a party. Winter Bash. The Renaissance Faire guild I used to work with has a party every year. It’s not really the guild–the guild mistress and her husband have a big party. They invite people from lots of parts of their lives… but I only talk to the guild people because that’s who I know.

I had some really great chats. I’m glad I made it. I haven’t made it up in several years and it was lovely to catch up with a few specific people. But everything is mixed for me.

I watched people flinch when I was too loud/extreme/strong in my phrasing or something. I didn’t feel like I was that bad. The people who already knew me didn’t really flinch. Strangers did.

I like being able to produce that reaction from people when I want to produce that reaction. I actually don’t like that it happens when I think I’m doing just fine.

I feel like a manipulative chicken shit for talking about wanting to die when I am merely being held responsible for my actions.

But that’s not really it. If a judge wants to slap a restraining order on me because I said things that were genuinely illegal… that’s reasonable. I think that if I were actually threatening to kill someone I would bloody well deserve a restraining order and I would accept it.

I have no interest in hurting that doctor. If I haven’t hurt the people who have raped me… If I haven’t driven up to my sister’s front door and caused her permanent damage… a doctor fucking up some instructions is not going to send me over the edge.

I’m not actually a violent person. I am an abrupt person. I am an angry person. I understand that other people have no way of knowing whether or not I am a threat to them when I am angry in front of them.

I only tell myself it is ok to drink for stress reasons every few years. I never feel good about it. Even though I am massively opposed to AA and I don’t think I’m an alcoholic I have just as much guilt about drinking when I’m upset as I read about in books. Which… depending on how I read different books… actually means I’m an alcoholic. Even though I’ve never had a problem with drinking very much. I think about alcohol a lot. When I have even one serving I feel enormous guilt–which kind of makes alcohol a problem. Which by some definitions means I have a problem with alcohol and I shouldn’t drink.

It’s god damn medicinal. I need to lower my anxiety level.

I’m all the way up to four drinks this week. One at the holiday party. Two last night. One today. This is how I keep me honest. Speaking of which: diarrhea this afternoon. With this much alcohol no duh. I haven’t had alcohol in months. Before I stopped drinking entirely I averaged 1-3 drinks/month. (Yo- whiskey, one drink a night, is FODMAP friendly…)

I’ll stop hurting myself after the court date.

See, part of the thing about my self-harm is: I do it as an outlet. Otherwise I have outbursts of inappropriate emotion around people who don’t deserve it. Then I get punished for not having enough control of my emotions. The punishment is inevitably much larger and more of a problem than my self harm.

I reiterate: what the fuck is so bad about me hurting myself so that I don’t react inappropriately around other people and end up way more hurt?!?!?!?!?!

I miss cutting. Instead, Eldest is building some pretty cool stuff in Minecraft and Youngest is enjoying having the power to steer the iPad. I’m hurting my arms (typing) or reading and not talking a lot. If you don’t have something nice to say don’t say nothing at all.

I made ramen for lunch. For one of the few times in my life… it didn’t taste good. I got no comfort from the experience. I don’t think wheat is going so well. Oh god.

It is kind of funny that this happened on “vacation” week. Most kids aren’t supposed to be “schooling” this week. So it is very typical of their generation that they will spend most of their time on the screen this week. Ha.

There is a part of my brain that knows I won’t be upset about any of the things that is happening in six months. I will dimly remember being upset.

It would be nice to borrow from future self. I think having the awareness of a future self who will not be upset about these things is the best I can manage. I should stop typing and start reading.

Running and singing and whining and kids.

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When I sing I listen to my ‘healing’ playlist.  Mostly women.  Mostly at least semi-introspective music.  Lots of relationship stuff.  Lots of anger and lots of sadness.  There are happy songs too.  One of the main reasons I don’t think I run very fast is because I can still sing along sorta pretty much the whole time.  I pant the words out during sprints.  Just like labor, I never lose the ability to talk.  I keep hearing about how something doesn’t qualify as heavy exercise unless you lose the ability to talk.  I hear that serious labor inhibits the ability to talk.  I never lost my ability to communicate.  I don’t get silent.

I used to.  I used to experience everything scary or hard or painful as something that caused me to withdraw.  Now the harder something is the louder I want to be while doing it.  I just can’t suffer in silence any more.  This means that my neighbors look at me funny while I run around singing fairly loudly.  I smile and wave.  I decided that if I am going to run in a Cheshire Cat hat complete with ears I am required to be cheerful.  People stare at me a lot.  If I take the hat off and run with the super short hair they stare just as much.  Early in the running I felt kind of defensive and weird.  I doubt my facial expression was cheerful.  People used to look at me warily.  Now I run along singing, at about a normal conversation volume, and I smile and wave and interrupt myself to yell, “Hello!  Nice night, isn’t it?”  Then I go back to singing loudly.  Now people laugh and wave and answer me with some appropriate comment.

I think people dislike me because I project hostility so much of the time.  Mostly people don’t have an opinion of me.  But I’m a polarizing figure!  Whatever.  Mostly people don’t have an opinion of me.  They don’t care enough to have an opinion.

I’m not sure I can actually wrap my head around that.

Yeah, no.  Can’t do it.  I have an opinion about everything and everyone.  Only I don’t actually.  I think I’m lying again.  I’m sitting here trying to force myself to have neutral thoughts.  It’s more difficult than one might think.  If I look around my garage I can think that I don’t have an opinion on the quality of most of the books (I share library space with people who have a lot of books I haven’t read) but I have an opinion on how much room they take up and where they are stored.  Is it a neutral impression?  Well… if I see the book dropped somewhere else I will have very strong negative opinion about the book.  So I think that all of them are just on the negative side of neutral for me which means I have an opinion.

Yeah.  I don’t think I can imagine what it is like to go through the world with actual apathy.  Do you want to know the problem?  The problem is that I have this weird little piece of me in the center and it decides if my opinions are positive or negative today.  Pretty much across the board.  Today I’m feeling hostile and pissy; I don’t even know why.  I could come up with candidates, but they aren’t really big enough.  I have too much good coming.  I should be excited.  At this time tomorrow I will be on an airport shuttle with Noah and we get three full days of no kids.

The running is hard.  I’m tired.  When I arrive back I am in high spirits.  Then I crash the next day.  It’s fairly consistent.  I am not explosively angry I am just kind of short in temper.  Snippy.  I feel bone weary exhaustion and the kids aren’t happy unless I’m running with them.  I really can’t right now.  I’m so tired.  I’m not always.  I won’t feel like this all day.  But it feels like the core of me is just barely on the negative, whiny side.

Noah is trying to express appreciation for me.  For all the work I take off his plate.  I hate feeling like it isn’t enough.  I don’t feel appreciated.  I don’t feel valuable.  I don’t feel effective.  I feel plodding and stupid.  I feel like I am barely going through the motions.  I feel like I’m looking at everything through a dense cloud bank.  I feel like gravity is too heavy.  I think that is what I feel.  Gravity is too heavy.  That makes it harder to do everything.  I have to decide if it is worth the effort.  I still haven’t started packing.  Not for us and not for Shanna.  Shanna is getting picked up at two this afternoon.  I should probably get started.

It doesn’t help my overall feeling bad that last week Shanna was helping me with cleaning.  I didn’t like how nasty her tone was and her word choice in describing the activity.  Do you know where she learned it?  Watching me.  I didn’t say anything to her about it.  She was just reflecting what she sees.  But I’ve been thinking about it.  I haven’t described her toys as crap since.  She doesn’t have crap.  She has high quality neat toys in a dizzying variety.  It’s really not crap.

I’m cheerful sometimes.  I’m not sure why it is so hard right now.  I’m grieving; I think that is part of it.  Grieving for so many things.  I’m more than half way through the first round of editing the book.  I really don’t want it to be an angry book.  I want to tell the story in the most simple and direct way I can.  I don’t want to flail around and be angry forever.  I just want to get it right.  I want to have other people know the simple facts.  I don’t want to be alone with my story.  It’s scary.  I can’t handle being alone with it.

As I run I think about a lot of things.  I think about the one who got away.  Ha.  I have several.  I think about the many possibilities I had open throughout my life.  I think of what choices I made and where.  Which were the most important ones?  Where was the tipping point?

I have the life I wanted.  I really do.  Why aren’t I happier?  Why is everything viewed in terms of me failing?  How have I really failed?  How am I bad?  I’m not really engaging in questionable activity any more.  I think this is as close to the center of the bell curve as I will ever be.  I still feel bad.  I still feel like I am bad.  That’s what makes everything just negative of center.  Because I am.  I can’t help it. I was born bad.  This is why I run as far and as fast as is safe for my body on a training schedule and I yell out the words to Born This Way.

I’m not bad.  I have done a lot of things that other people don’t do.  That doesn’t mean I am bad.  The balance of my life is heavily skewed towards doing and being good.  Why do I still feel so unworthy? I feel terribly unworthy.  God knows I don’t deserve Noah.  He is far nicer than anyone like me deserves.  In this mind frame I even know that he wasn’t trying to cheat.  He did act like a jerk, but good grief how much do I expect one man to put up with while never ever doing anything to retaliate? I deserve a good smack down now and then.  I get too demanding and pushy and uppity.

I don’t like it when I think this way.  I know these thoughts are fleeting.  I know this isn’t how I always feel.  It’s how I feel today.  I’m enjoying this part of growing older.  I feel a lot more security around the fact that I won’t feel this way forever.  And I really do know that I have far more good than bad in my life.

Today my baby goes to her Godmamas.  She is excited.  She loves these visits.  Recently she asked me if we will be together forever.  I told her that depends on how we define it.  I told her that we will always be together again but we won’t do everything together all the time.  Sometimes we will be in separate places but if she thinks about me real hard and knows she will see me again soon it’s like being together at all times.  We will always be together again very soon.  She said that works for her.

Calli has changed dramatically recently and I don’t talk about her in writing much.  My experience of parenting her has been different.  She needs me in very different ways.  For the past few months she needs much more intense physical contact than she seemed to want when she was small.  She is very serious and when things don’t go how she wants she gets this stricken expression on her face.  It’s really pretty hilarious.  I love watching her play with things.  She looks like she thinks more like an engineer.  She isn’t a dilettante.  She wants to sit and figure something out.  That’s not how her sister approached objects so it’s neat to watch.  She makes me understand how uncurious I am.  She also makes me understand that I know so much more than I think I know.  She holds things up and grunts at me.  She wants me to explain.  I always start at the most concrete level with name, color, size, that kind of stuff.  Eventually I get to imaginative uses.  It generally takes several options before I find the right one for her.  Then she nods and runs away.  I’m not sure if I have finally given her sufficient data or if I finally said the right word.  I won’t know until she can talk.

Calli is going to talk on a very different curve than Shanna.  That’s ok.  It means that she feels much less there and I think I’ve been underestimating her for a while.  Her comprehension is fairly astounding.  I think she understands a lot more than she obeys.  She is willfull.  In a very different way than Shanna.  If I try to prevent Shanna from getting what she wants she responds in a very wild, free-swinging way.  She always has.  Calli clenches her fist and shakes with fury.  She may or may not release a few ear-drum-shattering shrieks but mostly she just looks like a bull about to charge.  She doesn’t swing out but she may lean over and bite.  Calli is a runner.  Letting her walk on her own is dangerous.  She won’t come back and she is going faster by the day.  Shanna never went far from me and would come back when I called.  This kid doesn’t feel as strong of a leash to me.

Today I need to pack.  I should probably go do that.  Everything takes a really long time so I had best get moving.  Any second now.  Don’t wanna.

aftermath

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I told Noah that I would be fairly ashamed to tell people how we are moving forward.  According to my personal religion that means I am committing a sin.  It’s mixed.  Mostly I would say we are getting along very well.  I’m not starting fights or insulting him or picking on him.  Noah is his usual polite and adoring self.  It’s like nothing happened except we have massively increased how much sex we are having and how degrading our sex is.

We have spent a lot of time talking about how compulsive I am about sex.  About how that works in my head.  We have spent a lot of time talking about how impulsive Noah is about sex.  So far we seem to be at the point where we are both acknowledging that we qualify as “sex addicts” by any reasonable definition but maybe if we stick with each other we won’t cause too big of problems?

Apparently the task of the week is to see how much sex we have to have before Noah can’t handle any more.  So far we have managed three times a day every day.  Then I fall asleep.  I feel mixed about this.  He knows I feel mixed about this.  Hell, I’m writing about feeling mixed about this–everyone will know.    It’s hard talking about the actual needs that casual sex meets for me.  I can meet some pretty fucked up needs without telling anyone what I am doing.  I never have to tell my partners what my internal dialogue is.  I don’t have a very high opinion of myself and my voracious need for sex.

I don’t have a very high opinion of the fact that my preference is for most of the sex I have to be quasi-consensual.  Noah is well aware that a large percentage, possibly “most”, of our sex involves me not being in the mood at all.  It doesn’t really matter if I am interested in sex.  I am interested in being a good whore.  That means I will do what I am supposed to do.  I feel manifestly uncomfortable admitting that.  A large percentage of the sex I have I only have because I feel like I am required to do so.  That is what someone like me is good for.  That is what I am supposed to do.  And I’m really good at it.  And I fucking live for the post-sex adulation.  People I fuck tend to be willing to tell me at great length how good I am at sex.  I try very hard to make sure I work far harder at sex than most women.  I really really want the approval I get after sex.

I feel like something is broken in me.  That I chase this so hard.  Noah and I have been talking a lot lately.  I don’t think I am going to sleep with other people any more.  Regardless of what Noah ends up doing for the rest of his life, I need to stop buying affection with sex.  I need to stop begging my friends to like me by proving that I am better at sex than anyone they’ve ever slept with.  It’s not really a strategy that is working for me.

I like to pick other sex addicts and go have multiple hours of sex with them.  Most of the time they are so shocked by finding a woman who is also as motivated by sex that they are willing to tell me pretty much anything I want.  It’s broken.  I have a partner at home who is willing to do the Jekyll/Hyde thing with me.  He will degrade me and talk about me being a whore during sex.  He will tell me that if I am so motivated by cock I am required to show up at 5am every day and wake him up with my mouth.  And he’s pretty nice to me the rest of the time.

I feel worried by the duality of our relationship.  Most of the time in most ways he really is an amazing partner.  He is a good, stable provider.  He is kind.  He is great with our children.  I have been able to push him towards mutually agreed upon improvements in behavior over the years.  He’s very willing to accommodate me in just about every part of life.  He bends over backwards for me in nearly every way.  He will even call me names and hurt me tremendously during sex if I tell him I want him to.

There is this mythos in my head that slaves and masochists should experience no internal conflict over what they do.  I have massive internal conflict.  I am still upset that Noah lied to me.  And my response is to tell him more and more complex stories that I am terribly ashamed of.  Things that hurt me very much.  And I ask him to use them against me.  I want him to agree that I am just a dirty whore.  There isn’t much else that someone like me is good for.  But I want him to gift wrap it in a package where I don’t have to be at risk going forward.

For me to keep having the kind of casual sex that I like is for me to risk my life.  It really won’t be much longer before I go back for hunting for rough, dangerous sex.  Sure I’m being all loud and snotty this round of hunting because I want vanilla sex right now.  That would fade.  I would go back to wanting people to do dangerous things to me.  I’ve already had a broken bone in the pursuit of good sex, what else will happen?

It is a lot safer to stick with Noah.  He will be able to hurt me as much or more than anyone else.  He doesn’t flinch from doing so.  Noah has not yet inflicted as much pain on me as a small handful of other people, but he has every intention of doing so.  I get the impression that some day he will be the one I have done my most intense play with.  That kind of terrifies me.  Because he has a high bar to reach.  I have already done things that were a really bad idea.  I’m sure I will do more.

If I do this instead of cutting or sleeping around or drugs or whatever other self-harming behavior I can dream up… is that better?  I don’t know.  I don’t know how this life thing is supposed to work.  I hear I am just supposed to magically decide that I shouldn’t be harmed any more, not by anyone.  Not by me, and not by random guys, and not by my husband.  But I need this.  I am so used to feeling shit on.  I require it so much.

Noah has been nice and patient for a long time.  We haven’t done intense or painful or degrading sex in a long time.  He’s been more respectful than that.  So I got bored and went out and slept with other people.  And the thing is, it’s not enough that he does these things to me.  I need people to know that these things are part of my life.  I need for people to know that I am this person.  I can’t have this done in secret.  I can’t keep secrets.

It would be a sin if I did these things and kept them private and secret.  I believe that.  That is something that I have to hold on to in life.  Something is only a sin if I am ashamed to talk about it.  If I am talking about this now, does that mean I am released from the power of it being a sin?  I don’t know.  I worry about needing what I need.  It’s mixed.

I can point in a straight line from events in my early childhood to what I do now.  Come March, other people will be able to do so as well.  Noah already can.  And he stomps all over me with that knowledge.  Only in ways I find hot, of course.  Is that the difference?  Is that the line between what we do and some amorphous “abuse”?  If I tell Noah to stop doing something on a given day he does.  Except by prior arrangement.  Except that I know that I just don’t bother to say no when I’m not in the mood.  I figure out how to let it happen.  I figure out how to permit him the access he wants whether I want it or not.  I don’t generally bother to communicate whether I am in the mood or not.  If he tells me to do something, I do it.

It’s interesting when people talk to me about how self-assured I am.  How self-possessed.  How willing to stand up for myself.  Ha.  Only sometimes.  Only in some ways.  If a sexual partner is telling me to do things I frankly don’t want to do I have limited ability to communicate my wants.  It depends on how I am doing emotionally and it depends on how much I am invested in the partner.  I have casual sex because I can have boundaries with strangers.  I have repeat sex with long-term friends because I have beaten them down in non-sexual settings and they don’t push real hard out of fear of a backlash that will never come.  I don’t have boundaries with my long-term partners.  I barely communicate anything about my limits beyond telling them what buttons will get them the biggest reaction today.  “Today is ____ anniversary so why don’t you hurt me by doing _________.”

It’s not a sin if I talk about it.  I don’t know what it is, but it’s not a sin.  I have decided this for my own personal pantheon of beliefs.

These needs all predate Noah.  They are not because of him.  Most of them are not really about him at all.  These are things that were broken in me as a child.  But he frankly enjoys many of the ways I am broken.  He feels no shame whatsoever in enjoying what I became as the direct result of years of sexual assault.  Well, maybe he feels a little shame.  But not much.  Not enough to prevent him from trying to behave in ways that will keep me from getting bored in the future.  Not enough to lessen his enjoyment of what this deep feeling of shame causes me to do during sex.  His favorite part lately seems to be that I’m really ok with him fucking my throat until he causes me to vomit.  I have a fairly reactive gag reflex.  I consider vomiting to be just part of serious blow jobs.  I don’t think that is normal.  It never feels like it is really a good time to say, “Could you back off on the deep throating?”  I don’t get to set terms like that.  I get to accept.

In about ten minutes I have to get up and close the computer.  I will walk across the house and I will do what I was told to do.  Do I want to?  Enh.  Not really.  My throat and cunt are sore.  I could use about a week off from sex to recover at this point.  But I draw comfort from the fact that I have confessed so I go forth without sin.  I will smile.  I will encourage him.  I will beg him for more, in fact.  It doesn’t really matter that I’m sore.  That’s beside the point.  I don’t think I should go have sex with other people any more.  I don’t think that is a good decision for me.  He says he is going to be monogamous as well.  No, let me be clear.  He will be as monogamous as I am.

I fell compelled by my shame.  I told him he would be allowed to sleep with whomever he wanted, forever.  I promised him that.  At no point did I tell him I would like it or feel happy about it.  I feel like I did a bait and switch.  I feel like I owe him for all the sex he will never get to have because he was stupid enough to marry someone as insecure and selfish and possessive as me.  I feel guilty that I seem to have tricked him into monogamy.  In turn I fell compelled to say, “Ok fine, I guess I can’t be monogamous either–go have fun.”

I sincerely believe I should stop having sex with other people.  I should not act on feeling compelled to earn love and affection with sex outside my marriage.  It’s bad enough that I do it with Noah.  I don’t actually think I should go out and find a harem of men who will cheerfully call me a whore during sex.  I don’t need that.  I do enough of that all by myself.

I feel so broken.  I seem to have absolutely internalized that anyone who fucks this many people is kind of disgusting.  And all I want to do is increase the number so I can increase just how many people will think I am disgusting.

But Noah doesn’t care.  He doesn’t care at all what I’ve done or what I might do in the future.  He wants me.  He takes great pride in me.  He loves me and adores me.  He bends over backwards from me in pretty much every part of life.  Except when he’s being impulsive.  Oops.  His friend told him, “The problem with your situation is it’s hard to know when you are cheating.”  Maybe if the rules are clearer then it will be easier to figure out what to do?

I feel like I have taken something away from him.  He was poly when I met him.  How dare I take that away.  I seem to be the epitome of what Dan Savage and Mistress Matisse warn about.  That evil double crosser who promises poly and can’t hack it.  I’m sorry I am so broken.  I really am.  I wish that I could encourage Noah to do anything he wants with anyone he wants.  Hell, I do encourage him.  But it hurts me when he does it.  I’m sorry that is true.  I really am.

alone

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This morning I am thinking about the fact that I will always and forever be the only one to defend me.  The only one who thinks I am worth defending.  The only one who will ever tell anyone to stop hurting me.  That makes me sad.  I am alone in such a basic way.  Noah will never defend me and no one will defend me from Noah.

That makes sense.  It is my marriage.  People don’t want to get involved.  Just like people didn’t want to get involved with my family when I was a child.  There’s no sense in being mad at Noah.  Mistakes happen.  He didn’t realize he had conveyed such a strong sense that no sex would happen.  He meant to be a little bit of a jerk, not a cheater… so why be mad?

I’m sorry I’m such an angry person.  I have a lot of very good reasons to be angry.  Fuck you if you don’t agree with me.  Fuck you if you make me the butt of your joke for my anger.  I’m really tired of people mocking me for being angry.  I’m tired of people telling me all the time how very angry I am.  I should just stop talking.  I know I can’t stop writing.  I kind of tried.  But I should stop talking basically entirely. It’s not fair to force anyone to put up with my nastiness.

I am angry.  I am so very angry.  And apparently that’s not really an acceptable thing.  It’s not acceptable that outside the view of my children I punch walls until my hands bruise.  It’s not acceptable that outside the view of my children I cut myself.  I do these things because I am angry and sad and I am told to shut up and bottle up that anger.  I can’t any more.  I feel so much rage.  And it makes me snippy.

My tone of voice sucks.  As a result I get to be the butt of every joke.  I loathe the comments.  I feel mocked and ridiculed and silenced.  I feel like I was told the polite version of shut the fuck up.  That’s what pseudo-civilized people use as code for, “Your turn to talk is over.”  Fine.  I got the message.  I’ll shut up.

I have a therapy appointment tomorrow.  It’s a good thing.  I need to talk to her about how strong my suicide ideation is.  (No one fucking report me.  I’m not going to do this to my kids.)  I don’t know how to get the thoughts to stop right now.  I don’t know how to feel any hope that my life isn’t going to be just an abusive fucking nightmare forever.  And no one will give a shit.  No one will ever care.  No one will ever defend me.  How do I have any sense of self esteem to evaluate when I need to get out?  How do I preserve that shred of me?  What do I do?

I don’t know right now.  But I’m scared.  I don’t want to live with a partner who will tell me to my face that he is not going to have sex with someone before doing so.  What else will he lie to me about?  Yes, I realize it is all my fault he had to minimize his chances because I am such a nasty fucking bitch and all.  I’m trying to stop talking so that maybe he will never have to lie to me again.  Or at least next time it won’t be my fault for being a bitch.  Instead it will be my fault for being withdrawn.  I’m really scared.

And when other people think about what to do when their marriage falls apart they think of their family resources.  I curse myself for trusting Noah and I wish I hadn’t spent the last annuity payment as donations.  I wish I had the sure knowledge that I could leave this marriage the same way I came in, on my own with money that didn’t come from anyone else.  Now I will forever know that my “safety net” is at Noah’s discretion.  Sure, he’s going to allow me to open another bank account and transfer his money into it.  He’s a nice guy and all.  He wants to look committed.  But I know I am now at his discretion.  And that’s when he breaks my trust.

This shit is so fucking complicated.  And I’m alone with dealing with it.  Because I have no one and nothing.  Being an orphan fucking sucks.

just shut up

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I feel like the way forward for my marriage is for me to stop talking.  If I want Noah to feel safe and comfortable talking to me I need to stop being so negative and shut up and give him… I don’t know.  I guess I’m supposed to be pleasant all the time?  It’s really not ok that I’m so prone to attack.

I keep startling Sarah too.  She flinches a lot.  She keeps getting this look on her face like I slapped her.  I don’t mean to be so nasty.  I really don’t.

All I can hear is my mother hissing at me, Shut up, Kristine.  I need to shut up.  The common factor in all of my different relationships is me.  Obviously if I have the same problem over and over the problem is me.  I’m sorry I’m so angry.  I’m sorry.  I’m sorry.  I’m sorry.  I’m sorry.

I don’t want to be angry.  This hurts so much.  I’m tired of crying.  I’m tired of spending my whole life waiting for someone to do something nasty to me so that I have an excuse to be nasty to them.  I’m sorry that I am preemptively hostile towards behaviors that are going to long-term do me no good.

I’m really tired of having life events happen that will make me feel ashamed when I write the next Christmas card.  Because I won’t mention them.  Because they are not fit for “civilized conversation.”  I need to keep my fucking dirty laundry in the closet.  I need to shut up.  Shut up.  Shut up.  Shut up Kristine.

What am I going to teach my daughters?

The cycles of abuse thrive in secrecy.  Children of ACOA… act like they grew up with an alcoholic.  The problem isn’t the alcohol.  The problem is the behaviors ingrained in your family.  That’s why I can’t be around my family.  Because shit just keeps happening and things snowball when there are secrets.

I try very hard to be respectful of Noah in my writing, always.  Yes I occasionally rant about him.  I try to present balance.  I want my daughters to believe that they deserve better than I believe I deserve.  Please, if there is a God, let my daughters think they deserve more than I think I deserve.

But I have what I have.  I don’t know yet what that really means.  Everyone makes mistakes.

Thing is, my daughters are unlikely to ever know this happened.  Not unless I tell them.  Or write about it a whole lot.  No one will remember a couple of blog posts in a few years.  I will know for the rest of my life that I deserve someone who cheats on me.  I have no way of controlling his behavior now or in the future.  He will do whatever he does.  I get to decide what I am willing to stand near.  That is the whole limit of my ability to enforce any so-called-standards.

I don’t really believe in divorce.  I think I made my bed.  What am I going to teach my daughters that they deserve?

This has been a bad year for me for grief.  I have cried a lot.  Uncle Bob’s death has triggered a whole ocean of tears with all the backlash toward my family.  I am crying over my non-relationship with my father.  I hurt so very very much.

And I am unpleasant in the process.  I am such a bitch that my husband can’t tell me the truth without risking my wrath.  He figures it is just easier to defer the anger till after he finally gets to have some fun.  My co-parent flinches from me constantly because I am so nasty.

Shut up, Kristine, shut up.  Just shut your stupid, nasty mouth.  What is your fucking problem.  I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry.

I’m sorry I’m so angry.  I’m sorry I’m so difficult.  I know I expect too much.  I’m so sorry.  I’m so terribly sorry.  I’m trying to shut up.  I’m trying to be pleasant.  I’m sorry.  I’m sorry.  I’m sorry.

What I’m teaching my daughters is that if you aren’t “nice enough” people are allowed to turn around and kick you viciously once in a while.  And when they do it is your responsibility if to ask how hard they want to fuck you after that.  You are supposed to ask what else you can do to turn them on.

I really kind of make myself sick.

I can’t feel self-righteous.  I did “expect” him to fuck her.  That’s why I asked multiple times if he thought  there would be sex.  I was hoping that maybe I would get an email or a phone call or a something if he was going to be able to close the deal.  Or she would say no on the first date.  I don’t know.

He said that sex ‘wouldn’t happen’.  Why did you bring condoms then?  He just said it because he didn’t want to hurt my feelings.  Why am I so god damn mean?

I don’t want monogamy under duress.  I don’t want Noah to stop dating other people just because I am such a stupid miserable bitch.  I’m tired of being the reason people can’t have what they want.  Because I am so fucking nasty.  I’ll shut up.

I don’t want Noah to be monogamous with me because he doesn’t want to deal with the drama of dating other people.  I would only want a monogamous relationship with someone who actually felt that way about me.  Noah doesn’t.  I don’t get that this lifetime.  I don’t get to really be wanted that way.  My partner will always wish that he had the freedom to fuck pretty much anyone at pretty much any time.  He won’t do it because he doesn’t want to deal with the drama.  He has a high level of self interest that way.

I’d rather learn to shut up than live with trapping him.  If you don’t want to fucking be with me then don’t.  Go fuck someone else.  I don’t want your fucking pity.

What to say?

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As life goes, something happened.  I don’t know how to talk about it.  I have never been shy with my overall discomfort with nonmonogamy.  I feel like I bring that up pretty often and pretty honestly.  Doing so apparently created a situation where Noah felt unable to tell me the truth.  So he was evasive.  He minimized.  He said he “didn’t think sex would happen” because it was “just a coffee date.”  When he later got the option for it to be more than a coffee date I got an sms… at the time he was supposed to be arriving home.

I want everyone in the audience to pause for 2.5 seconds and imagine how I would feel about Noah renegotiating sex at the last second by sms after telling me it wouldn’t happen…. everyone got that image in their head now?
What I did was respond with nastiness and passive aggression.  I didn’t even tell him no.  I told him I was angry that he was asking and fuck you and do what you want.  I certainly feel like I earned his behavior.  I feel like I deserve what he went and did because I am such a nasty bitch why would he want to come home to me any way.
He sent the sms at 10.  He came home at 1am.  I have done very little but cry since then.  What the hell am I going to do?  If I didn’t have children I think I would have driven to a bridge and jumped off.  Now that the last person I was going to really trust this life time did this to me… what do I have left?  What do I really get to hope for?  What kind of respect am I ever going to be given?  None?  Barely any?
I don’t know why I thought that someone like me deserved better.  I was lying to myself.  Of course this happened.  How could any thing other than this happen?  I wasn’t enthusiastic enough about Noah’s dates.  I didn’t pat him on the back with a big smile and tell him happy hunting.  I didn’t encourage him to push for the close.  I didn’t expect him to push for sex regardless of all other factors.  What the hell was I thinking?
My trust was shattered.  I had so little left to start with.  I don’t know what to do.  The women on MDC say I need to a) stop cutting and b) make a list of reasons to stay and reasons to go.  I think they may be asking for a bit much.  I don’t quite feel like it is fair and accurate to say I need to learn to feel a range of emotions.  I think I already do.  I feel rage and regret and sadness and depression (love that throat closing feeling); I feel betrayed and unloved and desecrated and violated.  This is horrible.  My best friend.  My lover did this to me.
I suppose I was a little too cocky that my husband would never cheat.  Hell, he would never need to!  All he has to do is tell me in advance.
Oh well.