This is going to be tough entry and I apologise if I appear to ramble. I’m on a business trip for the first time in quite a while. In fact it’s the first time I’ve been out since the kids were born.
I don’t want to beat about the bush. The last thing I did was pop the few remaining condoms I have into my suitcase. Why?
Well you know the history. (If not, read up!) Over the last five years I have seen my marriage get worse and worse – not just in a purely sexual sense but also in intimacy and sensitivity.
My rationale confuses me, even as I try to understand it. This is the first time I have had the opportunity to ‘cheat’ on Susan. Actually, I promise I didn’t intend to go “looking for it”. What I really wanted was to hope beyond hope that “it” would find me. Perhaps I took them so I wouldn’t miss what for me is rare if not unique opportunity to have sex with someone who is attracted to me as a man and WANTS to have sex with me. Perhaps I took them along because I wasn’t sure if I would be able to resist the temptation if the opportunity arose. Perhaps it was neither and I was just hoping she would notice (rather unlikely) that the condoms were missing. She would then have a few weeks to think about our marriage and what she has done to it – and wonder what I was up to.
What was I going to do if I “got lucky”? I think – purely hypothetical at the moment of course – I would tell Susan when I got back. I don’t want to be a cheat in that sense. Of course I’m not expecting permission from Susan either; I’m not convinced she would do anyway. Susan is more likely to maintain a stony silence than confront the issue one way or the other. But at least she would know.
But things came to a head far far sooner than that. Like all packing, there is always one final reason to open the suitcase before you leave. In my case it was some shoes. And Susan was there when I opened the bag. And she saw my contraband. She started briefly as if she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. But she didn’t say anything. The kids were in the room. We maintained an awkward silence as we went to the airport; my mum and the kids came with us. At the airport we had a few brief moments alone.
“I know you saw. Do you have anything to say to me?” I asked.
She shrugged.
“What is there to say?”
We said goodbye with a brief hug and kiss. It was a bit emotional because it has been such a long time since we’ve been apart.
So now here I am. I Skype her every day to speak to her and the kids. I guess when I get home a conversation will be overdue. Of course a great many conversations are overdue…some by many years. But I think this one is going to jump the queue. Or not. As I said, Susan is not one to face issues like this head on.
This time may be different though – as the guilt is all mine. And it may all come to a head not because I did something wrong. It will be because I thought I would.
I’m curious what ended up happening? It’s been several months since this post.
Comment by Rebecca — January 25, 2012 @ 9:27 pm
@Rebecca: It’s complicated…as usual.
When I got back Susan was glad to have me back. She knew of course that I hadn’t taken advantage of my ‘freedom’ – I had been too busy to even socialise for more that a few hours over the course of more than a fortnight. In that respect she was fine. It was as if the incident had never occured. I get the feeling that she was just going to leave it be. As I said, Susan is not the kind of person to face things like this head on.
Unfortunately, within days of getting back we spiraled into a number of family calamities. Hence my not updating this blog. But it also meant that it was several weeks before we could actually find the time to talk. And as usual it was me that brought it up.
“So don’t you want to know why I took the condoms?”
She said yes.
“When were you planning on asking?”
“Well when have we had the chance to talk?” she countered. Referring to the weeks dealing with family issues.
“Well this is important presumably, so you make the time”.
She mumbled something about “it’s not as easy as that”. Ignoring of course the fact that prior to my bringing up the conversation, we had had a at least a few days of relative calm.
Anyway, I decided she wasn’t actually going to pursue this as aggressively as I feared or even perhaps hoped. So I just gave her the same confused reasons I put in the original post.
I don’t know how much sunk in. I kept it to the point, not wanting a long drawn out conversation about our sex-life because she always gets defensive.
She did say “You think I don’t think about sex. But I do”. I resisted the temptation to say “Oh yeah? When? Every quarter?”
“I know we are lucky and some people are worse than us” she continued. I wasn’t sure if she was just speaking generally or about our sex-life. I wonder if she was sure either. I took the latter meaning. “I’m sure that there are not many” I said, having read online the full gamut of asexual behaviour and ‘normal’ sexual behaviour.
“Yes there are” she countered. I let it rest. Perhaps she was thinking about couple with serious emotional issues or domestic violence.
Anyway, the conversation fizzled out. That I thought, would be that.
But over the last month there has been a major change in Susan.
We have had sex nearly every week since that conversation. To put that in perspective, we have had sex more times in the last month than in the entire year before!
Of course, quantity is not quality. Susan is still holding the reins and I have my doubts of how long this might last. To be sure her ‘flash in the pan’ surges typically last two to three weeks. She has surpassed that this time. Other behaviours are unaltered so the outlook is not promising. She still does not speak about sex except during sex. That conversation above was the last time we spoke about sex. She still decides when we do it, how we do it and what she does and does not want to do. She still does not understand that a sex life is a long term joint venture.
As it turns out, we haven’t had sex for more than a week as of today. We may be returning to abnormal already.
Comment by marriageofone — January 25, 2012 @ 11:24 pm