Disintegration Part 2: The Waiting Game

Shortly after I wrote the draft for Part 1, things took a turn for the worse.  After having barely spoken to my folks for several weeks, Susan confronted Mum in the kitchen and effectively claimed her “space”. 

Disintegration Part 1: Everything IS Linked

The proverbial shit really has hit the fan.  The camel’s back has been broken.

Life or existence as I normally refer to it, has plodded along predictably enough for the past several months.  I’ve not posted anything new because nothing new has happened.  There has been a mild upswing in sexual activity this year – (5 times so far this year compared to 3 or 4 times per year in previous years!) but that is not what this post is about.

Two Wrongs Don’t Make A Right, Usually

The strapline of this website is”Marriage without compromise”. In case I have not mentioned it clearly enough it carries two meanings.

The first and most obvious in the context of the majority of the subject matter is of course the evident fact that my wife Susan can not, will not or is unable to compromise sexually or in intimate aspects of our marriage.  The second is my idealistic take nearly 6 years ago that I would not, in the face of this situation compromise on what I felt were core principles of marriage and my upholding of those principles.  In short I would not seek sexual gratification elsewhere (at least not with a ‘real’ woman, no affairs, no lies.  In short no cheating.  The other principle was that I would not treat Susan as she treated me – so I would not throw a sexual advance back in her face as she would mine.  I would be there for her even if she wasn’t for me.  (A cynic might advance the theory that I’m just taking what I can get in those circumstances – and they would have been right at least sometimes.  I can promise you though that when sex is rationed like it is for me, there is little to no pleasure in picking up the crumbs dropped from the table.  Once you’re at 3, 4, or 5 sex acts per year you may as well be at zero.)

The Everlasting Condom Reader Challenge

Hello all, I’m not going to go on about how things are in this post: it is just more of the same as our sex-life (I should say Susan’s really because it’s got nothing to do with me) has returned firmly to the once-per-quarter-if-we’re-lucky state.

I recently threw out an empty box of condoms.  Not news for most couples presumably but the interesting subject here is when the box was bought: June 2008.  There were 12 condoms in the box, and I threw it out just a few months ago.  So 12 condoms over just over 4 years: you do the math as they say.

The Confession

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?

The Onion

Over the years I have come to find that trying to understand Susan is a bit like peeling back the layers of an onion.  For everything that you understand or you think you understand there is still another layer beneath to stump you.

The only difference is that this onion no longer makes me shed any tears.  Although I wish it did.  I sometimes just wish I could let go…and cry.  There are days when I really feel as if I am walking about with a stone in my throat and a heavy mass  in my chest.

Circles of the mind

About a week after the conversation described in my last post, Susan decided she wanted to have sex.  It was around 3 months since the last sexual encounter but possibly more than a year since we last had ‘proper’ sex.  As always she manipulated the event and it was even more awkward than usual.  But she appears to have enjoyed it, although again as usual there was no mention of it before, during or after the event.  So I can’t be absolutely sure.

But as she sank down onto her pillow again she sighed “I have been so stupid”.

Cards on the table

A day or so after my last post I decided to try my luck to find out what was going on.  I didn’t do it out of any real expectation, and fully expected a furious backlash.  I sent a text message: “Can you tell me why you aren’t speaking to me.  I don’t know what I have/haven’t done.”

It took two days to get a response.  At breakfast before the kids came down she gave me a long hug and said she had been feeling sad.  Well that’s no news really but I tried to show a bit of surprise and concern: why, Iasked?

“I can’t talk about it now,” she said. “I know you (meaning me) are unhappy too.”

The best things in life are free

She hasn’t said more than a handful of words to me for around 4 or 5 days. Why? I honestly don’t know for sure. But I can guess.

We haven’t had a row. She’s had an altercation with my mum and to be honest, Susan was in the right (again). I even said as much when she told me after I came back from work, although my parents haven’t taken Susan’s outburst (the exact detail is once again irrelevant) too well and she’s not really speaking to them either. But at some point after she told me about the problem,  she stopped talking to me.

Different, but the same

I recently got directed through social media to an article on the British Daily Mail website.  The link was posted by a woman, and the article header was I felt instantly biased: insensitive stereotypical man ignores emotional and intimate needs of wife.   Nevertheless I read through it and it did open my eyes – a little at first then somemore.

I’ve become ever more convinced that Susan is asexual and I am wondering if that conclusion now hinders my understanding of her.  Everything she does or doesn’t do now appears to be an indication and often a further confirmation of her asexuality.  So I keep an eye out for articles such as this, on one hand hoping for further clarification of the [unqualified] diagnosis I have made, or for a new potential solution which will make everything okay and bring my marriage back from the precipice.

This article was of the former type.  It gave asexuality a new name or at least a new dimension.  And although I dug a bit further after reading the article it all came down to the same thing: if it is to get better, I need Susan to take ownership – proper ownership – of the problem and I need her to actively work towards the solution.  And that is something I don’t have.