Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Meanwhile, back at the ranch....

A little about the life at home.  I ever-so-briefly touched on the history, but the current situation bears more explanation.
We get along OK.  There are not daily battles, no broken plates, no stone-cold silences every night.  Out with friends, we appear perfectly happy.  We're both pretty non-confrontational, so we just avoid talking about things.
After we got married, the sex life, which had been lacking, went even more lacking.  She never felt well, always wanted to go to bed early, whatever.  So, I did what guys all over the planet do - surf the Internet for its true purpose, porn.  Nothing out of the ordinary, no goats, no latex and whips.  I like women.  I like looking at them.  I hid it well, never when anybody was around ( kids in particular ), but I did it.  She found it about two years into the marriage, and threw an enormous fit.
She felt hurt and betrayed.  I saw it as a victimless crime.  She said she wasn't sure if she could be with me anymore.  
At the time, I took that more as the over reactive angry her talking and the real her was the calm, level-headed woman that was around the other 95% of the time.  I didn't realize that the real her was the lashing, angry, emotional mess that came out in arguments and the calm, organized, logical person I met and fell in love with was a brilliant facade.
I vowed to stop, she vowed to forgive.  Unfortunately, neither of us lived up to our agreements.  I cut back, deleted the few pictures I had saved, but continued.  I did make an effort, but I suppose everybody has to have something.  She pretty much decided that sex with me was now a duty, not fun, and it showed.  Countless times, the argument was made by her, "We should have never gotten married, we aren't compatible, we'll never work this out...", with me backing down and holding things together with baling wire and bubble gum for the sake of the union.
We were like this for about 6 years, her continually reassuring me that we were doomed, me convincing her that she was wrong.  If you've never done that, lemme tell you.  Its exhausting.  But other changes in our dynamic had occurred.
When we married, I worked and she worked, both of us making around $25k/year.  Within 6 months, we had both changed jobs, gotten promotions and were both around 45k.  She grew up rich, in a high-rise building in the big city, I grew up food-stamps poor in a small town.  Money is no big deal to her, she always had it, could get what she needed when she needed it.  Money is a HUGE deal to me, because I never had it and will do anything to insure my kids don't grow up like I did.  So, when she decided she didn't want to work again with the impending birth of our first, I assumed that it would be a temporarily solution.  After all, we had just built a house and we essentially cutting our income in half.  But, she convinced me that all would be OK.
And it was, I suppose.  It kinda sucked, but we survived.  Then kid number 2, and a new house, and she stayed home again.  My raises kept coming, but not quickly enough, and we seriously struggled for a few years, including a 4 year stint where I worked two jobs where she worked none.  I had completely convinced myself that it was for the good of the family, but hindsight being what it is, I realize my role was as paycheck.  
Ten years of marriage, and I would describe myself as numb.  Going through the motions, fooling myself into thinking I loved her, she loved me and all was well.  Never really taking the time to stop and look around.
But I was about to wake up and see things differently.

1 comment:

  1. Partly wrong, love. You're not *just* a paycheck. Your role is paycheck AND sperm donor. Just wanted to clarify....

    Being a paycheck too, I totally sympathize. I feel very used.

    Confession - I watch porn too. Have for years. We seek out what we're missing - simple as that. Eventually, as we've discovered, the porn isn't enough. Still want to smack the bus stop mom who was happy her husband watched porn because he then left her alone. Ungrateful git.

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