Sex

I've been away from blogland quite a bit lately. When I'm going through something in the present, it seems to be very difficult to communicate it, to share it openly, until I've resolved the problem.

This is not a problem that is going to be resolved anytime soon, but I'm going to try and put down what's going on right now. One thing I've learned in CoDA is that when there is an issue that's shared, and shared again as it's being worked through and then shared again at resolution, it is so helpful to my growth. Seeing the process unfold can be eye-opening.

So - assuming that I will not be judged, here on this page, here it is, in all it's complication.

In the pages of this blog, I've told the story of my life, and my recovery journey as I've opened up to and ultimately accepted my past. In a few months it will be three years since I first remembered the incest of my very early childhood in detail. I always had a sense that something happened, little snippets of fearful darkness in my mind that haunted me at every turn. Remembering was hard. Living with the reality was hard. Learning how to move through the feelings was hard. I've been walking through a long tunnel for three years, looking for the window that must have opened when I closed the door of denial.

In finding that window - the one that lets me look inside me and see who I really am, for better or worse - I have learned how to move out of my most addictive childhood strategy - that of dissociation. It is rare for me to lose time, now. It still happens, on occasion, but it has gradually become less and less of an issue.

This is a good thing. Who wouldn't want to be present for her own life, right? This has presented me with a whole new series of challenges as I've learned what it's like to experience grief and rage and to face fear head-on. I've learned to cry, and to anyone who has never known what it's like to be made of stone in even the most touching situations probably can't comprehend what a gift that is. I've learned to wait before I react, and then to act with integrity, from my most adult self.

I can't say I always do that, but it is my goal in every situation from dealing with a sponsee's anger to driving my car in heavy city traffic. When I fail at this, I take responsibility for my mistakes - as immediately as possible. I'll tell you this - people don't know what to do with an apology on the road. When I accidentally cut someone off, and then pull up next to them and roll down the window, beleive me, they are looking for a fight. When I say, "I'm sorry, I didn't look properly," people are stuck for a response. Still, I hope it makes a difference. We all make mistakes.

I can see that I am postponing coming to the point. I am not writing this as I usually do, in a word document to be cleaned and processed before publication. I'm just typing it, right here, so you are hearing things as they come to me.

When I remembered the sexual abuse, I stopped having a physical relationship with my husband. I told him some of what I remembered, sparing him the details, and said, "I don't know how long it will take, but I just can't go there right now."

He's been extremely patient. It was over a year before we made any attempt at intimacy, after that. Since that time, there have only been about five "close encounters" of that kind, always with months in between and plenty of alcohol involved.

The problem is, I don't dissociate during sex, anymore. I did, every time, for all my life. I actually didn't realize this was not how it is for everyone for a very long time. It was how I experienced sex - there for a while, then just not there, then back again with no real memory of what had occurred other than occasional lingering sensations in my body.

But now I don't do that. I'm there from start to finish. It starts out okay, with closeness and a building sense of
well, you know, a building sense and then I go into a full-blown panic attack, with chest pain so severe I'm sure I'm going to die, and an inability to breathe and tunnel vision and a screaming in my head and I can't talk, I can't communicate anything, I can't make it known that I need to stop, that I need to get out of there.

And then, after, I always think I want to tell him, but how the hell does one do that? Tell me that? How do you tell someone who thinks they've just been making love that you were terrified?

Because of this, I've been avoiding intimacy with my husband. I've avoided anything close, for most of a year, because I don't want one thing to lead to another and I can't... I just can't do that.

I've been growing in my understanding of what intimacy can be - another words, I know what I'm missing in a way I've never known before. I have a longing for that kind of closeness that was never present in me in the past. It is so strong, and meanwhile, my husband and I are moving in opposite directions because he doesn't know what to do, either. He's trying to give me space... he's been giving me space for so long that we have drifted and drifted and drifted...

The two parts of this equation - the drifting and the longing - have led me into a situation in which I have begun to think about another man. Now, before you judge me too harshly, let me also say that I have been asking my husband to go to counseling with me in order to try and figure out how to fix our problems for two years. He refuses. He says he can't do it. I feel so frustrated by this... it's like I'm handcuffed, like I'm in a staight-jacket, unable to move in any direction.

And - this guy, well, he probably doesn't even know I'm married, and I thought he was probably gay - an assumption I made because he is very good looking, does okay financially, dresses very well and pays particular attention to his apprearance, and is unattached. So, I assumed for months that he was gay. He invited me to participate in a group of music and lyric writers, because he's a musician who performs his own music. I have been mesmerized by his music, by the way he play piano, and then, suddenly, last weekend I found out he is not gay at all. Just hurt, from a former relationship which drove him out of the state he lived in and into the one I live in... and when I found that out, I knew this was a very very dangerous situation.

Very dangerous.

C tells me it is in my life at this time because it's time for me to work on my marriage.
I say, I've been trying, but he won't go to counseling and I don't know what to do.
She says, he doesn't know how important it is. If he knew about these fantasies (oh yes, I've had some major fantasies about my infatuation, but at least I have kept them away from the musician. He has no idea how I feel) and if he realized that it is either working this through with you or losing you, he might change his mind.

Then, she pointed out that he doesn't have all the facts - meaning I should tell him the truth about how sex has been for me, both before and after remembering.

So - there it is. Now you know why I've been so silent, so absent. I've been staying with God, looking inside for that inner guidance, and working very very hard to stay in my integrity and not stray into territory I've managed to avoid for twenty-seven years of marriage. Now, it's time to be honest, and that my friends is possibly the hardest thing I've had to do, yet.