Though the characters in this story are real, the events are a work of fiction based on past events that are real. Enjoy!
Lori and I had been together for three years, engaged for two of those. Then she left me and married another man 8 years her junior. I knew their marriage wouldn't last. First the age difference would be an issue. True love though, would be the thing that brought her back to me.
I won't say that a woman 8 years older than her man won't work, but in Lori's case I didn't figure it would because of the particulars of her situation. She had body image problems. Nature hadn't been nice and Lori had breasts that were tiny by any standard. Basically nipples that sat on a spoonful of breast tissue. If the scale went that small likely an AAAA cup, so she wore 34B padded bras to hide the fact. I love little titties so it didn't bother me that naked from the waist up she was more like a skinny boy in physique than a 43 year old woman.
What I had done, and in retrospect it was just one of the mistakes that hurt our relationship, was to offer to get her breast enhancement surgery. I had approached it even from a joking perspective calling them 'store bought tits'.
Though my intent was to seek a solution that would make Lori happy and give her peace of mind, all I did in retrospect was to chip away at what little self-esteem she had.
Lori also had a dinner plate sized stretch mark on her belly from carrying her two pregnancies right in front. This bothered her too, but not as much as her tiny breasts. In my attempt to make her happy, I offered laser abrasion therapy. Again sterling intent resulted in pewter results. Though not the self-esteem chipper the breast enhancement idea had been, it wasn't a helpful thing as I intended.
Anything that isn't a part of the solution is a part of the problem.
I have a saying, I don't know who authored, but it fits. I have it framed on my wall. It says, "There are no perfect men, only perfect intentions."
These things contributed to the demise of our relationship, but the thing that was probably the real killer was my pressure on Lori living out her fantasies. Her fantasies were wide and varied. She freely confided them in me.
She also confided that in 19-years of marriage she had cheated on her husband on average two times a year. 40 some odd affairs, though affairs are not the correct word, for they were all, except me, one-night-stands.
I thought Lori was addicted to the salacious and tawdry and the lust high those produced.
In fact, the term 'lust high' was a phrase I learned from her. Fearing I too would become a victim of her wandering ways, I pushed her to experience her fantasies.
This led to frequent fights. She didn't want to have lovers outside our relationship, but I incorrectly felt if she didn't satisfy her desire for strange with me, she would do so without me. My frequent pressure in this regard was, at the very least, the catalyst for her terminating the relationship and leaving.
After she left, in the few months immediately after while I fought tooth and nail to get her back, she had stated that if I loved her I wouldn't desire to share her sexually. I countered to no avail that I loved her enough to allow it. It wasn't that I 'desired' to share her sexually it was that I loved her enough to 'allow' it if that was what made her happy.
I patiently awaited her return. Mutual friends assured me ours was true love and true love never dies so she would be back. I pined and waited. I did try to establish new relationships, perhaps more of a test to my love for Lori than for the respite from the pain I suffered.
None of these were successful. At first I talked about her too much, but then once I realized that would destroy any relationship and started to carefully watch what I said, they still failed to materialize into meaningful relationships. I was hopelessly smitten by my love for Lori. When I couldn't perform sexually these women were gone. It was kind of like a psychological chastity belt. Attaining and maintaining an erection was difficult.
Moreover, the sexual tension that exists in the beginning of a relationship and is so healthy to it, was missing in these, too.
While she was gone, I got an eye-opener regarding Lori's cheating ways. So this hiatus in our relationship proved two things. First I truly was smitten and in love with her. And second I had been wrong about her addiction. She wasn't addicted to the salacious and tawdry, though she was sex addicted. They do say everything happens for a reason and this would seem to prove that fact.
This seems likely when you consider while we were together we rarely saw a day when we didn't have sex four to five times.
We are both Scorpios, so sex was an essential element in our relationship. Even when she was on her period our sex frequencies only diminished slightly.
A lot of these sex sessions were what I termed 'drop and go for it rut fucking' and not romantic buildups or foreplay that lasts days, before the actual sex occurs. She liked these impromptu 'ruts' as much as I did, though the occasional romantic tête-à-têtes were important, as well. But sex addiction isn't about the sex.
The news magazine I saw that presented sex addiction, and its in's and out's, defined Lori perfectly. It isn't the sex that a sex addict is after. Sex is merely the means to an end.
A sex addict seeks the feelings of freshness that produce the intense romance.
Lori's husband had traveled a lot in his business, as had I. So Lori cheated not for a good hard fuck, but for the feelings of fresh romance the lustiness of the one-night-stand generated. This also explained why they were all one-might-stands. In the final analysis though Lori did cheat on me once, at least that I am aware of, I guess I was lucky it wasn't many more times.
The story on 20/20 or 60 Minutes, whichever one it was, featured an interview of a woman where she said she had felt tremendous guilt after each interlude, for she loved her husband and the sex they had was good. So it wasn't either love or satisfying sex she sought in these interludes.
She said each time she swore she would never do it again, but was drawn back to it over and over. It was truly an addiction.
Lori had told me she died a little inside each time she had cheated and swore she would never again, but did.
So I waited and just as our friends had predicted, her marriage ended and she came back.
I started to put what I had learned to work. After the awkwardness of her return had softened I sat and talked to her one day. First I addressed the pushing her to experience her fantasies in context of what I had learned from the sex addiction eye opener.
"I understand that you were telling me the truth in stating all but a couple of your fantasies you desired to leave in the world of fantasy. Since I now have an understanding regarding your sex addiction and what it is that motivates a sex addict, I see no reason to push you to experience your sexual fantasies. It was never my desire to share you sexually with another man or woman, to begin with."
I could see the love once again in her eyes as Lori responded to my comment.
"I appreciate your understanding. I hope that understanding carries with it a forgiveness for the horrible things I did to you when we ended."
