Entry I: What to tell my husband?
Happy New Year, I guess.
Ok. Lets try this. I was raised on journaling. I know how to do this. My upbringing told me journaling was an important part of preserving our history in a written record. I do not, in fact, want a written record of this. However, what I learned on my own is that journaling helped me work through issues when I was younger. To put my worries, problems, or scattered thoughts into words, helped me sort things out and make sense of them. If nothing else, externalizing the issues was cathartic and made the issues seem smaller. I need this issue to seem smaller.
I stopped journaling for good reasons. I grew up. I started resenting the patriarchal upbringing that told me to do things, like journaling, because that was what good women of the church did. In branching out, I made genuine friends who were not afraid to talk about feelings and have difficult discussions that good churchly women would just stuff down and pray away. I met a man, who became my husband, who himself learned to have difficult discussions about his feelings. We grew together and felt safe talking about anything. Oh, Tom. I'm sorry, about so much right now. This is why I'm journaling. Despite being a grown woman, with great kids, a great marriage, a great career, with great coworkers and loyal friends, I suddenly feel so alone right now. I want to talk to Tom. I need to talk to Tom. That is the only way through this. But how to talk to Tom about this? Tom always tells me I'm such a smart person. But what I did feels so stupid, because I put everything at risk.
I had sex with another man tonight. Ugh, my boss. I need to go home. I need to go home. But my hands were shaking trying to drive there. I want to kiss my husband, crawl into bed and resume my very nice life. But my hands were shaking on the wheel the car so badly, I couldn't use my blinker correctly. I slammed on my brakes when I realized I wasn't wearing my pantyhose anymore. I left them twisted up on the floor of my boss's living room, like a complete idiot. I had to pull the car over and collect my thoughts. I needed to get off the road. I noticed a coffee shop in a strip mall, still open. I pulled into the parking lot, grabbed my laptop, went in, ordered a warm tea, added plenty of honey, and parked myself in a corner. I opened my laptop and here I am.
I never wear pantyhose. I hate them. But Tom loves them. He used to ask me to wear them to bed. He would buy them for me in different colors and sheerness. Sometimes warmer ones because he knows I get cold, which is also (sort of) why I seldom wear skirts. But I left the house tonight for a dinner party at my boss's house wearing a skirt and a pair of sheer pantyhose that Tom bought for me ages ago. Tom noticed. He bounced his eyebrows at me in approval. He's probably home right now, waiting up for me, hoping I might be in the mood to have sex so he can feel the smooth pantyhose he so enjoys on my body. We rarely have sex these days, but he still gets excited if little things look like I might be feeling sexy. I was feeling sexy when I left the house but for the wrong reasons.
He never pushes me to do things that turn him on, if I am not into it. He respects me as a person. We only do things if we both consent and are both into it. I'm just not into much. Even so, Tom has gently attempted to find things that turn me on during our 20 years of marriage. Lingerie, dildos, vibrators, nipple clamps, cuffs, collars, videos. We would try them. Sometimes I would like them. However, I seldom spoke up about the things I liked more than others. Also, I rarely asked him to pull anything out when we started to get ready for sex. I realize I was leaving it to Tom to try and figure out on his own what I responded to more than others. I think he figured out I would come pretty hard with the nipple clamps. That was a good phase. But I never asked for them, so without feedback I think Tom worried I might be bored with them and they eventually went into the toy drawer in our closet with the other abandoned experiments. I know Tom always wanted to receive oral sex, but I was never into it. He enjoyed giving me oral sex, and even after he accepted that I would not reciprocate, he still enthusiastically went down on me. He is very good at it. I should have told him that more. If I would let him do it as long as he pleased, I'd always get an orgasm or two from it before we would get to penetrative sex. However, more often than not I would encourage him to stop, pull him up to me, and have him enter me. Maybe I felt guilty that I would not reciprocate...I definitely felt guilty. Ugh. But sex for me is about connecting with Tom. I want him to look into my eyes while he feels good inside me. I love hearing him let go of the world around us, connect with me, and feel going doing it. We choose positions that feel good for both of us, that are mutually comfortable and satisfying. We communicate and pace ourselves so we can come at the same time and feel close.
The point is Tom never complains or pushes. He respects me as a person. We communicate and run our marriage as equals. We raise our nearly grown kids as equals. Tom taught our boys to respect me and women in general. We are a good, successful, liberal, egalitarian household.