I don't expect anyone to read all the way through this. It is just something I have written to try and feel better about something that is bothering me right now. However, if you do read all the way through, would you mind responding?
The problem
My life is sailing along fairly well right now but it just seems to want to have one or two big rocky waves to keep the ride from being comfortable. Is that a rule about lives that problems keep popping up at such inopportune times or is just my life that has to have something to keep it from being pretty great? The quest for the holy wave calmer has begun.
What you are reading is written for me by me. Obviously, I have no writing skills nor is there any desire to write. However, in this instance, I am hoping that by writing about what is happening and what has happened will be very good therapy for me, my mind and my life. It would be great if this writing helped calm the waves and maybe help me to get better insight into my life or at least let me be more comfortable with circumstances. Yes, it is quite a bit more frou-frou than I am normally willing to be as I am the anti psycho analytical type. I am going to give it a fair and honest try just to see if there is a way that it might help.
We all have problems and sometimes they can mentally consume us and nearly destroy us both physically and mentally. This problem I have, does consume me at times but I am at a point in life where it will not destroy me or the relationships I have. Personally, I like to work out my own problems, whether they are really problems or just perceived to be, in my own mind. Of course, if you think something is a problem, it is, because if nothing else, you are influenced by it and you react to life with this influence. Sometimes our minds when faced with trials will influence us to greatness but usually it just exposes weakness. Hopefully I will have one of those rare greatness episodes that has been too long in getting back my way.
Most of the time, this self therapy works for me, at least well enough for me to deal effectively with it and get back to living life. Sometimes, it just doesn't. Perhaps this will be a tool to help me get to where I need to be.
Surely this writing must have a name and perhaps, somewhere in here I will find a name that fits it. For the time being I am naming this "The Problem." God knows we all have problems and I am not selfish enough to think my problems is the most important in the world but when it consumes my thoughts and makes me blue, it has to become important to me.
For the most part, my life is relatively peachy right now. Not a bunch to complain about other than the usual strife of working too much and never enough time to get to do things that you want to do. However, the oddest thing, at least for me, is throwing me into blue swings that are nearly emotionally crippling.
I have been a married man for nearly 17 years and have never been happier in my marriage than I am right now. I am thirty-six years old and my wife is forty-four. (I started subtracting a year at every birthday the year after my fortieth) We have two children together, my wonderful son Horace, 15, a calm wonderful child that most parents would love to have and Ellen, 4, a child that most parents have. She is a busy, bossy, tough, tantrum throwing wonder. Absolutely the 11 years in between their births is a factor in Ellen's demeanor and the fact that she was born to two forty year olds rather than the 29 year olds that Horace was born. We didn't mean for eleven years to come between our children. Two other pregnancies ended in miscarriage and we were just determined to have another child. Be careful what you wish for because you might just find it.
My wife Kathy and I met when she was 25 and I was 24. She was a low level manager where my younger (now older, remember that I am subtracting years at birthdays now.) sister worked. I was immediately attracted to her but was just about 9 months out of a failed relationship with a girlfriend that had lived with me. I was still at the stage of not trusting anyone and wasn't really interested in getting involved with anyone. However, the first night that I met her I was at least intrigued. She grew up in a rural environment and that really appealed a bit to me and the fact that she was such a pretty girl wasn't driving me away. We happened to see each other not too long after that and I was in a grouchy mood and made a horrible second impression. By all rights, I should have been out of the picture but destiny had something else in mind. It was many months after that when we saw each other again. More healing had taken place in life concerning the former girlfriend and we clicked from that point forward.
After a year long courtship we decided to get married and that was nearly 17 years ago. During that 17 years, we had good times and bad but not really a great marriage. We are both somewhat temperamental and would spend a lot of time sniping and bickering and just not really a great marriage.
Okay, now for a little history about our lives. I was the 6th of 7 children. There were four boys and three girls. It was your basic Southern Baptist life with the exception that my father was a drinker that later evolved into alcoholism. Having girls in the house I constantly heard about waiting until marriage for sex and it affected me far into my adulthood. Not that I always abstained, but I did wait longer than normal to have intercourse and felt guilty about the things that I did with girls and later women. Fortunately I was able to overcome this guilt enough to have had many lovers and a varied sex life. Alcohol and drugs were the perfect antidote for Southern Baptist guilt.
There were many opportunities for sex when I was growing up and I fooled around a lot but didn't have intercourse. Finally, when I was 16 and truly in love, I had intercourse with a girlfriend. We had a good relationship but my temperamental side plus I cheated on her, which was something that was endemic with me, ruined it and all the blame is mine. It broke my heart and once things were severed, we were never able to get it back together. We tried many times butβ¦
I immediately started dating a friend of ours. She was the second person I had sex with and we were on and off for a few years. She was a very sexual person and willing to experiment. One of my fantasies had been to share her or for that matter, most any girlfriend sexually. We did this many times and though there was always some jealousy in this, the eroticism of the event won and they were very great experiences.
Since this relationship started when my first loving relationship broke up it was doomed from the start. I was still hung on my first girlfriend and hoping it might someday recover from the ending that had been inflicted on it. I never told this second girl that I loved her. My upbringing wouldn't allow me to tell that lie and as a matter of fact, I have never told many girls or women in my life that I loved them.
We were somewhat steady over the next year with me occasionally dating my first love. Eventually, I knew that the relationship with this second girl was not going anywhere and started backing off. It was better for both of us though I knew that she had very real feelings for me.
The time was the early 1980's (pre-aids) and it didn't take me long to figure out that I was good looking and charming enough to get sex without a girlfriend. That appealed to me since I was still pining over my first real love. My ego was very high and I would go to a bar and end up with a girl that night. We might make love that night and sometimes we would date again but it was obvious that I wasn't interested in a relationship and these girls would go by the wayside. It was normal for me to do this once or twice a week along with seeing the girl that was hung up on me and a couple of other friends that I would sleep with from time to time.
This went on until about 1983. I was getting tired of it, tired of alcohol, tired of drugs etc. I met a young girl named Joanne; she was only 18 when I was 23. We hooked up and I was true, no cheating and we were in love. Her mother ended up kicking her out when she found out we were sleeping together and she moved in with me. It wasn't long before we got back into the drugs and I did share her sexually. She ended up cheating on me and we broke up. I didn't pine for her like I did my first love (hell, I was still pining for my first love.) I was just pissed. And all that brought me to the time that I met my wife.
Now, let me tell a little bit of history about my wife. Obviously, this is not firsthand knowledge but what I have cobbled together from her. She was born to a rural family that was also in the Southern Baptist thing. They moved around a bit, even living not 15-20 miles from me at one point. She ended up starting her teens in a rural community.
Like a lot of girls, she gave sex away to try and gain love, acceptance and self esteem, at least in the beginning. She ended up having sex with her best friend's brother that was a few years older than her at the age of 14. She ended up sleeping with several boys and men in between then and the time I met her. That wasn't a problem with me because I liked the idea of a woman that wasn't afraid to have sex and had experience. I certainly had my share.