First Contact!

I'm starting this blog more as a way to examine myself and try and keep me honest more than anything else.  I am recently divorced after a marriage of 28 years to my high school sweetheart.  We've been (we'd been!) together for almost 33 years - ever since I was 16.  I always thought we had a good marriage - but looking back on it now - I think I just let myself be happy with what was there - or should I say "happy".  I didn't actually look closely at how things really were and completely believed that once you were married, you stayed married unless there was some sort of abuse going on.  He'd say stuff every once in a while - but only in his passive aggressive way for the most part.  He was completely incapable of what he would call "confrontation" - what a normal person would call communicating.  

I don't want this to be about how much he sucked - because he's a nice guy - but he was really a pretty shitty husband for the last 15 years and really as far as "traditional" husband goes - the whole time.  From about the 3rd year of marriage on, I was the one who made more money, I had insurance, I decided we ought to have a baby, I decided we ought to buy a house - I took care of EVERYTHING and worried about everything.  He would just ga-loop, ga-loop along like he was watching from the sidelines and go along with everything I said - but come up with nothing from himself to add to the decisions.  We started out in a mother-son relationship and were 15 years into it before we recognized it.  He lied to me about anything he thought would make me mad....  blah, blah, blah - water under the bridge now - but I need to recognize how I basically stuffed - literally - my feelings down instead of dealing with them. 

I was always trying to "fix" things for him - even in high school.  But he was cute and funny - wasn't that enough?  He was one of the quickest wits I knew and he was very creative.  Ahh yes - NOW I know it was manic depression - then I just thought he needed my support to realize his potential.  The "potential" that he still talks at 51 about having.  Did it matter that he never had a good job and that the job he's had for 20 years now is a crappy job for low pay that became more important to him than me, our marriage and quite frankly even our daughter who he supposedly was crazy about.  But since he's left - it's pretty apparent to me that more than anything she was someone who would listen to his bullshit and feel sorry for him when she was younger and even as she grew into an adult and saw his flaws, she didn't call him on it like I did.  But since he's left - she is pretty much the one that calls him and makes any plans for them to see each other.  He can't get out of his own head to have a real relationship with anyone. 

Anyway - we both got fatter, our sex life SUCKED, and we both thought it was the other one's fault.  What made me want to start writing was something that just happened to me.  I went to a conference for work and flirted with this really fun, outgoing and attractive MAN for the first time in my life!  When I married the ex - he was a boy and still is - but I'm a loyal person and NEVER cheated or even put myself at risk to cheat our entire marriage - the same cannot be said about him.  But this man was interested in ME.  Don't get me wrong - I'm not saying it was love, that it was even romance - it was just fun and major LUST.  The last night of the conference, I could have had sex with someone new for the first time in 33 years - and for the first time at all in over a year.  And I blew it! God knows I wanted to go to bed with this man - he kissed me and I practically melted.  I can think about those kisses now and get tingly.  It shocked the hell out of me.  I wanted to so badly - but the 16 year old girl who was the last person in this body to date took over and I couldn't do it.  Why? Why????  He lives 1000 miles away, he wanted me and I know it would have been SO good - but I am so fucked up about my body image I just couldn't let myself go.  And while that's not all from my ex - it sure as hell is a lot of it.  I'm 80 pounds overweight, I have no boobs (literally - breast cancer) and I was just too afraid he'd get me in bed (and he knew I had no boobs - the fat part is obvious!) and really see me and go limp - like my ex. My ex who told me years after my mastectomy when we decided not to do reconstruction that it didn't matter to him, he was just glad I was alive and loved me no matter what - but who now told me that he just wasn't attracted to me.  Who told me when we had the divorce talk - he was the one who asked for it - that he can get it up, just not for me.  I just couldn't let go of the fear when the opportunity was there.  I couldn't believe that anybody smart, accomplished and good looking could be attracted to me.