Artifice and Honesty: A True Story of The Best Worst Date Ever, Part 1

I’ve had a number of people ask me what happened with Marian, the lovely woman from the grocery store.  It’s a lengthy story, so it’ll be at least two parts.  Here’s the beginning.  Enjoy.

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“That’ll be $7.64.”  The kid behind the counter slides two cups of coffee across the granite slab.

“Thank you kindly,” I respond as I hand him a ten.  “Keep the change.”  I move to a nearby table and prepare the two cups with generous helpings of cream and sugar, then pass one off to my companion, Candice, a.k.a. Marian the Librarian.

“Such a gentleman,” she says as she accepts the cup, passing it from hand to hand as it cools.  “What did you say this is called again?”

“A hammerhead.  An Americano with two shots of espresso.”  I gingerly take a sip of the scalding beverage.  “Think of it like drinking Red Bull with a No Doze kicker.”

Marian carefully drinks the coffee, then looks thoughtfully upward, making a show of smacking her lips as she considers it.  Then she shudders.  “Sweet Moses, that’s foul.”

We both laugh, and she proceeds to further dull the espresso flavor with additional cream.  “I’ll never understand the urge to cover the flavor of coffee with other things,” I remark as she pours several tablespoons of sugar into her cup.

“I wouldn’t if you ordered better drinks,” she says with a wry grin.  I hold my hands up in a gesture of concession.

A few minutes later, Marian and I are strolling side by side down the sidewalk.  The night air is crisp and cool, and the breeze carries the scent of coming rain, as clean an aroma as I can imagine.  I inhale deeply through my nose and sigh as I exhale.  “Damn do I love that smell.”

“Oh me too,” Marian answers.  She looks up at the sky, at the muted streetlight reflecting back from the clouds onto the city below.  “Though I’ll be a bit annoyed with Mother Nature if she decides to open up on me when I’m not carrying an umbrella.”

“Think of it as a scene from a romantic comedy,” I suggest, “or maybe an old-school musical.  Singing In The Rain did quite a number with that premise.”

“Yes, but you’re no Gene Kelly,” Marian points out.

I look at her, wide-eyed, mouth agape, putting on my best expression of shock and horror.  “Hey now, just because some of us aren’t built to be decidedly macho doesn’t mean we don’t bring something to the table,” I say, affecting offense.  “Donald O’Connor did a wonderful job in that movie, after all.”

“Yes, but you’re no Donald O’Connor,” she says, and the grin spreads across her face again.

“Don’t make me bust into an impromptu rendition of Make ‘Em Laugh,” I warn her, and she laughs again, a warm, rich sound.  She nudges me with her shoulder.

We walk in silence for a moment before she says, “You don’t seem the type to watch musicals.”

“You’d be surprised how often I hear things like that.”

“Probably not, actually.”  She glances over at me as she raises her no-longer-coffee to her lips.  “I get the distinct impression that I’m not the first woman you’ve wooed.”

I take a sip of my own coffee as I consider my response.  “Well… no, I suppose you’re not, though you’re one of very few who actually knew a thing or two about musicals.”  Something clicks in my mind, and I smile over at her.  “Wait, does that mean I’m effectively wooing you?”

Marian shrugs and answers, noncommittally, “Maybe.  I’m still trying to figure you out.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning,” she continues, “you seem…”  She ponders, choosing her words carefully.  “…too good to be true.”

I chuckle into my coffee cup.  “Care to elaborate?”

She smiles.  “Not particularly.”

“I bought you foul coffee,” I remind her.

“That you did.”  She toasts me before taking another drink.  Another moment to consider her words.  “I mean… It’s like you’re not a real person.  You’re like an amalgamation of all the good and interesting parts of a guy.  It’s like going on a date with Frankenstein’s monster version two-point-oh.”

I frown.  “De Niro’s Frankenstein, not Boris Karloff.  Dude was a lot taller than me.”

“See, right there!”  Marian laughs and pushes me playfully.  “Who the hell actually knows who Boris Karloff was anymore?”

“People who like old movies?”

“Yeah, see, that’s my point,” she says.  “No one likes old movies anymore.  You’re literate.  You’re a scientist.  You’re charismatic.  You know musicals.  You know pop culture.  You obviously work out.”  She glares at me.  “People like you aren’t supposed to exist outside a Katherine Heigl movie.”

“Only guy I can remember starring alongside her is Gerard Butler.  I’d kill to be that rugged.”

Marian rolls her eyes and pushes me again.  “Whatever.  Point is, you’re too put together.  It’s almost artificial.  I’m just waiting for the downside.”

I pause and glance toward her.  It’s obvious she’s into me.  If she weren’t, that bit of dialogue would never have happened, not to mention the way she’s smiling into her coffee cup.  She’s having a wonderful time with a guy who’s just as into her.

A guy she thinks is single.

I sigh silently and lift my coffee cup to my lips.  “I’m married.”

Ever Onward Do the Blissful Trudge: On Finding Fulfillment in Marital Discord

I sometimes wonder if I’m really happy in my marriage.

Obviously, Ashley and I have issues.  Every married couple does.  If you’re married, and you don’t have issues, then I posit that you’re merely turning a blind eye to something that will, one day, bite you in the ass.  Every marriage is a constant game of give and take, compromise and negotiation, a miniature U.N. Security Council meeting wherein you know SOMEone is going to veto your idea.  (Probably the U.S.  It’s what we do.)

Our issues, however, seem to be less obvious than other marriages I’ve known.  For instance, most people constantly bicker about this or that.  Who’s going to do the dishes, or the laundry.  Whose turn is it to cook dinner?  Why am I the only person who does any housework around here?!  That sort of crap.  It always seems to revolve around a sense of being disrespected by your partner.

And that’s really not the case for Ashley and me.  On the surface, we are what most people consider to be the perfect couple.  People regularly comment about how jealous they are of our relationship.  We laugh substantially more than we bicker.  When we do bicker, it’s something minor–you went to the gym without me, and I had to go alone, so I’m a little miffed.  That sort of thing.  We play video games together, watch movies, go jogging, do yoga… whatever.  We cuddle in public, still hold hands and walk with our arms around each others’ waists.  We are each other’s best friend.  And it’s great spending your life with your best friend, someone with whom you can do and talk about almost anything, who gets you.

However, that level of happiness is… kind of boring, actually.

I think fighting brings people closer.  Not those ridiculous fights, born of jealousy or resentment or just pure spite, but true disagreements about things.  Verbally sparring from time to time with your cohabitating partner keeps you on your toes.  It’s a necessary component of an engaging relationship.  Not having that is just, somehow, unfulfilling.

Maybe that’s what it is.  I’m not unhappy.  I’m just fucking bored.

In case you haven’t noticed, I’m easily distracted, and I quickly become disinterested in most things.  This is why I engage in so many activities, why I’m at least passably proficient in numerous different skills.  I need to be challenged, physically and intellectually.  I need someone to stand up to me and say, “LOOK HERE, MOTHERFUCKER,” then lay down their version of the law.  I need Ashley to disagree with me.  But she doesn’t, because we each agree on just about everything.

Perhaps that kind of peaceful relationship is ideal to most people.  Maybe that’s what they’re looking for, and what they’re so disappointed that they can’t find.  But as idyllic as that may sound to you, dear readers, I promise you, it becomes old.  Stale.  Stagnant.  Nothing changes.  Every day is the same, hour after mind-numbingly similar hour.  You fall into a routine.  All spontaneity is lost to the machinations of comfort and harmony.  Then the monotony begins to creep into other aspects of your life, until you realize that you have become a machine, operating on a regular clock, waking up without the alarm, eating the same boring bran flakes for breakfast, trudging to work, trudging home, trudging through everything you do because it’s all that you know anymore.  You forget what it means to be alive, to explore, to experience, to connect with other people and the world around you.

I don’t want blissful happiness.  Therein lies entropy, atrophy.  I need something more dynamic.  That need feeds my urge to dry hump everything I see into submission.  Ashley’s returning disinterest in physical intimacy agitates this thing that lives in the back of my brain, that threatens to drive me insane if I don’t feed it.  It reminds me that fucking someone else gives me the change I’m looking for, that element of risk, of discord.  It gives me something to focus on so that the monotony of my daily life doesn’t consume me.

Now I sound like a husband in a television drama.  The mid-lifer who desperately searches for something new.  Kevin Spacey and his fish-faced teenage lover in American Beauty.

That’s precisely what I do not want to be.  A trudger, playing at dynamism, testing the waters like a five year old contemplating the deep end, skirting the edges of danger while telling myself that I could do that, if I wanted.  That’s not who I am, who I have ever been.

And I feel like, maybe, that’s who I run the risk of becoming.

Reading Between the Lines: On Imaginary Relationships with Your Fellow Bloggers

Forgive the following random post.  I know it doesn’t pertain in any way to my usual topics, but I started thinking about this while reading an e-mail from another blogger, and I felt like getting it down on digital paper.

I’ve mentioned before how therapeutic I find the blogging process.  It’s really been quite helpful for me, in that it’s given me an opportunity to express my frustrations and share my various activities without fear of reprisal.  Everyone needs a sounding board now and again, to feel as though they don’t have to hold in everything they think and feel.  That can be highly beneficial to one’s mental well-being.

I feel that the main contributor to the ameliorative properties of the blogosphere is the community that has developed within WordPress and other blogging sites.  When people read the things you write and comment positively on them, it creates a sense of companionship, or perhaps compatriotism is a better word.  Generally speaking, the people who find and read a blog are looking for things within their own realm of interests, so you can usually be assured that anyone reading your work is of a mindset similar to yours.  That in and of itself is reassuring, particularly if you’re writing a blog about something that is inherently taboo.  But the comments you receive are doubly reassuring because not only are there other people out there who share your struggles and concerns, but they care enough to offer words of encouragement, or are simply moved enough to want to chime in on the topic at hand.  Personally, I think that’s the part I enjoy most about being involved in this community–hearing what you all have to say about me, what I do, and what I should do.  It gives me an opportunity to improve myself using the honest opinions of others as a template for where I should end up in this self-explorative journey.

I am surprised by just how tightly knit the community seems.  I mainly frequent the same blogs over and over because I enjoy the content and writing styles of the various authors involved, but I do branch out whenever I earn a new follower, reading through their work, seeing what they’re all about, and discerning why they chose to follow me in the first place.  When I do so, I tend to find that most people discover my site through other blogs I follow.  It’s a Six Degrees of Separation kind of scenario.  This person reads Hyacinth’s blog, then bounces to Gillian’s, then to Lynn’s, and finally, to mine.  Readers stay within their own little sub-genres and branch out slowly, expanding their involvement in other sites, which lends itself to that sense of community I keep mentioning.

However, what I find most surprising is how much we, or at least I, care about the other bloggers in our respective fields.  For instance, I feel somewhat connected to the three authors I mentioned above.  I’ve read every post they’ve written, and I have a certain mental image of them–not physically, but a summary of what makes that person who they are.  Plato’s Form of Hyacinth, a universal awareness of what makes them who and what they are.  I’ve never met them and most likely never will (that would be weird, no?), but I feel like, if I did, it would be like meeting an old friend.  I know nothing about them beyond what they present in their blogs, but I imagine that is their most honest self, writing in the faceless anonymity that only the internet can provide, and thus I feel like I know them personally.

It’s an odd sort of imaginary relationship I share with my fellow bloggers, and I can see why blogging may be so addictive for some people.  It’s social media with complete strangers.  Developing friendships or camaraderies through written word.

Mainly, it’s a way to not feel so alone.

Cheers, everyone.

An Admission of Guilt: A True Story of Confessing What I Really Am

I walk through the door to my shared college house and deposit my muddy shoes in the entryway.  It had been raining all day long, an unusual occurrence for late summer, but one that fit my mood perfectly.  I had spent the day dreading my return home, afraid of what was going to happen, how she was going to take it.  I couldn’t see it being anything but terribly unpleasant at best, and relationship-ruining at worst.  But I had to tell her.  It wouldn’t be right for me not to.

Ashley is lounging on the couch in her tiny workout shorts and baggy t-shirt, indicating that none of our housemates are home.  She sprawls in that manner that only tall, athletic people can.  Her legs, impossibly long and muscled, are spread wide, one resting on the back of the couch, the other on the coffee table.  One arm is above her head and bent to prop her head up, and the other hangs limply on the floor.  It would look decidedly uncomfortable, even painful, on a person of slighter stature; she, however, displays all the comfort of a house cat lounging atop its favorite precarious bookshelf.

Her face lights up when she sees me.  “Hey sweetheart, how was school?”

“Schooly,” I reply glumly.  I set my backpack on the floor beside the couch and look down at her.  I take a steadying breath, steeling my resolve, and say as gently as I can, “Ashley, I need to talk to you.”

Her face immediately darkens, and she sits up.  “Okay…  Sit down, let’s talk.”  She switches off the television and pats the cushion beside her.

I sit beside her and interlace my fingers in my lap to keep my hands from shaking.  My heart races, and my chest tightens in anticipation.  I feel like a coward on the front lines of a battle he never expected to face.  Or maybe a brave man walking to the guillotine.  Either analogy holds, I think.

Ashley looks at me, and I think she can tell how nervous I am.  I look away and stare at the darkened television.  She puts a reassuring hand on my knee.  “Honey… what’s wrong?”

I swallow, even though my mouth is dry.  The act strains my throat and causes mild discomfort.  I focus on that pain rather than the anxiety.  I take a deep breath.

“I’ve cheated on you.”

I had intended the admission to be calm and assertive, but it comes out quiet, almost meek.  I keep staring straight ahead, refusing to look at her, struggling to maintain what little composure I can. I hear her breathing beside me, and I keep expecting to hear the heartbroken sobs.  But they never come.  Her hand remains comfortingly on my knee as she asks calmly, “When?”

“Several times,” I reply.  Her measured reaction has bolstered my confidence, and I speak more plainly.  “Since we first started dating, I’ve slept with several other women on multiple occasions.  Don’t bother asking me who because I won’t tell you, nor will I tell you how many.  I don’t think those facts are important.  But I wanted you to know.”

“I wouldn’t ask,” Ashley responds.  Her voice has softened a bit, but she has retained her composure.  “Why are you telling me now?”

I lick my parched lips and sigh.  “Because of last night.”

“When you asked me to marry you.”

I nod.  “It’s been eating me alive for days.  I’ve almost made myself sick worrying about what you would say, about whether you would leave me on the spot.  And you would be completely justified if you did.”  I look down at her hand on my knee, at the small diamond resting on her right hand.  I tentatively reach out and place my hand on hers, touching the gem.  “I asked you to marry me because, when you look at me, you see something I never have, and for the first time in my life, I want to live up to that image.  But I can’t do that if you don’t know what I’ve done, and who I am.”

I take another deep breath and lift my head to face her.  Her eyes are reddened by tears she refuses to let fall.  She’s staying strong, either because she wants to hear me out or because she doesn’t want to lose it yet.  Either way, her expression is like a fist in my gut.  But I push on.  “I’m weak, and shallow, and selfish, despite what you may think.  I’ve cheated on every woman I’ve ever been in a relationship with, including you.  And I can’t promise it won’t happen again.  But I can promise that you are the only woman who has ever made me want to be faithful.  That may not be worth much to some people, but that’s a hell of a thing for me.”

Ashley can’t stop herself now, and the tears roll freely down her cheeks.  I squeeze her hand gently as I finish.  “I’m sorry for hurting you like this.  I know this is probably the last thing you expected after last night.  But I had to tell you, because I love you like I never thought was possible.  And it didn’t feel right to go into this without telling you the truth.”

I stop and look away again, because I can’t bear the pain on Ashley’s face.  I can hear her labored breathing.  She sniffs gently, and a faint whimper escapes her.  It hurts worse than her expression did.  But I wait, sitting still and silent, giving her the time she needs to process this admission, to decide what she wants to do.

And I am surprised when she whispers, “I love you.”

I look to her again, and she’s smiling.  It’s a pained thing, but it’s a smile, regardless.

“I don’t care about your faults,” she continues.  “No one is perfect.  No one will ever live up to the dream we have of the person we’ll spend forever with, and if you spend your whole life looking for that one perfect person, you’ll always be alone.  But you’re as close as I think is possible.”  She clasps my hand fully in both of hers.  “You make me happier than I’ve ever been, you take care of me, and you protect me.  You’ve let me down here, but this is one mistake on a long list of everything you’ve done right.  I would be stupid to let you go because of that.”  Ashley leans forward and kisses my cheek.  “You told me the truth, so I believe you mean everything you’ve said.  And I forgive you.”

Her smile wavers, and her eyes well up again.  She sets her jaw in a serious frown.  “But if I ever catch you cheating on me after this, God Himself won’t be able to help you.”

I hear the anger she’s struggling to control, and I nod slightly.  The only word I can manage is, “Understood.”

She scoots closer to me, hip to hip, and wraps her arms around me.  I respond in kind, and she buries her face in the crook of my neck.  I hold her while she cries softly.  I pet her hair as I struggle to contain my own emotions.  It’s a strange sensation, voluntarily trading months of guilt for a single moment of fear and sadness, but there, with Ashley in my arms, I feel strangely relieved.  I feel free.

Externalizing the Internal Monologue: On Digital Honesty Spilling Into My Real World Marriage

The following post was inspired by TerriblyTorn13.  If you aren’t familiar with her blog, I highly recommend it.

For many years, Ashley and I have talked, on occasion, about what works well and what doesn’t in our relationship.  We tend to come to the same conclusion each time.  In most every respect, we have what most couples dream about and never achieve.  We’re best friends, and coming home to each other is the best part of our day.  We share equal financial responsibility for our household, and an equal share of the housework.  We talk about our work and lives outside of our marriage, and we take an active interest in what has happened to each other when we’re apart.  Sure, there are a couple of things here and there that we could do differently, but this usually amounts to little more than whether the dishes are done every night or every other night, or who will scoop the litter box.  Our marriage really is a partnership in most every respect.

That is, until you get to the sex issue.

I’ve mentioned it before, but it bears further discussion.  For the past three-plus years, Ashley has been decidedly asexual.  This wasn’t always the case, but her once dynamic, sexually curious side seems to have disappeared.  We usually make love only once a month, if that.  This may not seem that bad when some couples have sex once a year, but for a young couple married less than five years, this is a very bad sign, an indicator that you may end up in that once a year category.  This is the last thing I want, because I wouldn’t remain in a relationship wherein I can’t be physically intimate with my wife.  It would be like being married to my sister, someone I love but with whom I could never, ever be intimate.  I know it would spell the end of my marriage.

And today, I told her so.

It’s hard on both of us, me leaving for weeks at a time to go on research trips, and we make it a point to talk via Skype as frequently as we can.  During our conversation today, I cracked a joke about her showing me a little webcam skin.  Her response, coupled to an exasperated sigh and a roll of her eyes, was, “God, don’t be so gross.”

When she said that, I suddenly thought about all of the things I’ve been putting here.  Pouring my thoughts and memories and exploits into an anonymous, honest venue.  Hearing the feedback from my readers.  Reading the hatemail.  Forcing myself to dwell on what I do, why I do it, and why I can’t be more honest with her.  I realized, on some emotional level, that I hold so much resentment and frustration because of her refusal to help with my sexual urges.  In that instant, her words just made me so fucking angry.  And I never get angry at anyone, much less her.  Why the hell is that gross?  What the fuck is wrong with wanting to find sexual pleasure in the woman I love?  I wanted to scream at her, tell her everything I’ve done, and what I planned on doing at that moment just to spite her.  But instead, I just closed my laptop without a word and walked away.

An hour passed before I finally came back to my computer.  She immediately called me, and I could tell she had been crying, a lot.  She’s an emotional girl and tears up frequently, but when she cries out of grief or fear, her face takes on a drawn quality.  Not sickly, but drained, emptied.  It broke my heart to see it, because I had caused that, by losing my temper and letting myself get caught up in my emotions.

She asked me if I was mad at her.  I told her, yes, I am, and I have been for a very long time.  She asked why I was mad.  I told her because I have tried to be a good husband.  I have tried so hard to change who and what I am to make myself worthy of someone like her.  I told her I fail a lot, and that I have let her down, whether she knows it or not, but I struggle every day to overcome my own issues.  But I need her to be more than a partner.  I need someone who will do more than put her head in my lap to watch a movie.  I need a lover.  I need her to be the one and only thing I think of when my body is screaming for release.  But she can’t be that thing for me if she always refuses to be involved with me sexually.  And if that doesn’t change, as much as I love her, as badly as the very thought makes me ache down to my bones… I will eventually leave her.  And when it happens, I won’t feel guilty about it, because I will have become so bitter and angry that loneliness will be a better alternative than suffering through a failed marriage.

That’s not verbatim, but it’s damn close to what poured out of my mouth.  When I was done, Ashley stared me, mouth agape.  I suddenly felt very self-conscious, and I waited for her to start crying.  But she never did.  Instead, she wiped her eyes and asked me how long I’d felt like this.  I told her years, and didn’t she remember all the times we talked about how upset I was because we no longer had sex?  She did, but thought it was an immediate thing, like “I’m not getting sexed up right now, so I’m mad!”  I was just as shocked as she was.  We’d had dozens of conversations about it, and she had never understood what I was saying.  It had never registered to her that our marriage could be in real danger if we didn’t find a solution to this.  Today, it did, and it scared the hell out of her.  So she asked me, “What can I do to fix this for us?”

We talked for a couple of hours about it.  During our discussion, I learned that sex has never stopped hurting her.  She experiences physical pain before and after, and it makes her not want to be intimate even when her body is really feeling it.  I asked her why she never told me.  She said, “Because I love having sex with you, and I didn’t want you to think you had to change something.  You’re just too big for me.”

Makes me feel like a bit of an asshole, but there it is.

Anyway.  We don’t know what the best solution is, but we have agreed, when I get home from this trip, we’re going to sit down and talk about this, try to figure out what she is willing to give, and what I am willing to concede.  Ashley doesn’t want our marriage to fail, and neither do I.  We’re going to see if we can make it work better for both of us.

I think writing this blog has been therapeutic in some respects.  I don’t know if your stories and feedback gave me the push I needed to really confront Ashley about our problems, or if forcing myself to be honest here made me want to be honest with her, too.  Hell, maybe I just snapped.  But I feel that I have begun to look at myself a bit differently over the couple of weeks I’ve been working on this.  And I now have real hope for what may change in my marriage.

Thanks for keeping up with me, folks.  Psychiatrists are quacks, but you people are not.

And no, I’m not leaving.  I have a hell of a lot more to say and share.  I just like the way that last sentence sounds.