Avoidant – One Mad Cat

I’m going to have to talk about it. I’ve danced around the topic for years now, avoiding it with each therapist. Avoiding it with my husband, avoiding it with myself. But I am going to lose my marriage if I don’t talk about it.

Sex is really hard for me within the bounds of a relationship. Well, connected, enjoyable, present and most of all, released sex; the kind where I don’t feel guarded or aloof, removed or distant, like there’s a stage I’m acting on. The kind where I feel the opposite of those things. And since that seems to be the only kind of sex I am still interested in (within the bounds of a relationship or in any way at all) I am not having any.

I cannot expect B to be ok with that. I don’t think I’m ok with that.

In my mind’s eye I can see the time B lit all the candles and dimmed the lights, and moved slowly and was just asking me to slow down, to be present, to stop and share his gaze, acknowledge his touch and touch him in return. I started crying and cried the entire time. Tears coursing down my face. Why is it so impossible for me to be present?

I step back to “the Why’s” – keep asking why to uncover the layers of answers:

Why don’t I want to have sex? Because sex is no longer pleasurable.
Why is sex not pleasurable? Because I cannot be present
Why am I not able to be present? Because I feel vulnerable/exposed/at risk – I am protecting myself
Why do I feel so vulnerable?
1. Because I have experienced a lack of safety during sex (Has it? Am I willing to explore those?)
  1. When did my body (and psyche) experience these?
    1. My first time.
    2. What were the circumstances of my first time?
      1. He was my substitute English teacher
      2. I was underage (15), he was… 23? 26?
      3. It was at his parent’s house / the house he grew up in – His brother was home
      4. As teenagers, we’re constantly looking at others to figure out what’s right. And the difference between what’s right and what is popular and accepted is not always clear (and are sometimes directly opposed). I was not supposed to know that I had to say no. I was not supposed to know that his behavior was inappropriate. I’m recalling that as a teenager I was dealing in shades of grey – no moral value surrounding an action or decision is cut and dry in all circumstances: murder, abortion, cheating, affairs, running a stop sign. By the time you are a young adult, you are evaluating circumstances and context closely, if unconsciously. In this case, the adult is the one who is supposed to understand context, to be able to discern right from wrong. (Did I mention that his adult brother was home? That there was a twin bed all set up and ready to be used in a room in the basement? To my knowledge, it didn’t look like a bedroom… it’s looked like a crash pad maybe. A guest room?) As a teacher, didn’t he sign a contract committing that he would not sleep with students? and even if he did not, didn’t the law write that contract for him? But if the adults are not going to pay attention to the law, and I feel, myself, that I’m claiming my own rights to adulthood, then does it make it not rape, not assault, because I was intent on exploring, without fully understanding the damage it would cause me to be, in actuality, so powerless to use my own voice to dissent or dissuade him? To not have the knowledge that this was even an option. I was, as I recall, just getting it over with.
2. Because I have witnessed a lack of intimacy during sex?
  1. the very ceremony of marriage was traditionally obliged to be consummated
  2. As told about “wifely duties” in movies, media and by my mother.
    1. And remembering my mother “You know sometimes, as a wife, you do things you don’t really want to do. You don’t always feel like having sex, but your husband will want it. So you do it. Just sometimes. Not always.” I’ll just leave that there cause I’m pretty sure you’ll come to the right conclusions on your own, and I don’t feel like I need to talk about it for myself.
3. Because, intimacy, (period) is dangerous for me
  1. This, *this* is the one that resonates most true in me. I hate intimacy. I like to think that I am soft and cuddly. I used to go to raves and take x and relish and savor the cuddle puddles and touches and caresses – but it took an extremely strong intoxicant to allow myself to feel those touches that I LONGED FOR ALL THE TIME. That I imagined myself getting. That I daydreamed about constantly. (And when I say constantly, I mean every. single. moment. I am alone, my only witness myself. I’ve dreamt of and lusted after people outside my marriage. These relationships are the ones in which I feel free, tragically free and open and willing to be vulnerable (up to the point that I psychologically turn the person against me (whether or not they know it, with or without consent, more on that in another post).
  2. There were cuts made in me – right at those moments I was feeling the most love, the most personal love, the only love I knew from other humans. And those wounds… Those wounds are not healable. I live with a hole that I have never filled.
    1. a hole for father
    2. a hole for mother
    3. a hole for sister
    4. a hole for family
  3. There is no definition of family that is not fraught with peril for me… Except… the one I am building now for myself. For myself and with my partner.