Sometimes you try to deny. Sometimes you try to ignore. Sometimes you change yourself for admirable reasons and all the denying and all the ignoring just backs up in a pile of tar and soot and then you have nothing else left but to stare into your own dark empty lies. (The lies of telling myself that I can be a good wife. The lies of trying to convince myself that I can stop being who I am.)
Here is the truth: the less I do (cheat, lie, etc.), the more willing I am to tell H how I feel about all this. About my outside attractions. About my us-secrets, that is, about that feeling of being stifled. About my desires for that which I know is so unattainable. I feel close to the edge of ripping open barely-healed scars between us in his very vulnerable places. I feel as though I'm lashing out against an invisible shield, a barrier that's meant to protect us, that I erected for our own stability.
So, sometimes I try to deny. I try to ignore my blood-red desires to make men feel their pulse. I try not to harness that intense energy by lowering my eyes, smiling just a little bit less, acting less the confident woman, more as a chummy man. I try to become more socially awkward, to conceal my prowess as the social elite butterfly who loves meeting new people, who loves large groups of people, who devours intimate 1-on-1 conversations, who's fearless about going to parties stag.
But how long can you ignore such integral parts of who you are without it seeping through, in the built-up little tensions that trickle out when you're least aware, when you're least in control, when you're tired and hungry, and all refinement has dissipated from your grasp? So inevitably, once you've decided to play by the rules, it turns out that resentment slowly builds up behind that soft, gentle skin, turning the once-warm embrace into a distant stony reception.
It is the distance that hurts the most.
For a while I had even forgotten why I strayed the way I did. My actions merely seemed silly, trifling and not at all significant. It seemed almost as though it was "just a phase" that I went through -- that it was something I had moved beyond. The men who I allowed to touch me were men who I knew I would never come close to falling in love with. I lived these past couple months with H in total abstinence of adultery. And things were just fine. Sure, I had changed, in that I now recognize seeds of sexuality much more readily than before. And I am much more aware of the consequences of my own actions; I'll easily take responsibility for what I do.
But what has changed in our relationship is that a) my libido has slowed down to almost a halt, b) I'm much more pissy these days, c) I catch myself saying things to H that hauntingly reveal my need to feel less weighed down by his attachment to me, and d) a general sense of being dismissive washes over me all too often. These are signs of something, and I hesitate to define it as unhappiness or depression, but I know it comes from a sadness emerging.
I'm struggling these days.
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3 comments:
It sounds like you are struggling. It sounds like you are having an internal conflict between what you feel inside and what you project into your relationship with H. I can understand how you view your cheating differently when it's been a while. Perceptions seem to change with the situation. I hope you figure it out to where you are happy.
It can be a struggle, I know. You change, your partner changes, the relationship changes, and one day, you look around and say, "Where the hell did this come from?" Keep your head up. You have friends on your side.
I know how difficult it is. You are one way, and you decide to change so you can accomodate somebody else's wants and needs. I'm a total flirt, but I had to change that for her, but it wasn;t me, and people that knew me beofre told me that. I looked like I was acting.
This is a piece of advise that probably everybody else will hate: don't tell him anything, if you confess it might be the end of it all, and slowly go back to what makes you happy. You will never stop loving H, and finding some physical satisfaction on the side will not change that.
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