Red Wings

I just have a difficult time believing that I've never written about this before. I've done searches through the archives of this blog and have come up empty.

I have a great ability to conveniently forget things. I've managed to hide away a lot of things, locking them somewhere deep inside where I dare not look. I'd like to say that those were things done to hurt or disturb me but, more often, they're things I've done to hurt or disturb others.

My mind immediately goes to a dinner I had with a girl -- now a woman -- with who I went to high school. "You were a real dick back then," she told me. Here I was, painting myself as some kind of loser victim while, apparently, I had been more than a little mean to others. Sure, some of that is perception -- and I know I talk about that a lot on here -- but there is such thing as truth and I truly believe her. I'm sure I was a dick to her and to a lot of other people. It's no wonder I had just a smattering of friends back then. I'm about as selfish and self-centered as they come.

The reason why I'm writing this isn't to confess my sins, however. I'm more concerned that there's something that disturbed me (and still does) that I thought for sure I had written about once before in an attempt to purge myself of the memory at least a bit.

I've written before about how the sex between my ex-wife and I dried up after just a few months. I went from a virgin to regular intercourse to rarity in a matter of months. I still don't know if that sparsity of sex was my ex's way of driving me away but it took years before it finally worked.

In the meantime, the sex we had on those rare occasions was unsatisfying to say the least.

Often we would be fooling around and there would be some kind of unspoken signal that passed between us that intercourse was imminent. She would excuse herself to go to the bathroom, leaving me turgid on our bed. Time would pass. A lot of time. Too much time. I don't know what she was doing in there but by the time she came back, whatever fire had once burned had long since gone out -- usually in her. "I'm tired," she'd say, and that was that.

Other times, there was the added humiliation of her asking me to put on a condom before she left for her interminable bathroom trips. By the time she'd come back, I'd be limp and, if we continued, another condom would be necessary.

But, the worst of it was that the times my ex wanted to have sex usually coincided with her period. She'd be full bore into her menses when she'd get the urge. Having been deprived for months, I would go for it, despite the negative things that went along with this -- namely the odor and the dryness. Even the best lubricant we'd use wouldn't survive the process and, quickly, things would get more than awkward.

However, the worst would come when, just minutes into intercourse, my ex would break out in tears, pulling herself off of/away from me. These weren't tears of pain. They were full on crying jags; the kind where her body would shake and shudder. She'd gasp for breath while practically screaming. And there I was, kneeling with a bloody condom on my shrinking cock, never able to console her.

After a while, even looking at a condom would shrink my dick. I started to lose all desire for sex as it always came with blood and tears (no sweat).

When I told the above to my therapist -- who is usually as cool as a cucumber -- she blurted out, "What she molested as a child?" That was my same theory but something my ex never admitted to, if it happened. Despite years of therapy, nothing ever changed with my ex. If anything, she seemed to get worse rather than better.

Whenever she was given something to help stabilize her mood, her plan quickly became, "How fast can I ween myself from this medication?" She hated taking pills, no matter how much they helped her. Self sabotage? Yes, I think so. But, at the same time, she was sabotaging both of us.

I was there in that circle, yes, playing along. But it took me years to see just how sick it was.