Month: February 2024

I discovered something about myself and now I have to tell my husband. I was feeling at odds with me, with him, with the world. I needed to write it all out.  The act of doing so has brought me back into alignment.

Meaning, I have taken off my skin, shaken out the crumbs, and now I don’t feel so irritable. Except, well, now we have to have this discussion.

I binge watched a mini-series to escape all that I did not want to face in myself. This morning, I woke at six and wrote it all out.

I discovered I don’t want to bother with sex.

Ugh. There I said it. That’s what’s been on my mind. I’m too old and fat for it, not that I’m fat, but I am overweight, according to medical charts, by about fifteen pounds. I prevaricate. That’s how much I want to avoid this subject.

God. Such a bother. So much effort. Not like when we were young and nubile and moist.

You get the picture.

I love to lie next to him. To hug every morning for long moments after we make the bed. That’s about the tempo of our intimacy these days. Plus, we have a huge bathtub and get in together once in a while and just talk, chitchat, but sometimes more meaningfully.

What self-discoveries we have made lately

That’s one thing that has never changed regarding intimacy between us—the need to talk to one another, not about chores, not about work but about who each of us is in this moment, where we stand with ourselves and each other, what self-discoveries we have made lately.

Even if those discoveries are not, shall we say, pleasant.

Except that this isn’t a new discovery. It’s an old one I wish would change. But the older we get that’s not likely to happen.

I need to tell him that’s what I’m thinking about. Again. We talk about making more of an effort. Always the same old discussion, but nothing ever changes.

We exercise. We take long hikes in the mountains together and that’s fun. The baths and the hugs are nice. But I think we both wish we were different. Younger, perhaps. We laugh about getting old, about how difficult it is to stand from a squatting or kneeling position. We groan and exclaim. We laugh at ourselves and each other.

But this sex thing is no laughing matter. We haven’t learned how to laugh about that yet. I hope someday we do. It might be more fun than chastising ourselves for the lack of sex in our lives. In the meantime, we still have fun together, as I said. Just not in that way, or at least not as often, and I wish that was really okay.

This article from the National Council on Aging helped. This: “Sexual intercourse can be enjoyable, sure, but you can build intimacy without it.” Sounds like we’re doing all the right things. How reassuring!

Reading old journals from twenty-four years ago, I’m humbled by my bad behavior and the poor choices I made in the past. For example, I once carpooled with another young mom. This was before cell phones. I was five minutes late picking up my daughter and her friend after gymnastics. Rather than wait for me, they called her mom to come get them. When I discovered the other mom was on her way, I was furious and embarrassed, and left the ten-year-old girl there all alone in front of the gymnastics building. I drove off, jittery with hunger and anxious to get home. Even my daughter knew what I was doing was wrong because she asked, “Shouldn’t we wait?”

“Couldn’t you have just waited five minutes?” the traumatized girl’s mother asked when I called later that evening to apologize.

I had been thinking only of my needs, not that little girl’s.

Having been raised by damaged and narcissistic parents, I became infected and a narcissist myself. As a teen who left home at age fifteen with my parents’ blessings, I learned at an early age how to fend for myself and think only of my needs, no one else’s.

I was used to manipulating people to get what I wanted

It wasn’t until I turned nineteen and a mom invited me to live with her family for the summer between graduating high school and entering college did I learn the meaning of consideration for others. And I did not like it. I was used to manipulating people to get what I wanted. Considering other people’s needs was inconvenient to say the least! It’s a wonder they put up with me. I am eternally grateful that they did. It was the beginning of an important education in how to live with others.

However, by the time I became a mom myself, I still had a long way to go towards being a responsible parent and adult and made many mistakes. During my years of therapy, I addressed the pain of parental abandonment and learned how to take better care of myself, and thus, how to care for others. I began to see how selfish I had been, but also to understand that my selfishness had been a coping mechanism.

Decades have passed since those reckless parenting years. I will never be perfect, but now when I am rude or thoughtless, I usually know right away and can say I’m sorry or even avoid sticking my foot in my mouth.

I’m gratified looking through these old journals to see how much progress I’ve made. Today, I’m compassionate and considerate, eager to be of service to others. That old me, well, I have compassion for her. She didn’t know any better. And when she should have, like that time I drove away, she paid the price. That mom said, “I think I’ll drive my daughter myself from now on.” I completely understood. And was chagrined that I couldn’t even be a responsible carpool partner.

The ability to see my past faults, and present ones, and to forgive my parents brings me solace and peace. I send psychic amends to all those I have hurt in the past. Whether they forgive me doesn’t matter. What is most important is that I forgive myself.