.who am i.

I know part of this whole process is to discover who I am, but there are things about me that I already know.  Parts of me, that for the most part, no one knows about me.  I can't let them out.  They've been buried so deep for so long people wouldn't understand that this is who I really am.  I guess what I have to work on is getting past the point where I care.  Not to say that people's opinions aren't important to me.  They are.  But as I near 50, I find that I need to be true to myself.  I need to be who I am; not who people want me to be.

So what kind of woman am I........

I love music.  Mostly country; but my mp3 player is a wide variety. I love nothing more than having my headphones in and singing out loud.  No matter who's listening.

I love to dance.  I can't; I have no rhythm.  But I still love to dance.

I love to laugh.  A dirty joke; a prank; a beautiful smile from my granddaughter.  Whatever it takes.  I just love to laugh.

I love feeling tipsy.  Not drunk.  Just enough to....surprise....make me laugh.

I love to have men look at me in "that" way.  I don't find it offensive at all.

I love to read good books and watch good movies.

I love to swim.

I love to cuddle.

I love to have sex; during the day; with the windows open.

I love to be taken care of.  To have someone think of me and my needs without me having to speak them out loud.

I love my dog.  She's no Jenna; but Rebel is quickly becoming a new loyal and trustworthy best friend.  Who knows what another 15 years with him will bring.

I love to have male friends.  Male friends = no drama!

I love to cry at sappy movies; underdog movies and stupid commercials.

I love coke.  As in the cola kind. Every morning for breakfast.

I love feeling my body getting stronger; fitter and sexier.

I love sweating when I work out.

I love to get flowers at work with a sexy message on the card.

I love it when he tells me what to do. 

I don't know that I would go so far as to say I love it, but I like porn.

I love the look of a beautiful, confident women.  They are not my enemy.  They're my inspiration.

 
Someday, someone, somewhere, will love me for who I am.
 

 

.my role in all this.

As I stated in an earlier post, I don't pretend to believe that I'm perfect in all of this.  I have to accept as much fault with what's wrong in my marriage.  I've made more than my fair share of mistakes.  Some calculated; some beyond my control.

For so many years our marriage was good.  I don't know that I would ever call it perfect.  Then what marriage is.  But we were happy; we had fun; we laughed.  We had good times as a family.  Kevin was and continues to be a great father.  He was the fun one out of the two of us.  I was the disciplinarian.  We weren't rich but we weren't poor.  Every year brought a family vacation to the beach; to the mountains; to Disney.  Several times a year we'd make a trip to Florida to visit his family and the children would go down for 2 weeks during the summer and stay with their grandparents.  We had "Family Fun Day" one day a year where we would pull the children out of school and go do whatever they wanted to do.  The children enjoyed "sleep wherever you want night" where they could sleep anywhere in the house they wanted to.  We played family games; pizza nights.  Just your typical average American family.

Things began to unravel in 2003 when I got sick.  Out of the blue I lost use of both my feet.  I couldn't walk and spent almost 3 months in a wheel chair.  Hundreds of medical tests and dr visits could determine nothing.  During the medical testing a 5 inch abdominal mass was discovered.  It was unknown if it was cancer so I was immediately scheduled for surgery.  Thankfully it was benign; however, the mass was attached to my reproductive organs so at the age of 39 I also had to undergo a complete hysterectomy.

As most women know, that alone brings it's own set of challenges.  Hot flashes, irritability, decreased sex drive.  All of the above applied.  Then to add insult to injury, whatever had happened to my feet had begun to effect to my legs, my hips and my back.  Constant and chronic pain became the norm.  Again, test after test could confirm nothing.  So the dr began me on a pain management regimen.  Over the course of time the pain medicine increased accompanied by medication for anxiety.  I was in pain, I was taking large amounts of medication, I was missing a lot of work.  Worst of all, I fell of the radar as far as my family was concerned.  With large doses of Vicodin and Clonipin, when I wasn't in bed asleep, I was in chronic and constant pain.  I no longer found myself capable of enjoying family activities on a regular basis.  So they continued without me.  I began to build myself in a little shell in my room.  I began to withdraw; I began to become dependent on myself.  While my family tried to be supportive, they didn't really understand what was going on with me and to be honest, they didn't make a lot of effort to find out.  All they knew was I was taking a lot of medication and spending most of my time in bed.  I found it difficult to be a wife and a mother; and all that entails.  Life was difficult to say the least.  We still managed to squeeze in some good times; but they were fewer and farther between.  This continued for years.  Above all, my marriage suffered greatly.  Kevin tried his best, most of the time.  Our sex life suffered; we became more like friends than husband and wife.  

I was absent from our family life more than I was present.  I was irritable; I was in pain and I pretty much didn't care.  

Finally in 2012 things began to turn around.  I began to see a Rheumatologist who diagnosed so many things wrong with me.  So many things that made sense.  I was started on an anti-inflammatory and began to immediately feel better.  It was like I was the old me.  There were still bad days; but they were more the exception than the rule.  I then talked with my dr and made the decision to begin the withdrawal process from Vicodin.  I stepped up my exercise program; started eating right and began reprogramming my mind to go from that of a long term sick patient to a loving wife and mother.  Little did I know it was too late for my marriage.

Roughly 2 or 3 weeks following the "50 Shades of Grey" escapade, Kevin and I had a fight.  A pretty big one.  Though at this time I'd be hard pressed to tell you what started it.  But this is what ended it.  A letter written by him, left for me on the kitchen counter.  Outlining several of my flaws; that I don't support him and he "doesn't expect my support".  But the final straw was his statement that "You can chose to live your life in a 12 x 12 room, but don't expect me to do the same!"  To me that could be interrupted several different ways.  But to me the bottom line was this.  The marriage vows we took almost 29 years ago, "For better or for worse; in sickness and in health" apparently had an expiration date on them and I had reached that date.  In that statement, he killed a part of my heart.  Though I knew that life with me had been difficult, hard and often times required him giving much more than I gave, he had made it clear that he had enough.  He was moving forward to live his own life and I could do whatever I wanted.  

Couple that with the fact that he hadn't approached me following the "50 Shades" debacle and I began to put a wall up; a wall around my heart.  I was hurt; crushed and devastated.  It said to me that I could no longer count on him to be there for me.  

So I became determined to not need to count on him.  I made the decision to become self sufficient,  I would no longer expect him to be there for me; to care for me; to do things for me.  There will still be times when I need him.  As I said earlier he helps take care of my elderly mother; my prescriptions are filled at the local pharmacy which closes before I get home so I have to ask him to pick them up for me.  But other than having to ask for an occasional favor or help with my mother, I need to move on.  To not count on him to be there for me; to not expect him to love me or care for me.  

I have to be my own hero.  Take care of myself.  And that makes me very sad.

.it's not all bad.

In reading over the past posts, in trying to be truthful and finding out who I really am, I have to be honest about everything.  If I'm not, then I will never discover who I am.

My husband, my marriage.  The past posts make them both sound bad.  They're not horrible.  They could just both be better.

29 years of marriage brings it's own challenges.  Having gotten married young; only being with one man.  It sometimes makes me wonder what I missed.  What's out there that I don't know about.  And when I read "50 Shades of Grey" that's part of what opened my eyes.  I never realized what a sheltered life I had.  I digress.  For the most part, the past 29 years have been good; happy.  We have 2 beautiful children; a nice home; good jobs.  We've always taken fun family vacations; lots of good memories.  Though our daughter was diagnosed with diabetes at age 7 and we've lost many close family members over the years, there have been no major disasters in our life.  Our children grew up to be law abiding, well adjusted, adults.  Our daughter married a good man and now they have their first child.  Our son graduated college in 2009 and started his own business.  The first of this year he bought his own home and is enjoying the life that all 23 year old men should.  I'm so proud of both of them.  

So life goes on, 29 years pass and as a couple so many other things come in between.  Work, the children, the bills, life.  Then one day you find yourself with only each other.  At this point in our lives everything else is pretty much settled into a place that it takes care of itself.  Now comes the time when we're supposed to take care of each other.  But then I look across the room at him and wonder "Who is this man that I married?  The man that I'll be spending the next 30 years with?"

Our interests have changed; our beliefs have changed.  We seem to have nothing in common any more.  But he's a good man.  He's kind and caring.  He loves his children and his granddaughter.  He helps take care of my elderly mother.  If I ever need to him to something for me, he does.  

Yet I feel so empty and alone when I'm with him.  I remember the years of passion.  The years when we would spend the whole weekend in bed.  We would go out to the movies; weekend dates away; dinners; dancing.  Fun times.  Love and laughter.  Then it was as if someone just blew the flame out.  There is still love.  But it's a love based on a past; not a future.

In January 2012 we went away for a week for our anniversary.  It was the first time we had ever gone away, alone, for an entire week.  I was so excited.  The weather was beautiful.  Warm and sunny.  I envisioned a week of wild love making.   We could do whatever we wanted; whenever we wanted; wherever we wanted.  In 8 days we made love twice.  To say I was disappointed is an understatement.  As far as the trip, it was wonderful.  We had fun; we laughed; we enjoyed doing things together.  But for all intents and purposes, I may as well have been with my brother.  

Is it me?  Do I just not turn him on anymore?  I've tried everything from being the sweet, naive girl that he met to becoming Anastasia from "50 Shades" and every combination in between.  How can I get him to understand that I need love and passion in my life?  I need him to spend time with me; I need him to come to bed at night and hold me and talk to me; I need him to sweep me off my feet and make my heart beat faster again.  I want him to make me laugh and I want us to have fun.

But so much as fallen between us.  So many words.  So many hurts.  So much that can't be undone.  I wish I knew if we will ever be able to get back to that place that we were 29 years ago.  I wish I knew if we will ever be able to get to a place where we are both happy, passionate and in love again.

 "Unless it’s mad, passionate, extraordinary love, it’s a waste of your time. There are too many mediocre things in life; Love shouldn’t be one of them.”

.it was just a dream.

It's 3:30 in the morning.  I just woke up from one of those dreams.  The kind that is so real and vivid that you never want to wake up from it.

Tonight I went to bed in one of his shirts.  It's almost like having his arms wrapped around me.  It's almost like his skin is touching mine.  But it's not.  It's just a shirt.

I moved my pillows to the middle of our king size bed.  I thought then when he came to bed and saw me there, asleep, in his shirt, close to his spot.......   Midnight came; 1:00 then 2:00.  I don't remember falling asleep but I remember the dream.

We were in a new church; sitting next to each other.  We had been in the flux that we're in now.  But his hand accidentally rubbed against mine.  It was like electricity.  My heart started pounding; I couldn't catch my breath.  I looked up and his eyes met mine and I knew in that instant he was feeling the exact same thing.  We didn't care if people stared.  We made a hasty retreat.  On the walk to the car his hand guided the small of my back.  I thought I was going to pass out just from that touch.  When we got to the car he came around to my side and opened  the door.  For what seemed like an eternity we stood there just staring into each others eyes.  Not a word was said; no contact was made.  But the look spoke everything we couldn't.

Quickly I got in and he raced to the other side.  As he began to drive home I slid over as far as I could.  I slowly began kissing his neck.  Tasting him.  That deliciousness that is only him; that deliciousness that I had been denied for so long.  I slowly began undoing the buttons on his dress shirt.  Allowing my fingers the luxury of rubbing his chest; his neck; his nape.  I undid his cuffs and rolled up his sleeves.  His arms have always turned me on; they had always made me feel safe.

He kept pushing me away.  I knew it wasn't because he didn't want me; it was because he wanted me too much.  He couldn't stand to have me so close and not be able to touch me as well.  He was in agony.  Rather than allow himself the pleasure I could give him while he was driving, he wanted to wait until we were home; in our bed.  Where we could be together as one.

Finally arriving home, without losing body contact, and somehow without tripping over everything in our path, we made our way to the bed.  To our bed.  Clothing was quickly removed and all the emotions of the past months met, there in the middle of that king size bed.  

I slowly felt reality sweeping over my body.  I lay there with my eyes closed, a smile on my face thinking of what had happened between him and I.  Remembering how good it felt.  I reached over to touch him; to hold him.  

And I found an empty space.  A cold pillow.  He had never even come to bed to sleep with me.  Instead, once again, choosing the couch.

Now I sit here more cold and lonely than I've been in months.   

 

.a real man.

I was laying in bed thinking about what I want my husband to be to me.  His short comings; how he lets me down; and what I wish he would be and what I wish he would do.  Please don't misunderstand.  I love my husband.  With a history as long as ours, I could never imagine not loving him.  But I don't like him very much and he's not the man I wish he was.  So I started thinking about who I do wish he was.  I don't want to change him for another man.  I don't want someone else.  I want him.  There are just things about him I wish would change.  Things that would make me happy; look at him different; with passion and respect.  Things that would make him appealing to me again.  Now, before you go getting all high and mighty on me, please don't think that I think I'm perfect.  I have NO DOUBT that he has a list of things he'd just love to change in me.  I'd love to read it.  I'd be happy to work on it.  Yet I'm realistic enough to know such a list will never appear.  So I'll list mine.  Who knows.....

I wish he would dress like the hot guy he is.  And yes, even at 50 I still find him hot. Jeans, t-shirts, boots.  Boxer briefs, not tighty whiteys.  No holes in his underwear or socks.  

I wish he would wear a suit more.  I read once that to a woman, a suit on a man is what to a man, lingerie is on a woman.

I wish he would wear cologne.  Every day. A nice, subtle scent that would linger on his pillow after he's left the bed.

I wish he would pull me close to him in bed; even when he's half asleep.  Just to say "I want to feel you close to me".

I wish he wouldn't come to bed in a shirt and his tighty whiteys.  Major turnoff!!  If you want to keep warm, sleep closer to me.

I wish he wouldn't fart in front of me.  Or pick his teeth with the corner of a paper plate.  He wouldn't do it in front of anyone else.  Why is it ok to do it in front of me?

I wish he would hold my head between his hands and kiss me.  Long and hard.  Just to kiss me.

I wish he would get up early on Saturday mornings once in a while and bring me breakfast in bed.

I wish he would run me a bubble bath, light candles and sit on the floor and talk to me while I relax.

I wish he would plan and execute dates.  Not come home with a  "Would you like to....."  I wish he would come home and take my black dress out of the closet and lay it on the bed, along with whatever he wants me to wear under it.  Lay a red rose across it and tell me "Get dressed.  I've made plans."

I wish he would turn off the tv and pull out the Backgammon game.

I wish he would go to the gym or get surgery so he would quit snoring.  

I wish he would cook us a meal.  Not say "You want something to eat?"

I wish he would defend me to our children.  They often disrespect me in word or deed; they often hurt my feelings and he allows it.   

I wish he would make me soup or toast and ginger ale when I'm sick.  Without me having to ask for it.

I wish he would take care of our home.  Get rid of the mildew in our bathroom; paint the outside of the house.  Get rid of the junk that fills the backyard.  Fix the toilets so I don't have to keep jiggling the handle.  Make it a home worthy of his wife.

I wish he would show up at my office to take me out to lunch.  Without calling and asking if it was ok.

I wish he would be the first to apologize once in a while.

I wish he would be the Christian leader that he thinks he is.  Lead us in devotions; wake up to pray with me before the day begins; come and pray with me as the day ends.  The Bible calls the husband to be the spiritual leader of the home. Through our daughter's entire pregnancy and while she was in labor and in surgery he never once took my hand and said "Let's pray for her safety and for this grandchild of ours".  If he wants to be a minister, he needs to learn how to minister.  It's not just about hearing yourself talk from a pulpit.  Even Satan can do that.

I wish he would demand respect from his employer.  He is a door mat to them.  He works for little to no pay and is never paid on time.  I wish he would stand up to them or find a job where he is both respected and compensated for his hard work.  They take advantage of him and he continues to allow it.

As I said, I'm not so full of my self to think that he doesn't have a list as well.  I'm far from perfect.  But I can't change what I don't know about.


 

.i miss passion.

You know the kind I'm talking about.  The kind where you just look across the room and your eyes meet.  Your heart starts beating just a little faster; your palms get sweaty; your knees get weak.  The kind where his eyes look at you and you know it means that when he gets you alone he's going to take you.  Hard and fast.  No sweet words of love; no beating around the bush.  Just pushing you up against the wall, ripping off your panties and fucking your brains out.  But because you know he loves you; because you know he's yours.....you don't care.  There is plenty of time for roses and chocolates and sweet words.  Some days you just need sex!

We had that passion when we were young.  We had it 3 months ago.  But now it seems so far gone.  It feels like it will never come back.

Is it my fault?  I don't know.  I'm certain I bear some of the responsibility.  I suppose I've not been to him what he needs; just as he's not been to me what I need.  The problem arises though when needs change.  What I needed in my husband last year, isn't what I need in my husband this year.  Perhaps I haven't been the type of wife he needs. I know he feels I don't support him; don't have faith in him; don't believe in him.  But I have to wonder if he ever asks himself why.  

And if he does, will I be brave enough to tell him?

.he lied.

He always asked me to tell him what I wanted in the bedroom.  Yet I had the hardest time doing that.  Though as my blog continues it may be hard to believe, I'm really incredibly shy.  Even with my husband of 29 years.  I always have been.  Especially when it comes to sex.

I was a "surprise" baby to my elderly parents.  At almost 50 I still haven't been told about my period or where babies come from!  Those things just were not discussed at my house.  Affection was at a premium and usually saved for birthdays.  A hug, a kiss, an "I love you" was not a daily occurrence.  So I was never used to showing or sharing emotions.  So to be bold enough to tell my husband what I wanted him to do to me in the bedroom seemed impossible.  Wasn't he just supposed to know?  It was embarrassing to think that I would have to let him know what I wanted; what I liked.  And so our sex life was always just about average.

We had our moments.  Some good times; some wild places.  Things I never would have imagined doing.  But overall, I would have to say our sex life was just that.  Average.

Welcome to my world Christan Grey!

WOW!  Did my eyes get open and did my panties get wet!  Did people really do things like this??  I was shocked; surprised and incredibly aroused.  Is this what I've been missing out on all these years?

My husband, along with the rest of the world, had heard all the hype that surrounded "50 Shades of Grey" and he would laugh and tease me as I was reading it.  I would share parts with him and get a little "hmmmmm......" from him.  Finally one afternoon found us both in a playful mood in the bedroom and I laid my cards on the table.  I told him about things I had read in "50" and that it really turned me on.  That those were the kinds of things I wanted to do and have done to me.  I brought things into our bedroom to make it possible.  We had an incredible, wild afternoon of pure, unadulterated sex!!  It was everything I had ever hoped for.  And then it was gone.

That was over 6 weeks ago.  Since that day my husband hasn't approached me for sex.  Not once.  He hasn't mentioned it.  Hello cold slap in the face!!!!

I feel mortified!  For years he had asked and asked me to tell him what I wanted.  Now that I had, it appears it turned him off.  Though it sure didn't seem to that afternoon!  But now..... now, he doesn't touch me.  And as a result, I have put up a wall.  I feel humiliated.  I think back to the things I said and did that day.  Things I allowed him to do to me that I enjoyed.  What was he thinking?  What did he think of me?  I feel dirty and trashy.  I feel unappealing and unwanted.  I feel like a whore who has been kicked to the curb.

The scariest part is I don't know that I can ever get back the self respect and passion that I had before.  He crushed a part of me; a very important part of me and made me feel used and cheap. 

Worst of all, he's made me feel alone.  In our large, king sized bed, I am alone.  I am sad.  I am horny.  And though he is there on his side of the bed, I am alone.