The suburban submissive.(1)

When my wife asked me to guest blog for this blog I wanted to say no. She didn’t tell me that I had to, that’s not her way. She asked me to consider it and if I felt like I was up to it to just do it. I’m not up to it but I am going to do it for her.

Anytime she asks me to address our life then and now, it puts me in the hot seat. She’s asked me in the past to share my part of our story with other and each time I do it doesn’t get easier but each time I sit and think about what I need to say it helps me come to terms with who we are now, a couple who survived me.

Our history when it comes to my sexual needs is something I wish I could close a door on. The problem isn’t the fact I am ashamed of who I am in my sexual nature, I am very embarrassed and ashamed by what I have done to my wife and to our relationship trying to get things my way. I don’t like having to address our past because it is a constant reminder of how difficult I made her life but it also serves to remind how lucky I am she didn’t leave me and she never stopped trying.  I do as she asks for that reason; I do it for the reminder of how lucky I am.

I sit here today, again trying to find words for things I have said in the past, in other venues and in letters to her, trying to make amends for what I have done to her and at time to our kids when I let this part of who I am dictate my moods and how I treated her.  It isn’t easy to sit here and think about how I pretty much demanded she give up her own wants, her needs as a woman, things she was and is entitled to as my wife to meet the demands I made for the sake of my own wants when it came to our shared sex life.

I used to see her way with sex was only vanilla because her way didn’t include what I wanted, if it didn’t have what I wanted, it had to be vanilla. I really wasn’t interested in investing much effort into her needs because frankly, they didn’t do much for me. They didn’t thrill me the way my ideas of what I wanted did.  I thought if I didn’t push her I would never get things my way. Now days I look back and see just how arrogant and selfish I was to think I had a right to force my wants on her and demand she give me what I wanted and I did demand it. At times the urges would be so strong I‘d loss all rational thought and I would become a sullen passive aggressive bully. Back then I thought it was my right to treat her this way because it was my right as her husband to have the kind of sex I wanted. I didn’t think I was doing anything wrong at the time. There was a point where I would come to my senses and realize I was way out of line and then I got angry, not with her but myself but she was the one who suffered the brunt of my anger. I now see at times like that I had taken advantage of her love for me and her need as my spouse to please me. I am still perplexed by the fact she put up with my garbage because she is such a strong person, she doesn’t let anyone push her around. Anyone but me, and I took advantage of that.

I will not sit here and make excuses for what I did in the past. I will sit here and be humbled and grateful that she is still here and still trying, as I try to tell my side of our history and answer question that are better suited to my side of who we are.