If Only Things Were So Simple
Dear Caelan,
I don’t know if I should be insulted or hurt by the last message you sent or just laugh it off. A part of me wants to take it all as one big joke, because that’s the only logical way to take it. However, the larger part of me wants to be furious that you think my life and my relationships are so simplistic, and that solving our problems would have been so easy. In reality, nothing in our lives, or anyone’s lives for that matter, is so incredibly simple.
Last night you sent me a message when I wasn’t there asking whether you should be hurt because I wouldn’t let you "have a fling on the side" that might have saved our relationship, yet I’m letting Oz do the same thing to save our relationship. I honestly couldn’t tell if you were joking or serious. It’s hard to tell with internet chat, especially when you’re not actually on the other end to explain yourself. I hate to say it, but with the way you are, I have to wonder if you honestly believed that sleeping around would have saved our relationship. I can tell you right now that you are sadly mistaken.
Our relationship was so much more complex than sex and that’s what caused it’s downfall. I can tell you this much, if our relationship was nothing more than sex, it would have ended years ago. I don’t just want to be someone’s whore. However, that wasn’t the case, which is why I battled it out for so long. Unfortunately, there were so many other problems that our relationship was in some serious bad condition. You treated me poorly. You were abusive and neglectful to the children. You would spend all our money in a heartbeat, but you would fight me tooth and claw if I wanted to purchase even something small for me that was unnecessary, or something needed for the kids aside from food and diapers because "we didn’t have the money." Well, we would have had the money if all our splurges hadn’t been on you, but you believed it was your pay so you were the only one with a right to spend it how you wanted to. Of course, when it was my money, that was the same way, but we won’t even get into that. With you I was constantly afraid of setting you off. One minute you’d be fine, the next you’d be angry or sulking. I couldn’t handle your rapid mood swings, from high to low in seconds without even knowing what the trigger may be. I felt like I was walking on egg shells with you because I didn’t want to do anything to set you off. I felt trapped, smothered, suffocated, and all my friends were concerned for my well-being. Shouldn’t it say something that all my friends said you were abusive and neglectful and I should get away before you hurt me, or worse, the kids? Shouldn’t it say something that they already could see how much you were hurting us all?
I honestly don’t see how letting you engage in random sexual encounters could have fixed any of that. You said porn would help, even though I wasn’t comfortable with it. I had asked you not to look at porn on my computer because I didn’t want the viruses and everything that comes with it. Still, I find evidence that you had been looking at porn on my computer all along. I asked you not to chat online with other women, and you agreed, yet I walked in on you chatting with girls who were supposedly sixteen on several occasions, the first when I was already feeling pretty ugly, neglected, and miserable because Corde was just born. You couldn’t even wait a month after her birth to start replacing me with online whores. I grew paranoid from all the times I’d caught you in doing exactly what you said you wouldn’t, so I always accused you of it, even if there was a good chance nothing was going on. I don’t think I would have been near as hurt if I didn’t feel so neglected in the first place. I needed proof that I was important to you, that no matter what happened to me, you would always come back to me because you loved me. I never got that. Instead I got that you would always come back to me because I was there, because I was convenient, and because that’s just the way things were. I was habitual.
The entire time I was pregnant with Corde I was fighting with your emotional roller coaster. It seemed no matter what I did, you would be depressed and miserable. I didn’t know how to bring you out of that blue funk. You spent almost all your time sleeping. You wanted nothing to do with the baby. Hell, Corde was practically born when you finally got off your butt to start preparing for a baby. It seemed like if you just didn’t deal with the pregnancy, didn’t talk about it, or anything it would all just not happen until you were ready. I spent most of my pregnancy taking care of you when in reality, I was so uncomfortable and miserable that it should have been you taking care of me. Though I felt awkward, uncomfortable, and unattractive, all I got from you was how pregnant women were supposed to crave sex all the time because of their hormones and you were always trying to push me into it. It got to the point where I didn’t so much as want you to touch me anymore because the only way you ever wanted to touch me was sexual. I spent almost all my time online talking to other people and defending your lack of effort to get a job and pull your life together because there was nothing else to do. You were always asleep. When you weren’t asleep, you were going out with Karl and his friends and acting like teenagers, driving me absolutely insane. You didn’t know when to quit and act like a grown-up, and you certainly didn’t care that I was incredibly left out. It didn’t matter, just as long as you got what you wanted.
After the pregnancy, the day we got the clear to have sex again, that’s what it was all about. I felt like I no longer had the freedom to say no to you. I wasn’t ready yet. The scar tissue from the epesiotomy hurt too much. It never healed right. I was too tired all the time. I felt unattractive. After catching you talking online to other women, I honestly felt like the only reason you had any interest in me is because I was actually there. I felt more like your whore than someone you loved. We never spent any quality time anymore. I stopped wanting you to touch me because it was always sexual. I stopped wanting to touch you because even so much as an innocent hug would turn into you groping me and trying to push me into sex. I suppose if you had a woman on the side at that point, it would have taken the sexual pressure off of me, but in truth, unless I had reminders of how beautiful, loving, sweet, caring, and everything else I am, and not just in words, but in actions, that was never going to make thin
gs better. I’d just feel like I was being replaced by your whore and that I was worthless, or at the least, not good enough for you to lavish attention on. I needed to know that I was loved and that, even though I felt so tired, miserable, and worn out, I was still a bright spot in your world. Instead I had constant reminders of how I wasn’t good enough and didn’t try hard enough.
Our whole relationship was about you and what you wanted. I spent all my time feeling smothered. There were several points where I had dreamed about leaving you for someone else, someone who would actually treat me well. When I used to go out to dinners with Dmitri, I used to dream that he’d fall madly in love with me and sweep me off my feet. He wasn’t even close to right for me, but he at least treated me well. He treated me as an equal. He would take my opinions into account. He was incredibly romantic. If I ever mentioned that I wasn’t as pretty as someone else, he was always right there to tell me I was, or at the very least what other qualities I had that the person I compared myself with didn’t. If I talked about being upset that no one ever seems to see me, that I feel invisible, he would tell me how much there was to see if someone only looked. No, it never changed anything. Pretty girls were still prettier than I was. People still looked right past me as though I wasn’t even there. However, I felt good about me. It’s one of the reasons I put up with Patrick being so infernally annoying. That’s also one of the reasons why I put up with Karl’s antics for so long, even though there were days I wanted to strangle him for how chaotic and unfocused he was. In the end, these people made me feel like I was worth something. I always hated that I never got that from you. I felt like I was only worth the value you assigned me. I was only worth what you were willing to let me be worth. In most cases, I ended up bashing my head against the wall trying to get you to break free of your own destructive habits, not because I cared about you and didn’t want to see you hurt anymore, but for me. As much as I wanted to see you happy, I knew that until you were, you would never let me be happy. You were slowly killing me.
Even if you were having sex with everyone in the world, that wouldn’t have changed. Your flings with other women wouldn’t have stopped me from being treated poorly. It wouldn’t have stopped you from leaving Corde in a dirty diaper all day long, or sitting with your back to the kids and the headphones on while they got into trouble or tore up the house. It wouldn’t stop you from going to bed without telling anyone so Corde starts walking around the block looking for you because she thinks you left her and her brother home alone. It wouldn’t stop you from spending all your money on things you want and don’t need when the money really should go into other things. It wouldn’t stop your drastic mood swings that are so severe that I’m afraid to stand up for myself because I can’t handle another dark mood. Sexual gratification may have given you a temporary high, but how long would it have lasted? Would it have really fixed things? Or would it make us grow more distant?
Several times I’ve told you that if you wanted to have a secondary relationship, there were a couple requirements for my sanity. First, I had to find my own secondary relationship. Also, we had to be actively fixing our relationship. You had to be able to prove to me that I was worth it and that you were trying to make things better with me. The same would go for random flings. You want random sexual encounters? That’s fine, if you’re trying to fix our relationship and I’ve got someone else so I don’t feel neglected. The most important part was for me to feel like I was still the most important relationship. As for women online, in that case you just needed to be actively working to fix the relationship on your end. I gave you plenty of opportunity, so not letting you have the sexual flings that would have saved our relationship was irrelevant. You weren’t willing to do the work entailed to make me comfortable with it, so in the end, I simply wasn’t going to allow it.
The final thing that caused our relationship to fall apart was your lack of effort. I had suggested we go to one of the marriage retreats that the military offered to all soldiers coming home from deployment. You said you wanted to go. I told you to talk to the Chaplain, but you never had time. I suggested we try marriage counseling. You got the number, but you refused to set anything up. I had been asking you for months, but you wanted nothing to do it. Finally, as a last ditch effort, I put myself into counseling, but the answers I got from my counselor is that it felt like you were controlling me and smothering me. The relationship sounded very unhealthy and damaging towards me and perhaps you needed some serious mental help of your own to mistreat the kids and I the way you did. While you did go into counseling on your own, you never really accomplished much from it. You completely discredited everything your counselor said. When she would suggest exercises that were supposed to help you look at things for the positive instead of the negative, every positive was matched with an equally strong negative. It was like you simply refused to see the good in anything. You still never want to look for the good in anything. You’re the constant pessimist and, honestly, I can’t do that. I can’t deal with someone who is constantly dragging me into their own misery. In the end, you could have made the effort to make things better between us, but instead you’d rather sulk and wallow in your own misery.
That’s where things are different with Oz. He’s always made an effort to make me feel important. He’s always made an effort to make sure I know I’m loved. Yes, he did have that period where he was a total asshole, and to be honest, when he was acting like that I almost called him by your name on a couple occasions. However, aside from his plan to run away, which does still hurt, by the way, he’s been exactly what I need. I can be happy with him and not feel guilty. I can tell him no without having to fear a severe mood swing. Instead he just goes off and does his own thing. I’m willing to make suggestions and try new things with him because I don’t have to fear the reaction I’ll get. While he doesn’t always want to do what I want to do and isn’t always open to my suggestions, he’s always passing it off as no big deal. I don’t feel bad when I suggest something he doesn’t want to do. I don’t feel like I’
ve got to constantly censor myself. If he does something that annoys me or pisses me off, all I have to do is tell him. If I’m upset and go hide, he at least checks in to make sure I’m okay. He takes care of me. No matter what happens, I always feel loved. I always feel like I’m beautiful, even if it’s just in his eyes. He can hold me, cuddle me, caress me without things turning sexual. I have no fear of telling him I don’t want to do something he wants to do because he doesn’t think it’s a big deal. We just figure something else out that we both want to do. I feel like I matter to him, and that makes all the difference.
Another big difference is his dedication to going to mediation with me. Granted, we’ve only been once and I don’t know what the plans are for going back, but he’s willing. I know if I suggested a marriage retreat or something of the like, he would not only consider it, but would go if I really thought it would fix our relationship. He’s willing to try to change. He actually wants to make things better, now that he realizes exactly what he lost when he gave me up. As much as there are underlying issues because of him leaving and all of that, we’re working through it together, and every time I get upset and worry that he’s just going to do it again, he reminds me that he’s not going to leave again. Just the fact that he’s willing to try says something to me. It’s more effort than you were ever willing to put in.
As for allowing him to see other people on the side, it’s different with him. I know I come first. I also know that it won’t turn into an addiction to sex with other partners that will pull him that much further away from me. He’s only looking for a little bit of something different, not to indulge in a sexually deviant lifestyle that I really don’t approve of. He’s not looking to take out his aggression and anger by abusing other women. I don’t have to worry about him dating women who are significantly under age, or too young for him, just because they’re likely to be the kind of whores that will let him get away with abusive tendencies. I know he’s just looking for some variety, not to have some little slut on hand that’s ready and available for sex as often as he should want. He’s young and inexperienced and simply looking to broaden his horizons and keep from getting bored. On top of that, I know if I told him "not tonight" or "I’d rather you wouldn’t get involved with her", he would listen. He wouldn’t just go behind my back and do it anyways because there will be other nights and other women. Missing one opportunity won’t kill him. On top of that, as he’s said before, he has the freedom to do it, but that doesn’t mean he will. I’m sure if I told him no the first few weeks after the baby was born, he would be more than happy to listen and spend his time lavishing affection on the new baby and me. In general, it’s just different.
There are other things too. If I tell him to get a job, he would. I know he’d gladly support the family if I kept up my end of things in keeping the house. If I’m working I know I can count on him to keep after the house. He really does believe in making things equal between us. He’s gone out of his way to get this house clean several times. He’s been wonderful with the kids. He’s really shown me that this family is what’s important to him. If it really came down to it, he probably could kick the smoking and his desire to have sex with other women. I’m sure if I was really not okay with it, that would be something he’d be willing to at least try and work on, even if he didn’t succeed in the end. He’s willing to make an effort to make this family work, even if it means making sacrifices of his own. That’s something you would never do, sacrifice your own personal preferences so that everyone can be happy.
In the end, you want what you want and there’s no stopping you from having it. You’ve told me straight from the start, you always get your way. You’ve proven to me time and time again how much I’m actually worth to you. I’m not what you want, but I’m better than nothing. I think if I had let you go off and have your flings they would have turned into nightly events where I get stuck at home with the kids while you were out every night with your fun on the side. I’ve already lost all respect for you because of the way you treat women. You talk about women who are sluts and whores and simply justify it with "they deserve it" and "that’s how they want to be treated". You say the same about women into the more extreme fetishes as submissives. They’re whores and they deserve to be treated the way they are. You can’t accept that perhaps they enjoy that treatment because it takes away the pain for even a little while. It’s because these people are mentally damaged and things like that aren’t helping them heal. I will admit, a little pain or sensation play now and again is fun. A little bondage is fun too. However, I have no respect for women who are so submissive as to let their "master" control them. I have no respect for women who let themselves be abused and treated poorly because they think it’s what they deserve. Those women need psychological help to develop their own self-worth, not someone who can make them feel more worthless. I will admit, there are some women who have a lot of self-worth that just enjoy playing slave, and those women are fine, but those aren’t the women you’re drawn to. You like the women who find themselves worthless. When you want to be submissive, you want to be with someone who will make you feel worthless, like you only deserve what they let you have. You don’t want to play the game, you actually want to be treated poorly because you feel you deserve it and they’re just treating you the way you should be treated. That’s not mentally healthy either. Both wanting to treat other people that way and wanting to be treated that way yourself, these are signs that you need mental help, not that our relationship would have been saved by allowing you to indulge in these fantasies.
In truth, the real difference between you and Oz is your drive towards happiness. You’re pessimistic and feel that the world is a waste and most of the people in it deserve to die or be tortured for their "sins" against whatever purpose you feel is worthy. Oz is an optimist, and while he doesn’t always view the world as sunshine and roses, he understands that all you can do is your best, because if you can change the destructive actions of even one person, you’ve made a difference, you’ve made the world a better place. Oz lives for happiness where you seem to enjoy being miserable. In the end, you’re kind of like Voltaire’s description
of a punk. The world is a miserable place so that makes me angry! Oz is more like Voltaire’s description of Goth. The world is a miserable place and that makes me sad. Oz also looks for the ray of light in the world, those enjoyable moments. He lives to have fun. At this point, I honestly think that you live for depression and misery.
In the end, it’s not the freedom to have a fling that would save either my relationship with you or Oz. It’s the fact that he’s willing to make an effort on all the problems in our relationship that’s the difference between the two of you, and that’s what’s saving the relationship. I can be happy around Oz because he likes to be happy. I don’t have to be afraid of setting him off into a black mood that will last for a brief eternity. In general, he’s worth making an effort for because he’s willing to make an effort. You never were. I hope you understand, but I know you never will.
~*~Raven Night~*~