The Problem

I don't expect anyone to read all the way through this. It is just something I have written to try and feel better about something that is bothering me right now. However, if you do read all the way through, would you mind responding?

The problem

My life is sailing along fairly well right now but it just seems to want to have one or two big rocky waves to keep the ride from being comfortable. Is that a rule about lives that problems keep popping up at such inopportune times or is just my life that has to have something to keep it from being pretty great? The quest for the holy wave calmer has begun.

What you are reading is written for me by me. Obviously, I have no writing skills nor is there any desire to write. However, in this instance, I am hoping that by writing about what is happening and what has happened will be very good therapy for me, my mind and my life. It would be great if this writing helped calm the waves and maybe help me to get better insight into my life or at least let me be more comfortable with circumstances. Yes, it is quite a bit more frou-frou than I am normally willing to be as I am the anti psycho analytical type. I am going to give it a fair and honest try just to see if there is a way that it might help.

We all have problems and sometimes they can mentally consume us and nearly destroy us both physically and mentally. This problem I have, does consume me at times but I am at a point in life where it will not destroy me or the relationships I have. Personally, I like to work out my own problems, whether they are really problems or just perceived to be, in my own mind. Of course, if you think something is a problem, it is, because if nothing else, you are influenced by it and you react to life with this influence. Sometimes our minds when faced with trials will influence us to greatness but usually it just exposes weakness. Hopefully I will have one of those rare greatness episodes that has been too long in getting back my way.

Most of the time, this self therapy works for me, at least well enough for me to deal effectively with it and get back to living life. Sometimes, it just doesn't. Perhaps this will be a tool to help me get to where I need to be.

Surely this writing must have a name and perhaps, somewhere in here I will find a name that fits it. For the time being I am naming this "The Problem." God knows we all have problems and I am not selfish enough to think my problems is the most important in the world but when it consumes my thoughts and makes me blue, it has to become important to me.

For the most part, my life is relatively peachy right now. Not a bunch to complain about other than the usual strife of working too much and never enough time to get to do things that you want to do. However, the oddest thing, at least for me, is throwing me into blue swings that are nearly emotionally crippling.

I have been a married man for nearly 17 years and have never been happier in my marriage than I am right now. I am thirty-six years old and my wife is forty-four. (I started subtracting a year at every birthday the year after my fortieth) We have two children together, my wonderful son Horace, 15, a calm wonderful child that most parents would love to have and Ellen, 4, a child that most parents have. She is a busy, bossy, tough, tantrum throwing wonder. Absolutely the 11 years in between their births is a factor in Ellen's demeanor and the fact that she was born to two forty year olds rather than the 29 year olds that Horace was born. We didn't mean for eleven years to come between our children. Two other pregnancies ended in miscarriage and we were just determined to have another child. Be careful what you wish for because you might just find it.

My wife Kathy and I met when she was 25 and I was 24. She was a low level manager where my younger (now older, remember that I am subtracting years at birthdays now.) sister worked. I was immediately attracted to her but was just about 9 months out of a failed relationship with a girlfriend that had lived with me. I was still at the stage of not trusting anyone and wasn't really interested in getting involved with anyone. However, the first night that I met her I was at least intrigued. She grew up in a rural environment and that really appealed a bit to me and the fact that she was such a pretty girl wasn't driving me away. We happened to see each other not too long after that and I was in a grouchy mood and made a horrible second impression. By all rights, I should have been out of the picture but destiny had something else in mind. It was many months after that when we saw each other again. More healing had taken place in life concerning the former girlfriend and we clicked from that point forward.

After a year long courtship we decided to get married and that was nearly 17 years ago. During that 17 years, we had good times and bad but not really a great marriage. We are both somewhat temperamental and would spend a lot of time sniping and bickering and just not really a great marriage.

Okay, now for a little history about our lives. I was the 6th of 7 children. There were four boys and three girls. It was your basic Southern Baptist life with the exception that my father was a drinker that later evolved into alcoholism. Having girls in the house I constantly heard about waiting until marriage for sex and it affected me far into my adulthood. Not that I always abstained, but I did wait longer than normal to have intercourse and felt guilty about the things that I did with girls and later women. Fortunately I was able to overcome this guilt enough to have had many lovers and a varied sex life. Alcohol and drugs were the perfect antidote for Southern Baptist guilt.

There were many opportunities for sex when I was growing up and I fooled around a lot but didn't have intercourse. Finally, when I was 16 and truly in love, I had intercourse with a girlfriend. We had a good relationship but my temperamental side plus I cheated on her, which was something that was endemic with me, ruined it and all the blame is mine. It broke my heart and once things were severed, we were never able to get it back together. We tried many times but…

I immediately started dating a friend of ours. She was the second person I had sex with and we were on and off for a few years. She was a very sexual person and willing to experiment. One of my fantasies had been to share her or for that matter, most any girlfriend sexually. We did this many times and though there was always some jealousy in this, the eroticism of the event won and they were very great experiences.

Since this relationship started when my first loving relationship broke up it was doomed from the start. I was still hung on my first girlfriend and hoping it might someday recover from the ending that had been inflicted on it. I never told this second girl that I loved her. My upbringing wouldn't allow me to tell that lie and as a matter of fact, I have never told many girls or women in my life that I loved them.

We were somewhat steady over the next year with me occasionally dating my first love. Eventually, I knew that the relationship with this second girl was not going anywhere and started backing off. It was better for both of us though I knew that she had very real feelings for me.

The time was the early 1980's (pre-aids) and it didn't take me long to figure out that I was good looking and charming enough to get sex without a girlfriend. That appealed to me since I was still pining over my first real love. My ego was very high and I would go to a bar and end up with a girl that night. We might make love that night and sometimes we would date again but it was obvious that I wasn't interested in a relationship and these girls would go by the wayside. It was normal for me to do this once or twice a week along with seeing the girl that was hung up on me and a couple of other friends that I would sleep with from time to time.

This went on until about 1983. I was getting tired of it, tired of alcohol, tired of drugs etc. I met a young girl named Joanne; she was only 18 when I was 23. We hooked up and I was true, no cheating and we were in love. Her mother ended up kicking her out when she found out we were sleeping together and she moved in with me. It wasn't long before we got back into the drugs and I did share her sexually. She ended up cheating on me and we broke up. I didn't pine for her like I did my first love (hell, I was still pining for my first love.) I was just pissed. And all that brought me to the time that I met my wife.

Now, let me tell a little bit of history about my wife. Obviously, this is not firsthand knowledge but what I have cobbled together from her. She was born to a rural family that was also in the Southern Baptist thing. They moved around a bit, even living not 15-20 miles from me at one point. She ended up starting her teens in a rural community.

Like a lot of girls, she gave sex away to try and gain love, acceptance and self esteem, at least in the beginning. She ended up having sex with her best friend's brother that was a few years older than her at the age of 14. She ended up sleeping with several boys and men in between then and the time I met her. That wasn't a problem with me because I liked the idea of a woman that wasn't afraid to have sex and had experience. I certainly had my share.

She will frequently say that sex was for her a part of wanting to be loved and accepted. Maybe not in those words but that is the impression she likes to give. I have my doubts about that. She is a very intelligent woman and she probably figured out pretty early that it wasn't really working. However, as most women wanted to be regarded as pure, it helped her to justify the boys and men that she had slept with. That is my opinion but who else's opinion can I give? It didn't matter to me and I was more than willing to let her go on with that myth. Until…

Anyway, we married and our sex life was okay but rarely great. When it was great, it was incredible. However, with two kids in the house, one of which was a teen that roamed the house all hours of the night, privacy was nearly nonexistent. Frankly, our sex life dwindled to probably 20 times or less a year. I decided that we needed to get the excitement as well as the frequency up about two years ago. As mentioned before, I had enjoyed sharing girlfriends earlier and my wife knowing this had nixed any thought of that early in our marriage. Okay then, I also liked to get her to fantasize and hear about her previous experiences. She would do so grudgingly and then treated me like a pervert any time I tried to lead things that way. Finally, I sent her what was a humorous writing that was to let her know that we needed some excitement and I would like her to tell me about her previous experiences and fantasize etc. She either didn't get the hint or deliberately shot it down. Sex then dwindled to less than 12 times a year. I was incredibly unhappy and even considered cheating. It had been a long time but I remembered how to cheat. Eventually I ruled that out and just increased my already busy fantasy and masturbating schedule. My fantasies would almost always include sharing her. In my mind I would imagine that I was watching her pussy being stretched by a young stud with a big cock. Anyway, that was 97% of my sex life, the fantasizing and masturbations that is, with us having sex about once a month or less.

Then last year I decided to try and make one more try to get our sex life back. I wrote her a long letter telling her about how unhappy I was and why. It told her that we needed to be having sex more often. We were 44 and 37 and there would come a day when we wouldn't even be able to have sex anymore. Really in truly, we were wasting what we had by not engaging in sex. There wasn't a lot of humor in this missive. It was very straight forward. I told her that we needed to have sex more often. That fantasy was not evil, it was okay to talk about previous experience etc. was okay if it turned us on.

Well, she read the letter and didn't act mad. A few days later, she agreed with me but let me know what was lacking in our relationship from her point of view (What an ass I am, I didn't even think to ask.) She needed me to act more like the marriage was a partnership and act more loving. I immediately changed and keep changing in that regard.

Magically our sex life immediately became better. It was better in frequency and quality. Well, be careful what you wish for… She started to talk openly about her past experiences. It was some pretty hot stuff. Still she was holding back, I could sense it, she was again worried about what I might think of her and her previous sex life but it was still pretty good. We would drink and talk, play pool naked, watch videos and fuck like newlyweds.

On about the second or third extended session of this, I asked if she had slept with anyone after we started dating, something I long had suspicions about. I had suspicions because of a couple of things she said in the past that made it sound like something happened. She had opportunity by seeing guys she had slept with and with her past, had periods when she had sex just for the enjoyment of it. She might not agree with that statement but I far from believe that she had sex only for acceptance and self worth in a lot of instances.

She denied it once again as I expected she would. A little further in the conversation I asked her how long a guy that she had slept with in the year before we started to date had slept together. (Keep in mind we were drinking a lot when this conversation took place.) She said from March 1986 until 1988. Well, we started dating in February 1987, engaged in February 1988 and married in April 1988. Oops, I said, how can that be, we started dating in February 1987. To my mind, she then decided to give me a tidbit to throw me off the trail. She said that she thought she might have "fooled around with him" right after we started dating and they were drinking. They did work together and traveled together so opportunity was there. I let it go, but it really bothered me.

A few nights later I mentioned how great our sex had been and how much I appreciated her part in it. I told her though; I was disturbed by her "fooling around" with someone after we started dating. I suggested that she maybe had feelings for this guy and hadn't been sure about it not long after we started dating. That was something I could understand and was actually defensible. If she thought that this guy was really going to leave his wife and they might have something, it would have been a bit different. I gave her a way out. She could have said, yes, I really had feelings for Steve and wasn't sure etc. but no, she said she knew that was going nowhere. It was a night when they were out of town and had a lot of drinks. She admitted that they had slept together. I asked her if there had been any other times. She again denied that there had been. She asked if this was going to be a problem. I lied, and said, "No, not really."

Now, as I have said, I enjoyed hearing about her previous sex life. I had shared girlfriends and fantasized about sharing her with other men. However, I am an ethical slut. If I shared her with another man it would be something designed to enhance our sex life and the guy would just be a lucky human dildo (Lucky Stiff?). If she were then to meet him or anyone else for that matter and have sex without me there, it would be cheating and I would be very upset if not furious.

I didn't know what to do but knew that I was very upset and set out to investigate what I could about this. The internet let me know that the show where this cheating occurred was March 21-25 1987. We had started dating on February 20, 1987 so it was a full month. Hmm, didn't like that. I was really pissed off then. We had a lot of special times prior to her cheating that time. The memories of those special times were absolutely ruined, hopefully not forever, in my mind.

Here is what I think about it. Since I had been a cheater before in my past I knew that once you cheat it is easy to cheat again. Cheaters Cheat. She had more opportunities than this occasion with this guy and she had spent a weekend away with friends when another old boyfriend was present. Cheaters Cheat, I think she probably cheated more than this one time. Did she only sleep with Steve the night that they got so drunk or was it repeated on this trip? I don't know, but that would make it worse. She gets no excuse for the drinking either. If it had been a stranger, it would have made more sense. But my wife is intelligent. If you are starting a new relationship with a new guy, you don't go to dinner with the guy that you used to sleep with. You certainly don't drink and certainly don't drink shooters. She wasn't a lush, she was a careful drinker. We had been dating a month and I am not talking about once a week dates. We were seeing each other four to six nights a week from the very beginning. Did she tell this guy about the new boyfriend that she was spending over half of her free time? I doubt it. Was she so excited about her new relationship that she had to talk about it a lot? I doubt it. Everything that she did that night leads me to believe that it was premeditated. She isn't stupid, so that is no excuse there. She cheated. Cheaters Cheat. Did she probably cheat more than this one time? Cheaters Cheat. How long she cheated I didn't know and still don't. Did she cheat when we were married, again I don't know. Would it help me to know? Probably not. I am sure that other people in her office knew that she cheated this one time at least so they probably have always thought me a fool. Hell, my sister worked there and probably knew that she had cheated. Damn, I feel stupid.

Anyway, I was shocked that this had happened. I never would have thought her a cheater. However, she slipped up enough not to be able to back out of it and admitted to at least one instance. I decided to look through old photo albums of hers to see if I could find any evidence of her cheating after this occasion. She was obviously too careful to leave any evidence if she did cheat anymore, in photo albums. I searched our house through everything she owned looking for evidence. The only thing I found was a note from a flower arrangement. It had her name on the envelope and Hyatt Regency Richmond Virginia. The note said, "I miss you, Gary." Yes, she has stayed in that hotel since we started dating and she worked with a guy named Gary. I just don't know. I probably never will know.

I did find her calendars from high school and saw that she would note when she slept with someone. However, as the years went on, they became less specific. If I could find her 1987 and 1988 calendars, I might know something. I can't imagine she would have thrown these away but she doesn't keep them at home.

Well, what now?

And now, our special correspondent, Vern Dipshit and the interview he had with Joel Dumbass on this subject.

V: Is there anyway you will know for sure if she cheated more than this event that you already know about?

J: No, there is no way I will know if that was it or if there was more. That is something I could never be sure.

V: Would it help matters if you knew for sure?

J: If I knew for sure that she didn't cheat anymore than this one time it would probably help but again I would never know for sure. If she did cheat more than this one time, it would probably hurt my feelings more. So, no, there is no help for me there at all.

V: Has it changed how you see your wife?

J: Yes, in more than one way and I am not prepared to give all the ways yet. It has totally squashed a lot of the conceptions that I had of her. Many of which she planted there. She made it seem like she had sex as a teen and as a young woman as a way to gain acceptance, feel better about herself and make boys/men like her. But now, no, I don't think that she had sex with guys just to improve her self image and gain acceptance but it probably did make her feel good and that was probably the point and the truth of it. I was chasing her hot and heavy when this occasion occurred. She should have felt pretty good about herself at least on an emotional level. She did mention that this guy was a good lover. He must have been damn good for her to risk what we had started. Another misconception that she planted was that she just wanted to be loved. Well, I was doing that and she spat at it by her actions. And the cheating, that is something that I never knew about her. I am convinced that I couldn't have been the first guy she cheated. She is a woman and as a young woman and teenager, there had to have been plenty of opportunities. I don't think she would have done it at 26 if she hadn't done it at a younger age.