Make it Rain

I'm still waiting for my Al-Anon textbook to arrive in the mail. Unfortunately, I bought it used instead of through Amazon Prime. So, it's taking a while to get here. This might signal I want to work on things, but am not exactly in a rush to. In the meantime, I feel the space between Al-Anon meetings open before me like a waste land. It's a desert of emotions, too many emotions and nothing to do with them. Sadness and anger and doubt and regret for as far as the eye can see. No drought, a constant storm, which is its own type of desert.

But I wanted to write something about how our anniversary ended up. After I made my last post, I took a shower and when I walked into the bedroom afterwards my husband had lit candles and cued a Civil Wars' song. It was "I want you back", a Jackson Five cover. You can press play (below) and then continue reading for a more authentic experience of my anniversary evening.

So, the candles are lit and the music is playing and I am naked because I just got out of the shower. I sit on the end of the bed, next to where my husband is sitting, and say something like, "What's going on?"  - This is the first official acknowledgement of our anniversary - He hugs me and I cry onto his shoulder, with abandon. I am not crying because I am so happy that he's made a romantic gesture and I feel that everything is going to be alright between us. I am crying because the romantic gesture does not work like it does in the movies, or as it might have worked on a younger version of myself. The romantic gesture changes nothing, I am glad he's done it, is doing it, but in my heart I am not convinced of anything, least of all his love for me or mine for him. 

Then he gets naked and I think "Not a chance" and he says, "I don't think anything's going to happen, I just don't want you to be alone" (in my nakedness, because I still haven't dressed since my shower). At least he gets that much, I think. The next song starts and it's "Dance me to End of Love" a Leonard Cohen cover that we danced to as the first song of our wedding reception. I was dressed a lot better that evening - and I was a great deal happier. Though, even that evening, he disappointed me with his drinking. I was pregnant with our daughter, so I didn't drink to celebrate our wedding. I had imagined that he might do the same, in solidarity and support of my state, but instead he got drunk. On our wedding night, I didn't even want to make love to him because of how much he had drank, the smell of his breath, his mannerisms. But tonight he is sober (I think, thought I can't be sure, and I even question the smell of his breath). He asks me to dance and I accept - not because I want to dance with him but because I don't want to say no to dancing with him.  

It was an awkward bedroom duet, to say the least. There was certainly no zest or feeling to my movement, mostly I cried on his shoulder. When we were close, I felt his penis grace the inside of my thighs, like a foreign object - like something someone had set down in the wrong place. He attempted a twirl and I turned in the wrong direction. We have never danced well together. We took a dance class that ended in more arguments than coordinated moves, but his dance was lifeless (at least for me). Later he said he was simply glad that I said yes instead of "Get away from me you jerk!". 

Ironically, this comment made me feel the most of anything that happened that day. It made me think for a moment, maybe he actually does know the damage his lies have caused, maybe he does feel badly enough to finally make changes and be a real partner. Pretty romantic, right? Your spouse calling themselves a jerk as the highlight of your anniversary. Still, this brought us to a better place than I thought we would get to that day. 

Then we watched Star Trek, like you do. 

Most surprisingly, after Star Trek, in bed, with the lights out, he asked if I would give him a hand-job. I resented him asking, a bit, but considering how much unconsummated nakedness had filled the evening I decided to indulge. Once I began touching him, and allowing him to touch me, things escalated and I thought, "I think I might actually sleep with him." And when he asked, "Would you have sex with me? I said yes. It definitely felt more like hormonal sex than love making, but that it even happened at all was pretty surprising. So, I guess I answered by second blog post: Will We Ever Have Sex Again

Last part of our anniversary, the ending, was us both lying in bed awake. Neither of us could fall asleep after making love. I don't know what that means - but there it was - us lying awake, next to each other. The end of what I hope will be the most difficult anniversary of my (our?) life.